Psychological Addiction to Heroin:

Addiction to heroin sets in motion very damaging and complex psychological consequences for the addict, in addition to its harmful physiological consequences. Like many other drug addictions, heroin addiction halts the emotional development of users at whatever developmental stage their addiction began, and diminishes existing emotional coping skills. Since emotional discomfort, as well as physical pain, is relieved by heroin use, the drug can initially make experiences that might otherwise be unpleasant more enjoyable.

However, the more often heroin is used for this purpose, the less able the user is to cope with such situations without the drug. One recovering heroin addict states: [The addict] finds that certain events are not merely better on the drug but cannot be faced without it: a visit to the bank manager, a job interview, a meal with his parents. Each time he surrenders to the temptation, this feeling increases so that the next time it is harder to resist. Even his increasingly brief glimpses of the trap into which he is walking serve, perversely, not to strengthen his resolve but to weaken it: he wants the escapism of heroin to forget what he is doing. Additional evidence of psychological addiction lies in the overwhelming depression that accompanies the physical discomfort of withdrawal, as well as in the acute anxiety that stems from the knowledge that heroin, the cure for the sickness, is available, if only some way can be found to obtain it. Obtaining the drug becomes the overriding ambition of the addict's life, and no amount of effort toward this end seems irrational or excessive. Steven Tyler, lead singer of the rock band Aerosmith, recalls the days before he and his bandmates went into recovery for heroin addiction: "We used to spend all day to cop [obtain the drug] and if we got it by the end of the night, we were happy. All of the energy we put out all day long and all of the misery and lies, all of the grief that we put up with to cop those drugs was an insane, intense vim and vigor."

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