There is a direct link between cocaine and depression, including depressive symptoms like sadness, irritability, loss of interest in life, fatigue, and difficulty concentrating. If you’re experiencing mental health problems, your cocaine use is either causing them or making them worse. Either way, continuing to abuse cocaine is the worst thing you can do.

Cocaine addiction is one of the most common conditions we treat here at the Cabin, so we know exactly what you’re going through: Nothing, absolutely nothing brings you pleasure in life. You’re always in a bad mood, your brain is in complete chaos, and you may even feel hopeless and bleak about your future.

This is because you’re caught in the trap of a harmful drug that robs you of all the pleasure in life.

The good news is that it IS NOT permanent. This is not you – it’s the drug.

All scientific evidence indicates that any depressive illness will improve when you quit using cocaine. You can get a new chance at a happy, fulfilling life free of addiction and the depression it causes.

Read on to learn more about the link between cocaine and mental health problems. We’ll also cover treatment options to help you break the negative cycle of addiction for good.

Does Cocaine Cause Depression?

The short answer is yes, cocaine can cause depression due to the way it affects your brain. Chronic cocaine abuse alters your brain’s reward system so that you can only derive pleasure from the drug and nothing else.

A study entitled “Meta-analysis of depression and substance use and impairment among cocaine users” published in Drug And Alcohol Dependence in November 2008 found that depression is correlated with concurrent cocaine, alcohol, and general drug use.

It’s clear that cocaine takes its toll on your mental health: When you’re on it, you feel invincible. But when you’re not taking it, you feel numb, sad, irritable, and unmotivated.

This is because cocaine causes a flood of dopamine (the “feel good chemical”) to enter your brain.  This is the euphoric and invincible feeling that you experience. 

But the more you use the drug, the more your brain builds up a tolerance and the less it’s able to produce dopamine on its own. And the more you take it, the worse your depression gets. 

When we speak to cocaine addicts during intake, almost all of them tell us they feel:

• Down all the time
• Constantly irritable with major mood swings
• Physically ill
• Numb and unable to experience pleasure in life
• Like they have no libido
• Socially withdrawn and isolated

This is all due to the way cocaine affects your brain and the effects that chronic cocaine abuse has on your brain’s chemistry. It’s devastating.

We don’t have to tell you. You probably know the feeling.

Cocaine is a dangerous and highly addictive stimulant that makes you feel more alert, confident, and energetic. This is because it causes an unnatural flood of dopamine in your brain. The result? You feel euphoric and capable of anything. Nothing bothers you.

But once it wears off, you feel depressed. Your brain craves that feeling again. And the only thing that produces it is more of the substance.

It’s a vicious cycle: You feel depressed, so you use cocaine. But using only makes your depression worse, so you need more cocaine to “feel good”. Before you know it, you’ll do anything to get a bag just to “feel normal again”.

That’s cocaine use disorder. And the only way to stop feeling depressed is to break the cycle for good.

Is Cocaine Causing my Depression or Was I Already Depressed?

You now know that cocaine and addiction can cause depression due to the way it affects your brain’s reward system. But is it just the drug or were you already depressed in the first place and just using cocaine as a way to “feel alive”? It’s not always clear. It’s a bit of a “chicken or egg” problem.

That’s why it’s important that you get clean from the drug and return to your normal state in order for a diagnosis to be made (so you can truly heal and live a better life).

This is a common story at our Sydney rehab clinic. 

Someone comes to us with their substance use and mental health problems. But they don’t know what’s causing what. So, they get clean and go into treatment. Some get better right away. They feel much more energized and their lust for life comes back rather quickly.

Others get clean and realise that the problem was much deeper than they’d imagined. Don’t worry, whatever the problem is, there is a way to cure it and live a much happier life.

Let’s get into some of the science…

The link between depression and substance use disorders is clear.

One study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders and posted to ScienceDirect.com entitled “Prevalence of comorbid substance use in major depressive disorder (MDD) in community and clinical settings, 1990–2019: Systematic review and meta-analysis” by Hunt, Glenn E., et al., found that 11.8% of people with major depressive disorder also abused illicit drugs. 25% abused alcohol as well.

So, we know that depression and drug use are linked, but which causes which?

