Why do we like to be high?

I think the general thought is that many of these chemicals bind to receptors that are involved in the perception of pleasure. They can trigger the release of endorphines. They can also reduce inhibitions, and temporarily uncouple or lessen our feelings of stress and anxiety. Alcohol does this, but some of the other central nervous system depressants do too.

http://www.livescience.com/36084-alcohol-releases-endorphins-brain.html

Here's an article about how pot works in the brain.

http://www.salon.com/2013/09/08/science_for_potheads_why_they_love_to_get_high/

Every drug is different, but I think that's the common denominator. They trigger a receptor that evolved for other reasons. They're essentially fooling the body.

The whole psychology of addiction is a deep hole. Here's a video that breaks it down in simple terms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGROBb43l0A

BTW, I'm due for a belly rub. Rub my belly. RUB MY FLUFFY BELLY!!!

Yeah, and with some kinds of chemical addictions, the body's ability to produce the substance that the drug mimics will weaken. With opiod addiction, for instance, the neurons that produce certain endogenous opioids (or endorphins), which are part of the normal pain suppression pathway, stop releasing these chemicals.

With alcohol dependence, the levels and proportions of various neurotransmitters in the brain will change over time in order to adapt to the presence of the chemical. With alcohol dependence, the "DTs" occur as a consequence of these changes.

http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/AA77/AA77.htm

And there's definitely an element of random chance, when it comes to why certain mind-altering substances exist alongside humans in the first place. Think of it like the lottery - the vast majority of combinations of numbers won't pay off, but with enough people buying tickets (ie. instances of allowing chance to take effect), you'll get plenty of hits (even if it's winning $50,000 instead of the main prize). Likewise, humans and other living organisms are the result of natural selection, which is essentially random stuff happening, and the organisms that do well survive longer than those that do poorly. On the other side of the equation, you have over 100 chemical elements that can be combined together in an astonishing number of ways. Put those 2 ideas together, and yeah - we get happy drugs.\

Given all that, I think my answer as to why humans like to get high would be, "All animals would enjoy it if they could figure out a way to farm / reproduce the right chemical compounds." Of course, that's not to say that it's a good idea in the long run...

Why do we like to be high?

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It's because you're all a bunch of damn hippies, that's why!

Fruitbat said:

This is on my mind right now because I'm on some prescription drugs due to a recent surgery- Percocet, Valium, and Tramadol. Needless to say, I feel wonderful. This question comes up in my mind often when I've had a glass of wine or two as well.

in general, alcohol and drug abuse take an extremely heavy toll on individuals, their families, and society overall. I get why people get hooked. It's because mood altering substances just make you feel so much better, and who wouldn't want to feel better?

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In early August I had major abdominal surgery that left me in hospital for 5 days. Pumped full of pain stuff, without even knowing it for the first couple of days. And then - yeah, press the little button myself, get some morphine. Mmmm.

I came home late Sunday afternoon with a couple of bottle of narcotics. Monday at 2 am I took my last one, and then went cold turkey. Not recommending this, BTW - I had a lousy 3 days of withdrawal, with electric cold shocks that chilled me to the bone and beyond.

But I did it this way because I work in an ER and see all the people who come in addicted to pain meds. I'm not going to be one of them. It's a miserable existence. Some try to get off and go through withdrawal and then go back, and will come in again a couple of months later.

Many of them are hooked post surgery. They come in 2 weeks later looking for a refill - their doctor won't give it, so they want the ER docs to. Nope. And then they hit the streets ...

Meds are good! Not saying they don't have a legitimate purpose. But oh the risks of addiction ...

The only thing I'm high on is love. Love for my son and daughter. Yes, a little L-S-D goes a long way. Except I don't have a son or daughter, so all I'm stuck with is the high.

That and praise. Nothing makes me feel higher, which I think is caused by being a goody two shoes and the oldest child.

Praise me! I need another hit.

juniper said:

In early August I had major abdominal surgery that left me in hospital for 5 days. Pumped full of pain stuff, without even knowing it for the first couple of days. And then - yeah, press the little button myself, get some morphine. Mmmm.

I came home late Sunday afternoon with a couple of bottle of narcotics. Monday at 2 am I took my last one, and then went cold turkey. Not recommending this, BTW - I had a lousy 3 days of withdrawal, with electric cold shocks that chilled me to the bone and beyond.

But I did it this way because I work in an ER and see all the people who come in addicted to pain meds. I'm not going to be one of them. It's a miserable existence. Some try to get off and go through withdrawal and then go back, and will come in again a couple of months later.

