The reason people who die from overdose after being clean for a period of time is rooted in biochemistry, said Dr. Debra Bell, director of clinical quality improvement for Family First Health.
A person becomes dependent on heroin, or other drugs or other things that aren’t drugs, because of how that stimulus works on the brain, Bell said. Other things, like exercise, work in a similar way.
“There are parts of the brain that will be triggered in different ways to create a dependency for anything,” Bell said.