One of the hallmarks of depression is anhedonia, or the loss of enjoyment in things we used to find pleasurable. If you’re abusing cocaine, you know this feeling all too well. But as addiction specialists, it’s impossible for us to tell what’s causing what until you get clean. 

This is where something called dual diagnosis comes into play. 

Chronic cocaine abuse does diminish your natural dopamine, which can lead to depressive symptoms. But there’s a chance that your depression was already there. And that could be caused by trauma, genetics, lifestyle factors, or any number of other risk factors.

Cocaine use not only makes it difficult for a diagnosis to be made, it also diminishes the effect of antidepressant medications. And thus the trap persists.

Again, this is why it’s vital that you cease using substances at all costs if you want to cure your depression for good.

How Does Cocaine Affect an Already Depressed Person?

If you’re already suffering from mental health issues, cocaine is like pouring gasoline on a fire. 

In this section, we want to explain to you how cocaine and other drugs make your symptoms worse, so you understand why continuing to use is the worst thing you can do for your condition.

We understand that it’s natural to want to “self-medicate”. Using drugs can temporarily numb the pain. But over time, it only makes the symptoms of your depression worse.

In other words, cocaine might make you feel invincible for a short time, but once its effects wear off, you end up worse than how you started. The only solution ends up being more and more of the drug. This leads to a downward spiral that can get out of hand at any time.

The following is a list of depressive symptoms you might experience from excess cocaine use:

• Extreme sadness
• Lethargy
• Sleep issues
• Demotivation
• Anhedonia (loss of interest)
• Anxiety
• Increased stress
• Strong cravings for cocaine
• Lack of appetite
• Paranoia

Drug-induced depression’s symptoms are similar to typical depressive symptoms, so it’s difficult to know what the real problem is until a diagnosis is made by a trained addiction specialist.

Will Quitting Cocaine Help Improve My Depression?

Yes, there is no doubt that quitting cocaine will improve your depressive symptoms no matter how bad they are.

There’s a good chance that you’ll experience all of the following:

• A better mood, including a more positive outlook on life
• Improved mental and physical health
• Less irritability
• Mental clarity
• Less stress

Over time, your brain will adjust to “normal” levels of dopamine and adjust its production accordingly. That means you’ll start to enjoy life’s little things again like you used to before drugs.

A 2001 study published in the Journal of Neuroscience entitled “Loss of Dopamine Transporters in Methamphetamine Abusers Recovers with Protracted Abstinence” by Volkow, Nora D., et al., found that after protracted abstinence, the brains of drug addicts repaired their own dopamine system. And, after protracted abstinence (12-17 months) there were significant improvements.

It takes time, but your body and mind can heal from drug abuse. We never guarantee anything, but we’ve seen it over and over again.

Even if you have underlying causes for depression, at the very least, getting clean will improve your:

• Mental health
• Physical health
• Self-respect
• Social and familial relationships
• Professional life
• Financial situation

All of these combined will help you feel much better in a relatively short amount of time.

Again, all scientific evidence demonstrates that quitting drugs or alcohol improves mental health. And it certainly doesn’t make it any worse in the long run.

In the short term, you may experience cocaine withdrawals, but they are only temporary and cease within a few days. And more good news: Cocaine withdrawal symptoms typically don’t include severe physical symptoms or immediate medical danger.

What Are My Treatment Options For Addiction And Depressive Symptoms?

• Detox: Detox is when you go through medically supervised withdrawal to safely clear cocaine from your body. This will help get you off the drug without battling the worst of the withdrawal symptoms. Our intake team would need to screen you for this first. It’s mostly for severe addiction.

• Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT): MAT uses medications to balance brain chemistry affected by cocaine use and depression. Which helps manage your cravings and stabilize your mood. You don’t need to go to a hospital. You just need a clinic with trained doctors and specialists.

• Counselling: The primary treatment we provide for addiction is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). It helps you understand and manage triggers, negative thoughts, and emotions, offering coping skills to reduce addiction and depression.

• Group Therapy: Group therapy provides a supportive environment where patients share experiences and encouragement. Group support has proven to reduce isolation and reinforce accountability.

How Can The Cabin Sydney Help You Break Free From The Addiction Cycle?