Many of them are hooked post surgery. They come in 2 weeks later looking for a refill - their doctor won't give it, so they want the ER docs to. Nope. And then they hit the streets ...

Meds are good! Not saying they don't have a legitimate purpose. But oh the risks of addiction ...

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I don't get why the doctors aren't getting them off the meds slowly? I thought that was a common practice?

It's a release, from boredom, stress, monotony, self, whatever. A need to go somewhere else. To look at things from a different perspective.

I heard a sort of hand-wavey version of how your body gets hooked on heroin once, and it was fascinating. My apologies if I'm getting some of the facts wrong; feel free to correct me, anyone.

Your body has sugar receptors that run about helping you metabolize sugars. Heroin happens to be chemically very similar to a sugar, so it latches onto these receptors even though it doesn't quite fit. Because heroin is chemically active, however, it alters the sugar receptor so that it effectively becomes a heroin receptor.

Take the drug for long enough, and you build up enough of these heroin receptors that your body now considers heroin an essential nutrient. And that means when you don't have any heroin in you, that triggers all your body's most-desperate evolved responses -- it thinks it's dying for lack of heroin, and it uses every trick it's got to drive you to find and take the drug.

What's nasty is although these altered sugar receptors do, if you stop taking the drug, decrease over the time, some of them can linger for years. That means when a heroin addict gets clean, the cravings for the drug decrease rapidly over the course of a few weeks, then more slowly over the course of months, but they may never fully go away. The person may live with mild cravings for heroin for the rest of their life.

So people take heroin because it makes them feel good. They get addicted to it because the drug alters their body chemistry.

Yeah, I once sat through a lecture on these receptors. If I recall though, it wasn't limited to heroin. I've never used heroin. I had a close cousin of mine die at 24 from heroin use--I was 15 at the time. He'd been born with one kidney and damaged it to the point that the only way to save him would have been a transplant. His father was slated as donor, but on the day before the surgery my cousin had a friend sneak heroin into the hospital and he died not long after. I think this put me right off heroin, that and everywhere I looked there was another heroin tragedy in those days. I've tried most other things though, but the only keeper I've ever found is pot.

phantasy said:

I don't get why the doctors aren't getting them off the meds slowly? I thought that was a common practice?

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Once the patient goes home, it's up to her to decide whether to taper off, as doctors suggest, or to continue taking the fun pills. She was probably given enough by her own doc to last long enough to taper off, but if she decides to keep taking the same amount, she'll run out. And then come to the ER begging for more.

In my state, narcotic prescriptions are tracked through an online database and doctors can see how many pills someone has been prescribed over the past year or more. So no more going to 8 different doctors to get 8 different prescriptions.

I want to emphasize again - I do not recommend that anyone go cold turkey off pain meds. It can be dangerous, if you don't know what to expect and watch for.

Maze Runner said:

I've tried most other things though, but the only keeper I've ever found is pot.

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Same for me.

I find it helps me keep a whole host of mental illnesses in check when all kinds of prescription drugs have either failed or made it much, much worse. I can't decide if I'm addicted or not. When I don't have it I can feel all the stuff in my head get crazier and crazier but I don't go through withdrawal and I don't particularly miss the "high" - I just miss having a clear, functioning brain.

I don't know that it matters that much if you're addicted. I don't think it's harmful physically. At least not as bad as a lot of the food they give us. People like to talk about the carcinogens, how it's more carcinogenic than tobacco, or how much more potent pot is compared to twenty years ago. But if you've got good stuff, you only need a few hits.

http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/addiction/mouse/

Here ya go.
This is what they use to teach the Bio 1B kids.

Maze Runner said:

But if you've got good stuff, you only need a few hits.

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Exactly. I used to have one joint before bed while I took the dog out. I would fall asleep instantly, instead of being awake until 4-5am, and wake up the next morning feeling refreshed and stable. I've managed to get hold of it twice in eight months in Sweden. That's probably the only reason why I miss the UK, even in small towns there are 20-30 different people who can sort you out. It's so, so taboo here it's unreal. They think it's the same as heroin. In the newspaper a few weeks ago there was an article on a guy who gave his friends "tainted" brownies and they were "in the hospital for days".

CuddlyClementine said:

I find it helps me keep a whole host of mental illnesses in check when all kinds of prescription drugs have either failed or made it much, much worse. I can't decide if I'm addicted or not. When I don't have it I can feel all the stuff in my head get crazier and crazier but I don't go through withdrawal and I don't particularly miss the "high" - I just miss having a clear, functioning brain.

