Stimulant Addiction Symptoms

There are a number of stimulant addiction symptoms that should serve as a red flag to determine whether a person is using the drugs regularly.

One of the most visible of the known stimulant addiction symptoms is extreme weight loss. People who addicted to stimulants lose a lot of weight in an unreasonably short length of time. The weight loss is usually a result of the loss of appetite that comes with addiction to stimulants. Addict lose the urge to eat and often take no enjoyment in eating.

They only eat if and when they actually feel hungry and rarely find any pleasure in doing so. Because they eat so little, it is inevitable that they lose weight as a consequence. However, the scale on which such weight loss occurs suggests that it may be caused by some other additional factors. One of these factors could be as a result of the direct action of the stimulant drugs on the body.

Stimulants, as indicated by their name, are drugs that stimulate the body by causing a feeling of rejuvenation and renewed energy. The feelings of euphoria and hyperactivity, however, only last for as long as the stimulant itself is in the body. As soon as the effects of the drug wear off, the stimulation that the drugs had on the body also begins to rapidly fade away.

It are replaced by the exact opposite effects to the ones that were previously experienced. Thus another of the stimulant addiction symptoms is extreme mood swings.

Addicts can be seen to move from being very exited, focused and hyperactive to being depressed and a little like zombies. The reverse shift also occurs, whereby the stimulant addicts suddenly swing out of the feeling of intense depression when they have not taken the stimulants to one of jubilation and alertness once they take them again.

Another very common example among the stimulant addiction symptoms is a feeling of restlessness and insomnia. Addicts feel restless all the time as if they ought to be doing something, and they are generally unable to settle down for any length of time. When insomnia sets in, the addicts are unable to fall asleep for any long period of time and sometimes, they can go for up to a month without experiencing any refreshing sleep. General sleeplessness and restlessness has been reported in a large number of users and are consequently viewed as part of the reason why most addicts tend to lose body weight extremely quickly.

The last of the common stimulant addiction symptoms are the stimulant withdrawal symptoms that usually set in any time the addicts, for any reason, suddenly fail to consume the drug. These withdrawal symptoms include fatigue, depression, sleep disorder, restlessness, anxiety and irritability.

All of the stimulant addiction symptoms mentioned above vary in intensity depending on the amount of drugs consumed and the period over which such consumption is stretched. The more stimulants the addict consumes, the greater the severity of the symptom. In the same manner, the longer the period over which the person has been addicted, the deadlier the withdrawal symptoms are likely to be when he or she suddenly tries to stop taking the drugs.