Although the term substance can refer to any physical matter, substance abuse has come to refer to the overindulgence in and dependence of a drug A drug, broadly speaking, is any substance that, when absorbed into the body of a living organism, alters normal bodily function. There is no single, precise definition, as there are different meanings in drug control law, government regulations, medicine, and colloquial usage or other chemical leading to effects that are detrimental to the individual's physical and mental health, or the welfare The term quality of life is used to evaluate the general well-being of individuals and societies. The term is used in a wide range of contexts, including the fields of international development, healthcare, and political science. Quality of life should not be confused with the concept of standard of living, which is based primarily on income of others.[2]
The disorder is characterized by a pattern of continued pathological use of a medication, non-medically indicated drug or toxin Drug abuse has a huge range of definitions related to taking a psychoactive drug or performance enhancing drug for a non-therapeutic or non-medical effect. All of these definitions imply a negative judgment of the drug use in question . Some of the drugs most often associated with this term include alcohol, amphetamines, barbiturates,, that results in repeated adverse social consequences related to drug use, such as failure to meet work, family, or school obligations, interpersonal conflicts, or legal problems. There are on-going debates as to the exact distinctions between substance abuse and substance dependence The related concept of drug addiction has many different definitions. Some writers give in fact drug addiction the same meaning as substance dependence, others for example provides drug addiction a narrower meaning which excludes drugs without evidence of tolerance or withdrawal symptoms, but current practice standard distinguishes between the two by defining substance dependence in terms of physiological and behavioral symptoms of substance use, and substance abuse in terms of the social consequences of substance use.[3]
Substance abuse may lead to addiction or substance dependence. Medically, physiologic dependence requires the development of tolerance In physiology, physiological tolerance or drug tolerance is commonly encountered in pharmacology, when a subject's reaction to a drug decreases so that larger doses are required to achieve the same effect. Drug tolerance can involve both psychological drug tolerance and physiological factors. Characteristics of drug tolerance: it is reversible, leading to withdrawal Withdrawal can refer to any sort of separation, but is most commonly used to describe the group of symptoms that occurs upon the abrupt discontinuation/separation or a decrease in dosage of the intake of medications, recreational drugs, and/or alcohol. In order to experience the symptoms of withdrawal, one must have first developed a physical symptoms. Both abuse and dependence are distinct from addiction The term "addiction" is used in many contexts to describe an obsession, compulsion, or excessive psychological dependence, such as: drug addiction , problem gambling, crime, money, work addiction, compulsive overeating, computer addiction, video game addiction, pornography addiction, television addiction, etc which involves a compulsion to continue using the substance despite the negative consequences, and may or may not involve chemical dependency The related concept of drug addiction has many different definitions. Some writers give in fact drug addiction the same meaning as substance dependence, others for example provides drug addiction a narrower meaning which excludes drugs without evidence of tolerance or withdrawal symptoms. Dependence almost always implies abuse, but abuse frequently occurs without dependence, particularly when an individual first begins to abuse a substance. Dependence involves physiological Physiology is the science of the functioning of living systems. It is a subcategory of biology. In physiology, the scientific method is applied to determine how organisms, organ systems, organs, cells and biomolecules carry out the chemical or physical function that they have in a living system processes while substance abuse reflects a complex interaction between the individual, the abused substance and society.[4]
Source: A Public Health Approach to Drug Control in Canada, Health Officers Council of British Columbia, 2005
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