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THC gets absorbed in our fat, so when you stop taking it, your body essentially tapers itself off the drug, because the THC will keep leaching out of your fat cells for up to a year. Thus, people don't generally have any withdrawal symptoms even when they are addicted to THC and quit cold turkey.

It is possible to be physically addicted to it, by the way. There's a myth that marijuana is not addictive, but that's thanks this natural tapering effect that keeps anyone from going into withdrawal. If you give someone who is addicted to THC a drug that blocks their absorption, then they suffer withdrawal symptoms.

jjdebenedictis said:

THC gets absorbed in our fat, so when you stop taking it, your body essentially tapers itself off the drug, because the THC will keep leaching out of your fat cells for up to a year. Thus, people don't generally have any withdrawal symptoms even when they are addicted to THC and quit cold turkey.

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That's pretty cool... Sort of.

CuddlyClementine said:

That's pretty cool... Sort of.

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Even more cool is a story someone my brother knew once told. He came home one day to find a baggie of pot he'd left on his kitchen table ripped open and empty. He thought his house had been broken into, but while he's looking around, desperately trying to figure out how they got in, from the corner of his eye, he sees his cat walk into the wall.

Yep, kitty ate the whole stash. The fellow thought his cat might die of overdose, but it pulled through okay.

However, for the next year, whenever he forgot to feed his cat on time, it would get stoned again. The THC stored in its fat was getting released.

jjdebenedictis said:

Even more cool is a story someone my brother knew once told. He came home one day to find a baggie of pot he'd left on his kitchen table ripped open and empty. He thought his house had been broken into, but while he's looking around, desperately trying to figure out how they got in, from the corner of his eye, he sees his cat walk into the wall.

Yep, kitty ate the whole stash. The fellow thought his cat might die of overdose, but it pulled through okay.

However, for the next year, whenever he forgot to feed his cat on time, it would get stoned again. The THC stored in its fat was getting released.

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Poor cat. I wonder if the cat thought it was catnip. "OOH! I found the stash! Quick, rip it open! Nam nam nam..."

Hang on, is that why you can fail drug tests up to a year after having it? Or am I just being stupid?

CuddlyClementine said:

Hang on, is that why you can fail drug tests up to a year after having it? Or am I just being stupid?

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No, you're correct. You can fail a drug test for THC for a very long time afterward. A year is about how long it takes to clear out of your system completely.

Fruitbat said:

This is on my mind right now because I'm on some prescription drugs due to a recent surgery- Percocet, Valium, and Tramadol. Needless to say, I feel wonderful. This question comes up in my mind often when I've had a glass of wine or two as well.

I don't think what I've just mentioned are problems but of course, in general, alcohol and drug abuse take an extremely heavy toll on individuals, their families, and society overall. I get why people get hooked. It's because mood altering substances just make you feel so much better, and who wouldn't want to feel better?

What I wonder is why we have that built-in urge. Like if it's a design flaw in humans or if there's some kind of good part to the urge that I'm just missing or what.

Just wondering if anyone has any theories on it.

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I really, really, dislike the way pain killers make me feel. I consider myself lucky. My stepdaughter is addicted to oxycontin. She has destroyed herself with it. Me, I hate the way it made me feel, the one time I took it. Hated the way whatever it was the doc gave me instead made me feel, too.

And, yes, heavy toll. Mom drank her brain away. People think it can't happen to them, but it does.

Now, valium. I remember that from many years ago, before they knew how dangerous it was. Lovely. I loved how it made me feel. One moment, stressed to the edge of death. Next moment, bliss, wondering why I'd been sooooo upset about that "little" problem. Well, who doesn't want to feel like that, huh??

jjdebenedictis said:

No, you're correct. You can fail a drug test for THC for a very long time afterward. A year is about how long it takes to clear out of your system completely.

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This is why I won't smoke marijuana even though I live in a state where it's now legal. The company I work for has a zero tolerance policy, and they haven't changed that with the legalization. They don't do random drug screens, only before employment and then if you have an on-the-job injury.

A couple of years ago a co-worker was fired because over Christmas she ate a pot brownie then a couple of weeks later got hurt at work. It was still in her pee so bye-bye.

I don't think that's fair, since someone can be drunk the day before and then show up at work "clean" but until the company adjusts its policy, pot is not in me.

juniper said:

This is why I won't smoke marijuana even though I live in a state where it's now legal. The company I work for has a zero tolerance policy, and they haven't changed that with the legalization.

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Surely because it's now legal in your state they should update the policy? I mean, at least weed doesn't give you a nasty hangover.