Heroin Where does drugs' euphoria come from?

[SoonAJunkie]

This ain't really a heroin question.Let's start from acid.I dropped acid 5 times and I had really intense euphoria.I've smoked weed several times and I had some euphoria too.BY saying euphoria I mean that tingling feeling in your heart,that you feel your heart in pain,thinking it will explode from satisfaction. On the other hand, I have snorted heroin many times,but all I got was a peaceful feeling,and a lot of vomiting and nausea. When I smoked it,I felt that tingling but it was a child's play compared to smoked heroin's. When I shot it,I felt completely different than the time I snorted heroin,it was a whole different drug,but I felt some euphoria,but it was the afterglow of the rush.I mean,when you have an orgasm, you experience extreme pleasure,for 1 second and then you are euphoric from the afterglow of this "pleasure explosion"
My main question is...do drugs force euphoria to come out, and will it be there for sure, or does the well being that a drug gives you bring euphoria with it?For example, would one experience euphoria on lsd if they heard some bad news and were sad?or could the vomiting and nausea kill heroin euphoria?

 

[ComfortablyNumb95]

It depends on the drug really. Some drugs "force" you to be happy and euphoric by releasing chemicals like dopamine, serotonin etc.
while psychedelic drugs tends to amplify everything so if you already are in a good mood or if you have some positive realisation it will be amplified making you feel good.
It's over simplified but I think you got the point.

as a side note, I think euphoria is quite subjective.

 

[svacheme3]

What is most commonly described as physical euphoria is an increase in activity in the bodies reward circuitry, involving elevated levels of dopamine, but more importantly endorphins and enkephalins. There's several hotspots in the brain for such activity, such as the nucleus accumbens. Drugs can both directly (opiates/stimulants) and indirectly stimulate activity in these pathways, but as it's a natural system it's also vastly more complicated and there's certainly a psychological component- being "happy", having sex, eating good food... all also stimulate these reward pathways.

 

[bluephoenix]

I've noticed that the first couple times using H the high isn't quite right. It's either too strong and you get dizzy and puke or it just doesn't sit right. It wasn't until my 3rd or 4th time that I got an intense euphoria. After that I hit a groove and it was very very euphoric at low doses..... then I turned into a junkie, but hey that's heroin for ya.

 

[Mr.Scagnattie]

The euphoria is all dependent on how much dopamine is released by the given drug. Dopamine is really where the "euphoria" comes from. It's chemical changes in the brain, the drugs causing an intense artificial jolt of endorphins to your pleasure centers of the brain. Different drugs do it in different ways, release more dopamine than others, etc. I mean, you can get really deep and specific into it if you want. Make a post in Neuroscience and Pharmacology Discussion if you want to delve deeper into the brain chemistry aspect of drugs and how they affect you.