Dmitry Rogozin, permanent representative of Russia to NATO, hopes that Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization will be able to develop a shared approach to the combat against drug trafficking from Afghanistan taking due account of international expert opinion.
Withdrawal, or “cold turkey”, is a term referring to the physical and/or psychotic disorders developed by drug addicts some time after they stop taking drugs or reduce their dose. Withdrawal is part of physical dependency on drugs.
Drugs become an essential part of the addict’s metabolism. It cannot function normally without them. The syndrome begins with abstinence. The precise effects depend on which drug the patient is taking. Heroin and cocaine produce the worst forms of the syndrome, which is manifest in grave physical disorders. Hashish most often produces psychological discomfort. These physical symptoms stop when the drug is taken again.
All addicts understand what lies in store for them when they go cold turkey. The first symptoms set in eight to twelve hours after the last dose.
This is how medical psychologist Dilya Yenikeyeva describes heroin withdrawal in her book How to Prevent Adolescent Alcoholism and Drug Addiction: “It is one of the gravest forms of withdrawal among all kinds of drug and glue addiction. Eight to twelve hours after a shot or inhaling powder, the pupils of the eyes dilate, there is lacrimation, running nose, sneezing, the shivers and sporadic goose-bumps. The patient has no appetite. They experience the intense desire for another dose of the drug, emotional tension, anxiety and insomnia. Fever replaces the shivers, with fits of lethargy and excessive sweating. They experience muscle discomfort in their spine, neck and limbs, their muscles feel tense and they want to stretch out and loosen their stiff muscles. Addicts describe this state as pins-and-needles not in a leg but in the skeletal muscles more generally, with aches in the masseters and the intermaxillary joints. The pain worsens while eating or at the mere thought of food.
All the symptoms eventually become more pronounced: goose-bumps and shivers are permanent. Their dilated pupils barely respond to light. There are sneezing fits, fifty to a hundred times in swift succession. Yawning makes the jaws contract, and intense salivation is observed. The end of the second day is the hardest time, with severe pains in the back, legs and the neck. Addicts say their muscles are ‘contracted, twirled and drawn’. The patient is in agony and moves around in an attempt to ease his discomfort: lying down, springing up, rocking in his bed, rubbing his muscles and curling up into a ball. He gets out of bed hoping that exercise will relieve the pain, but excruciating pain persists. The patient is in an anxious state, pathologically restless, with regular contractions of the calf muscles. The continued pain makes him spiteful and aggressive, with an unremitting desire for the drug. The addict will stop at nothing, no crimes, lies and acts of violence to get their next hit. Vomiting and diarrhea add to these symptoms on the third or fourth day, with attacks repeated ten to fifteen times a day, bowel contractions, and fever. The patient cannot eat, and loses 10-12 kilograms. Short spells of daytime drowsiness alternate with sleepless nights. Addicts who use intravenous shots have a bad itch all along their veins. The patient looks tortured, tragic, with dull sunken eyes, dry skin and a pallid or ashy complexion.”
The cold turkey period varies depending on how long the addict had been using, the dose they were taking, and other factors, particularly their mental state, and whether or not they intend to continue using. The average state of abstinence lasts two weeks or more without medical treatment.
Once these acute symptoms have passed, residual effects remain: the unremitting desire for the drug, bad moods, dysphoria (gloom, affected malice and yearning, irritation and fits of violent rage), psychological discomfort, asthenia (a morbid state of tiredness, exhaustion and extreme mood swings), and sleep disorders (the delayed period of the withdrawal syndrome). Desire for the drug returns easily at this time, affecting the patient’s behavior. Once again he becomes hysterical and malicious, if in hospital he demands to be released, and causes a scene on the ward. He flies into a temper at the slightest provocation and develops suicidal tendencies requiring timely preventive therapy. Delayed symptoms last two to five weeks after the acute symptoms pass. Spontaneous relapses are frequent at this time.
These withdrawal symptoms vanish completely after several months.
The reference has been prepared based on open source materials
