Staying High to Get By

Staying High To Get By

Troy L. Payne
UTEP
Eng. 1311/ RSW 1301
10/28/2014
Rebekah Grado

Staying High to Get By

2
Abstract

As most people know college has many challenges for a new student
transitioning in from High School and students who go through college know the stress
and hard work it takes to get through college as a whole. Now a days there are many
alternatives to coffee for students to stay awake and focused in class and during tests and
to relax after a hard day and destress. Drugs are in circulation like money, anyone can get
their hands on it, but it can cause many harmful atributes in students. Becoming addicted
to drugs is becoming more and more popular within colleges alone. Many studies and test
have shown the effects of drugs like adderall and marjuana to have negative effects as life
goes on.

Staying High to Get By

Staying High to Get By

The transistion between High School and College is a very hard transistion for
some students to handle. Having to create new habbits like time management, chaning
sleeping and eating patterns can cause the average student to become stressed out. The
reprocussions to dealing with stress can lead down a very dark and unsafe path for a
college student now a days.
As students go into college they have one main goal, to graduate. But what High
School doesnt prepare you for is the work load and environment that college brings to
the table. From having to give up sleep to finish a paper, to gaining weight from how bad
your eating, to losing friends, and having no one force you to go to class can cause
students to become lazy or become a hard worker. Some students can manage all of this
in a perfect harmony, but others have difficulty managing these things. The hardest thing
to manage in college is the work load, some Proffesors give you little to no homework,
while others give you a truck load of homework. For example, having to do a five page
essay, 100 math problems, twenty Chemistry problems, a History paper, a 30 problem
review, and to study for an upcoming test can cause stress in a single student. Adapting
to this new life stage and the inevitable stress that comes with it (both good and bad)
affects students differently. (Driscoll, 2011). Some can finish this easily, while others
struggle to finish all of this in a single week. They belive they need to give something up
just to finish and the main thing they give up is sleep.
Sleep is for the weak, as some students might say, but it can cause havoc later on
in life. Lack of sleep can cause problems with a person's immune and cardiovascular

Staying High to Get By

system and increase the likelihood of other health risks, such as weight gain (Mckeever,
2014). So, students look to ways to stay awake and the main solution, coffee. Places like
Starbucks and Einsteins Bagels gain a huge income from college students alone. The
average student can spend up to $102.80 a month on coffee alone, thus showing that
students depend on it more than the average person to stay awake to do work or just to
calm down and relax. The only downfall is the crash that comes from all the caffeine and
sugar. So, when coffee isnt enough to stay focused and awake or to relax, then some
students look for other alternatives.
As most of society knows, the use of drugs in excess can be harmful to the human
body and most of them are highly against using it to get high or to relax. Pushing the
human body is good if its to physically get better, but pushing it in the wrong direction
can cause server effects. Some drugs have very minor effects while others have server
effects to the body.

(Pills and Hands, 2013)

As interpreted in the image above, drugs go through circulation just like chump
change in college. Most college students use drugs like adderal and xanax to focus and
stay awake, and the smoke cigarettes and weed to calm down and relax. Drugs like

Staying High to Get By

adderall can cause you to become nausious, get haedaches, and cause you to feel more
anxious, and those are the less server symptoms it has. In extreme cases it can cause dry
mouth, fever, rashes, trouble breathing, and invoulintary quivering. Thats just adderall
and drugs like weed may keep you calm and relax but can hurt you worse. Studies in
Australia in 2008 linked years of heavy marijuana use to brain abnormalities. This is
backed up by earlier research on the long-term effects of marijuana, which indicate
changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term abuse of other major drugs.
(Does Marijuana Kill, 2014). So you can see the extremities that drugs have on the
human body. Is it really worth using to staying awake and being focused for a couple of
hours just to finish homework?
The deffinition of Addiction is the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or
to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, to such an extent that its
cessation causes severe trauma. The most common addiction that occurs is the addiction
of drugs and more and more students are turning to drugs in college to just get by in
school. According to the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, more than 11
percent of people ages 12 to 25 reported using prescription drugs for non-medical reasons
within the past year, and full-time college students ages 18 to 22 were twice as likely to
abuse Adderall as those of the same age not in college. (Student Health, 2014). You can
see how serious drug addiction has become in the youth of America without them
knowing the total repercussions of their actions.
Having an addiction can cause many physical problems, which some students are
willing to risk, but they know very little on the psychological problems that come with
the abuse of drugs. The longer an addiction lasts, the more stress and strain it puts on the

Staying High to Get By

individual. There are a number of long-term physical and emotional effects of addiction
that can easily turn a healthy man or woman into a frail shadow of their former self.
(Long Term Drug Addiction Effects, 2014). Depression is one of the biggest side effects
from having any addiction; they become more immune to the high of the drug and need
an even bigger dose to feel a high. This can cause an overdose or something even worse,
the vicious cycle of regretting the decision of taking drugs, and turning to them to
suppress the feeling of regret. It can also cause paranoia in the fact that they may see
people as a threat or attacking them personally. Which can cause a rip in a social life,
which is extremely important to have in a college environment. Drug abuse can also
cause the person to become anxious, which can lead into the use of other drugs. Its
basically a long and difficult cycle that may seem never ending without the correct help.
Being in college can lead to many great things in life and students do go through
some rocky roads that can lead down a very dark path. Drugs can help some students
during a test or do homework on a busy week, but when using something to help you to
do basic functions during the day can lead to a life they never expected. Yes, the drugs
work durng the time you take them, but the long term effects they can cause puts all the
hard work you put into college a huge waste because of the life you will have when
becoming an adict to that one drug. This one topic isnt a desiding factor in your life, but
the decision to even give that kind of life an opprotunity to be reality is a decision that no
one should ever go through.

Staying High to Get By

7
References

Does Marijuana Kill Brain Cells? Harmful Effects on the Brain - Drug-Free World.
(n.d.). Retrieved October 28, 2014, from
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/the-harmful-effects.html
Driscoll, E. (2011, March 31). Stress in College: What Causes it and How to Combat it.
Retrieved October 20, 2014, from http://www.foxbusiness.com/personalfinance/2011/03/31/stress-college-causes-combat/
Long Term Drug Addiction Effects. (n.d.). Retrieved October 28, 2014, from
http://www.drugabuse.net/drug-addiction/long-term-drug-addiction-effects/
Mckeever, K. (2014, August 13). Stressed Out College Students Losing Sleep. Retrieved
October 20, 2014, from
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Healthday/story?id=8312502
Prescription ADHD Stimulant Abuse. (2013, November 13). Retrieved October 26, 2014,
from http://www.alltreatment.com/prescription-ADHD-stimulant-abuse
Student Health. (n.d.). Retrieved October 28, 2014, from
http://www.drugwatch.com/students/