Whether it’s feeling low after a weekend binge, or long-term damage to your brain’s reward centre, misusing recreational drugs can affect your mental health and wellbeing in lots of different ways.
Most of the time, feelings of paranoia and melancholy will pass – but long-term drug use and substance use disorders can trigger serious mental illnesses, and make undiagnosed mental health issues much worse.
We’re looking at how and why recreational drugs mess with your mind, and the different ways that they can negatively impact your mental wellbeing and quality of life.
How do drugs affect the brain?
You might have seen the old “this is your brain on drugs” campaign, which suggested that drugs fry your brain like eggs in a hot pan. But what do illicit drugs actually do to our brain structure?
First, we have to think about the way our brains work. Every brain is made up of billions of neurons, which send data (neurotransmitters) back and forth to each other. Drugs interfere with the neurotransmitters in different ways, changing the way your brain reacts to them.
Some drugs (like heroin) mimic neurotransmitters like endorphins, activating the neurons which then send them throughout the brain.
Other drugs (like cocaine) cause unnatural build-ups of neurotransmitters like dopamine, causing a feeling so powerful it can’t be matched by any normal activity.
Because psychoactive drugs increase dopamine in your brain, your brain makes adjustments to its reward circuits to deal with the flood of neurotransmitters. This results in a decline of natural dopamine production, leading to mental disorders like depression or simply feeling ‘numb’.
Effects of drug addiction on the brain
Drugs affect a few different types of the brain, in different ways:
- Basal ganglia (reward circuit): This part of your brain controls positive motivation, helping you to form habits and enjoy healthy activities like eating, socialising with friends, and having sex. When you take drugs regularly, this part of your brain gets overstimulated and less sensitive. This makes it more difficult to experience pleasure in the future: this is called anhedonia.
- Extended amygdala (emotional centre): this part of your brain is responsible for feelings of anxiety, irritability and unease. When the high fades, this part of your brain triggers withdrawal symptoms. Unlike the basal ganglia, which becomes desentisised, your extended amygdala gets even more sensitive the more you take drugs – so you start getting irritable more often, and reach for more drugs to calm those negative emotions.
- Prefrontal cortex (the powerhouse of your brain): This part of your mind is responsible for impulse control, decision making and your ability to solve problems. Drugs mute this part of the brain, so you end up doing stupid things and feeling anxious, depressed and ashamed about them later.
- Brain stem (basic functions): Opiods can disrupt this part of your brain that controls things you don’t even think about: like breathing, sleeping, and your heart rate. This is why the risk of overdose is so dangerous with opiates.
You’re not just at risk of mental health disorders, either. Stimulants, like cocaine, can raise your blood pressure and ultimately cause a heart attack. If you’re injecting drugs and sharing needles, you could end up getting a nasty infection.
The link between drug addiction and mental health
Mental illness and substance misuse often appear as co-occurring disorders, meaning they go hand-in-hand. There’s a lot of interesting research on the topic, with some experts believing that people turn to illegal drugs as a way to self-medicate a mental health issue.
For example, people with bipolar disorder are seven times more likely to develop substance abuse issues, and 58 percent of individuals with this mental illness have had an issue with drug or alcohol use disorders at some point in their life.
As a result, undiagnosed mental disorders are a risk factor for developing a reliance on illegal drugs. If you’re using drugs to fight feelings of anxiety, depression, or symptoms of bipolar disorder, it’s important to approach mental health services. They can help to treat the underlying issue with forms of behavioural therapy like CBT.
This treatment as prevention could help to reduce your reliance on drugs. If you’re not yet addicted, speaking to a mental health team about your underlying mental health issues could stop your occassional use of drugs from turning into a full-blown substance use disorder. Treating the cause is also more likely to give you a better quality of life in future.
Can drugs cause anxiety and depression?
It depends on the type of drug. Research published in The British Medical Journal has found a link between frequent cannabis use and anxiety and depression, especially among younger people. Mental Health charity Rethink has put together an in-depth fact sheet on how cannabis can affect mental health that’s worth reading.
