If you've ever heard the saying, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt" and been exposed to drug addiction, you would see how they go hand in hand. Most have been fortunate enough to never have had been exposed first hand to drug addiction - this leaves them susceptible to romanticizing drugs and their effects. I'm sure you've all also heard by now, "don't do drugs". But do you really know why you shouldn't do them? Do you understand what's actually wrong about doing drugs? It's always advertised that drugs are harmful and abusing them is a bad decision, but no one can process that enough with the little information given to them to make the ultimate decision to stay away from them. For people to really need to know why you shouldn't do drugs, here it is.

One of the biggest myths of drugs is that drugs create the effects you experience when on them. This is entirely untrue. Drugs modify or modulate ongoing processes in your body. They work by either being agonist (adding neurotransmitters) or antagonist (preventing synthesis of neurotransmitters). What are neurotransmitters? They are chemical messengers that communicate within the brain or from the brain to the body. They are responsible for signaling all parts of your body, such as telling your lungs to breathe, your heart to beat, etc.

These neurotransmitters are important for our body to maintain homeostasis. Homeostasis is the body's regulation of conditions to stay optimal for survival. The regulation of neurotransmitters plays a role in homeostasis by maintaining the balance of cell signaling while making sure the cells are doing what they are supposed to do. Without a neurotransmitter properly being exported out of the synapse for it to undergo its synthesis in the body, it isn't able to break down and reuptake back into the brain to be recycled and used again.

An example of a neurotransmitter is dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for regulation of movement and responding to the reward pathway. The reward pathway is a part of the brain that is responsible for positive or negative feedback of the body's actions. Take a drug like cocaine, for example, that acts as an indirect acting agonist when used. Cocaine works by increasing the amount of dopamine in the brain, which is how it makes a person feel pleasure. After cocaine has made its way through a person's system, it prevents the ability for the body to properly reuptake dopamine after making so much of it. Therefore, dopamine builds up in a person's system. The body's reward pathway is immensely pleased, and that's how it begins to force your body into addition after long-term use of the drug. It also tricks your reward pathway into becoming less sensitive to natural stimuli. This means that things that usually give you pleasure on an average day, aren't going to that as easily anymore.

Even without long-term use of cocaine, there are still effects from a first-time use. Testing a drug seems harmless at first, because you are only doing it once, but your body doesn't see it that way. The short-term physiological effects include increased heart rate, blood pressure, and body temperature. This leads to risks of heart attacks, stroke, comas, and even more.

Studies of people's brain who were addicted to cocaine or have consistent use of cocaine show a significant amount of decreased gray matter than those who were not cocaine addicts. Grey matter is responsible for processing information along with housing glia cells, which are used for transporting nutrition and energy to the cells. These effects cannot be reversible.

This is only one example of a way that a drug produces irreversible effects on someone's brain, making it difficult for a person to function their every day lives. Although you cannot visibly see your gray matter deteriorating, it is still happening. There are many more drugs, which all have much more ways of producing harmful and life-long effects on your body should you choose to use them. At least with the information you have now, you can have a more clear insight behind the saying, "don't do drugs."