The Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Substance Abuse

Stress is a common risk factor for the development of substance abuse and for the risk of relapse after treatment. There is a strong relationship between chronic stress and substance abuse. The reason for this has to do with the science of your stress response systems.

Under normal circumstances your body has a set of parameters that go into place to respond to stress. But in this case the stress is supposed to be something that is potentially life-threatening. When you deal with chronic stress from things like work, school, or family demands, there may be no legitimate threat but the same response systems are activated.

This can cause things like high blood pressure, high resting adrenaline levels, anxiety, and other symptoms that individuals are more likely to try and control with drugs and alcohol.

The Relationship Between Chronic Stress and Substance Abuse: The Science

When you look at the science behind stress, you have a better chance of understanding the relationship between chronic stress and substance abuse.

Stress can adversely change many systems in your body. 

Hypothalamic pituitary adrenal axis

This system regulates the release of hormones like glucocorticoids, which are responsible for triggering a physiological response to stress, the fight-or-flight mechanism, and the release of adrenaline. This system is also responsible for regulating bodily functions like:

• Immune response
• Energy storage
• Mood
• Emotions
• Digestion
• Sexual activity 

Chronic stress can negatively change which hormones are released into your bloodstream and how those bodily functions respond. This means the relationship between chronic stress and substance abuse can be detrimental to several areas of your bodily function, not least of which includes your mood and emotional response.

When you have issues controlling mood and emotional response as well as poor energy and compromised releases of adrenaline, you are more likely to struggle with mental health disorders like depression or anxiety, feel on edge all the time, and turn to drugs or alcohol to try and self-medicate. 

Extrahypothalamic CRF

This system is what controls your body’s response to addiction, depression, and stress. It’s located in the hypothalamus part of the brain, and it regulates mood and behavioral responses to stress.

In this situation, chronic stress means that you are more likely to develop a stress-related disorder. Worse still, this system plays a significant role in the neuroplasticity of addiction, which means that chronic stress can compromise the function of this system, making it more likely that your brain will develop positive associations with the rewards that come from using drugs and alcohol.

In short, this means that you are more likely to develop an addiction if you use drugs or alcohol. 

Autonomic arousal

This is a physiological response that results from stimulation of your autonomic nervous system when you are experiencing things like anger or fear. It causes changes in digestion, breathing, heart rate, and blood flow.

The purpose behind this is to help you prepare for the fight or flight mechanism when there is real danger, but if you deal with chronic stress, it triggers this system outside of situations where real danger is present. This means that you are more likely to deal with things like high levels of resting adrenaline and continual responses that feel like anxiety attacks.

This type of chronic stress and high adrenaline will leave you feeling on edge and make it more likely that you’ll turn to drugs and alcohol to self-medicate, calm down, and manage those feelings.

Central noradrenergic system 

This system plays a role in managing your brain development and is a key stress response system. Located in the brain it also plays a role in related autonomic arousal. Much like the autonomic arousal response, exposure to chronic stress will trigger this system more often than it should be triggered.

It will trigger the system for situations where it doesn’t really require it, and eventually, this makes it difficult for your body to respond normally to stress and leads to things like high levels of resting adrenaline and a higher risk of drug and alcohol abuse to self-medicate. 

Getting Treatment for Substance Abuse and Chronic Stress

With Ritual Recovery, you can learn more about the relationship between chronic stress and substance abuse and get help for both. Our outpatient drug rehab in Asheville offers clients a chance to step away from their daily stress and learn to better manage things like:

• Schedules
• Emotions
• Mental health
• Self-care
• Boundaries 

Our facility will provide skills to help you identify your current responses to stress, learn how to manage stress in a healthier way and utilize positive coping skills so that stress does not get out of hand and result in the activation of these systems or compromise your long-term health. 

Overall, getting treatment for chronic stress and substance abuse is imperative. There’s a strong correlation between chronic stress and the development of substance abuse, but most important is to get help for both at the same time.

Call us today to learn more about our outpatient drug rehab centers.