Cocaine, MDMA, and methamphetamines are also linked to depression and anxiety. These come with other issues too. With meth, you might find it hard to sleep. MDMA can cause memory problems. Cocaine is highly addictive, and can lead to longterm struggles with depression, anxiety and paranoia (as well as dangerously raising your heart rate).
Short-term mental health effects of drugs
As well as chronic depression and anxiety, illicit drugs can also cause a short spell of feeling miserable as they leave your system. This is called a ‘‘comedown’, similar to how a hangover is one of the effects of alcohol.
The mental health effects of drugs are usually stronger, though. You might hear MDMA users refer to ‘suicide Tuesday’ because Tuesday is when the most horrible feelings kick in after the weekend.
While a drug-induced spell of anxiety and depression is likely to be short-lived, it can also be intense. Feeling that low is never fun, even if it is only for a couple of days. And, even if it’s not clinical depression, long-term drug use can leave you feeling more blue than usual.
As your brain’s reward centre gets used to the stronger sensations of happiness that you get from a drug high, it’s difficult for your own neurotransmitters to make you feel joyful. Not being able to find happiness in day-to-day activities like watching a funny film, playing games with friends or eating your favourite food will inevitably lead to low moods.
It’s also one of the common risk factors for developing an addiction, as you’re constantly chasing the high.
Short-term mental health effects of drugs
Anxiety and depression aren’t the only mental health issues linked to drugs. Research (including this article in PubMed) has found that using strong cannabis (aka skunk) can increase the risk of developing psychotic illnesses like schizophrenia.
While the link isn’t fully understood by researchers, the fact that it exists should be enough to give you pause. If you’re prone to developing schizophrenia, using cannabis can lead to it coming on at an earlier age.
Emotional effects of drugs
We’ve looked at how the physical effect of drugs can damage our mental health, but the way they make us act can also have a negative impact on our emotional wellbeing. This can reduce our quality of life.
A lot of this is because drugs shut down the part of our brain that controls impulses and decision-making, so we end up doing things when we’re high that we would never dream of doing sober.
This can cause feelings of shame and embarrassment when we sober up, making any anxiety and depression worse. We also might say things that we don’t mean, which can damage our relationships and reputations.
This social stigma of drug-induced behaviour can also cause our mental health to take a beating, as we may feel lonely and harshly judged by those closest to us.
While friends and family might find erratic and outrageous behaviour “a laugh” at first, it’s likely they’ll grow frustrated and annoyed by it after a while. They might stop inviting you out because of it, leading to you feeling isolated and excluded.
Some drugs can isolate you even further from the people you care about, increasing those feelings of loneliness. For example heroin can leave you feeling like it’s the most important thing in your life, and you neglect your relationships because of it. Psychoactive drugs like bath salts, LSD and mushrooms can cause psychotic symptoms like hallucinations and delusions, which can lead to us hurting loved ones with aggressive or accusatory behaviour.
6 common mental health side effects of using drugs
While every person reacts to drugs differently, and every drug does something different to your brain, some common side effects are:
- Comedowns: feelings of deep depression, anxiety and paranoia after heavy drug use
- Making risky choices: doing things you wouldn’t normally do because the rational part of your brain has shut down
- Sleeping badly or experiencing insomnia
- Memory loss
- Psychotic symptoms: hallucinations, and delusions (believing things that are’t true)
- Mood changes: including suicidal ideation.
How to get help for drug-related mental disorders
If you’re experiencing a mental health disorder and think that your use of addictive substances might be behind it, help is available.
As well as discussing your issues with your GP, there’s also a range of private health support services available for those who want to end their drug dependence.
Drug counselling can help you to explore the issues underpinning your substance misuse in a safe, non-judgemental environment. This can be the first step towards recovery and living a life free of drug dependence.
Another option is drug rehab, a programme to help you overcome reliance on recreational drugs. While inpatient programmes are what we see most in the media, outpatient options are available that let you keep living at home. This way you can keep fulfilling your responsibilities while still getting effective treatment.
Our team can help to assess your condition, and help you to find the appropriate treatment plan for your needs. Give us a call today.
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