Scientists agree that cocaine is hard to kick. Nearly 25% of people who quit eventually fall back into weekly use, and about 18% of people who enroll in residential treatment have to re-enroll within a year. So what makes cocaine use disorder (CUD) relapse so prevalent?
What Is Cocaine and Why Is It so Addictive?
Coca, coke, crank, rock, snow, crack, blow: Cocaine has many names, but it’s just a euphoria-producing stimulant that you can smoke, inject, or snort. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), cocaine usually causes an intense high, followed by a devastating low.
It’s easy to get hooked on, and the cravings it creates can feel impossible to overcome, especially without treatment.
If someone called cocaine sticky, you might think they’re referring to its texture. But put another way, sticky substances could mean they have a strong ability to make you form a dependence on them. In this sense, cocaine is dangerously sticky.
That stickiness is so strong because of the ways cocaine interacts with our brains. The substance blasts the brain’s reward system—the fanciest among us science nerds call it the mesolimbic system—with chemicals that trigger motivation and pleasure. The reward system has many pathways, and they all function to directly influence our behavior.
When cocaine carries out its sticky agenda, your brain interprets the act of using as extremely positive and, therefore, beneficial to you. That’s right: cocaine explodes your brain with a feel-good chemical tsunami, tricking it into thinking it’s positively helpful, when it’s actually downright harmful, especially given all that it can lead to, such as:
- Intense psychological distress: According to the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), stopping cocaine often leads to symptoms associated with anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and depression.
- The absence of pleasure: ISSUP notes that frequent, long-term cocaine use can trigger anhedonia, the terrible inability to feel pleasure, for an extended period of time, potentially making early recovery feel thankless and much less worthwhile.
- Impressively intense cravings: Cocaine causes some of the most powerful cravings of any substance, and you can feel triggered to use by the tiniest of environmental cues.
All in all, if cocaine had a personality, it’d be toxic. Your best friend or therapist might advise you to block immediately. But historically, cocaine has always been supremely challenging to quit, and what happens when zero contact—and the distress it can trigger—makes quitting for good feel impossible?
What Factors Drive Cocaine Relapse?
In addition to absorbing a ton of stress and lacking the resources to access outpatient treatment, living or spending lots of time in environments where cocaine is used—or where cocaine use may not be discouraged—could put you on a quicker path to relapse. But if you are struggling, there are other factors to be considered before you beat yourself up.
Genes Can Make Relapse Likelier
According to WRD News, Calreticulin is a gene that helps your neurons communicate with one another, and it can push you toward cocaine-seeking behaviors more aggressively than other genes. Genetic research also shows that you could be born with a certain version of specific chemical receptors that make you more likely to develop CUD.
Scientists also know that substance use disorder (SUD) can run in families, and if you grew up with a parent or family member who had it, it can increase your chances of developing it and the relapse experiences that it can cause.
Cocaine’s Specific Effect On the Brain Complicates Abstinence
When Michigan State researchers looked into which brain regions cocaine affects, they found that the hippocampus—which plays a crucial role in learning and memory—was most impacted. There’s a circuit that connects that reward center to your hippocampus, and one of the important proteins present in that circuit is called DeltaFosB.
DeltaFosB is responsible for the way cocaine impacts your brain, actively changing your neurons to remember cocaine as a great friend rather than a formidable foe. Sustained cocaine use causes a buildup of DeltaFosB inside the circuit, ensuring your brain falls madly in love with the substance.
That research showed that it’s possible your cocaine-seeking behavior and cravings could magically switch off if your brain didn’t have any DeltaFosB present, and you may never become dependent on cocaine again. But alas, we’ve not yet reached that point in the scientific community where we can switch brain mechanisms on and off, even in dire situations.
That’s where St. Gregory Recovery Center can extend support.
Enter Treatment For Cocaine Dependence In Iowa
St. Gregory treats CUD in Des Moines and Bayard, IA. Contact us today to learn how you can take control of your brain, beat cocaine dependence, and enjoy a substance-free life.
