Do you need coffee to function in the morning? Believe it or not, you have something in common with drug addicts. While this addiction might not ruin your life or those around you, it does give you an idea of what it is like to feel dependent on a substance. Whether its coffee that you need or something more harmful like heroin, CBD oil may be able to help with kicking your addiction.
Cannabidiol (CBD) may be able to help people with their addictions because of its ability to regulate the reward system. By calming down overactivity in the brain, people have noticed that CBD oil has helped with their cravings as well as some of the withdrawal symptoms of their substance of choice.
What Is Addiction
Whenever you eat, sleep, have sex, or nurture your brain’s reward system lights up. Your brain thinks, “Hey, this is really awesome. This keeps me alive. Let’s keep doing this.” It is the way that your brain drives you to survive. If you didn’t eat, you would starve. If no one had sex, we would become extinct. Our brain recognizes these activities as a necessity, and we are glad for it.
When you use a substance like cocaine or cigarettes, the reward system lights up but in a way the brain isn’t prepared for. Your brain sees this new thing as even better than the bare essentials like eating and sleeping and decides that this new substance is a necessity. If you try to withhold it from your brain, the withdrawal symptoms come in driving you back to the addiction that you’re trying to escape from.
How CBD Helps With Addiction
Cannabidiol is a regulator. When things are going wrong in the endocannabinoid system, CBD oil can swoop in like a hero to save the day. In studies where they tested CBD and drug cravings, they found that it reduced the cravings for the substance. This means that the brain isn’t trying to drive the person to take the drug anymore.
But the cravings are just the half of it. Quitting certain substances can leave you nauseous, in pain, and irritable. But CBD may be able to help with all of those symptoms as well. We may be coming to a future where instead of giving someone a different form of the drug to get them clean, people might start using medical cannabis to help instead.
Talk To Your Doctor
If you have an addiction problem, going at this alone might not be the most successful endeavor. Finding a therapist who can hold you accountable, teach you coping mechanisms, and help you discover your true potential can be extremely beneficial. If you are already on medication, CBD may make this medication act differently which is another good reason to keep your doctor involved. They can help monitor your progress and help you reach the goals that you’ve been dreaming of.
Have you struggled with addiction? Has CBD hemp oil helped you? We would love to hear your story in the comment section below. Who knows, maybe you can take part in saving someone's life.
