Drug Addiction

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Introduction

Becoming addicted to drugs can happen to almost anyone. Perhaps you started taking a prescription drug to help get over a medical condition, or maybe you began experimenting with illegal drugs as a means of escaping the problems in your reality. If you find yourself unable to function without the drugs and see them as a necessary aspect of your life, you have developed an addiction to them. This could lead to dire consequences. Luckily an addiction is not a problem without solution; there are plenty of ways you can break free from the drugs and move toward bettering yourself without them.

What likely began as recreational use of the drug has now become a necessity. You may not feel like yourself when you’re sober, so you take the drug shortly after waking up and continue taking it throughout the day until you are eventually in a drug-induced sleep. If you are somehow forced to live your day sober, you likely will not know what to do with yourself and go into withdrawal symptoms. Even if you have a strong desire to quit the drug, the dependence you’ve developed for it may not let you stop on your own. The drug use has reached a point where it is beyond your control.

How Drug Addiction Can Harm Us

Sometimes the drugs themselves can hurt you because of their side effects. Depending on the drug, the side effects might outweigh the benefits. Maybe the drug changes your perception of reality, makes you hallucinate, makes you feel loopy and fatigued during the day, or produces a feel-good affect that helps you ignore a difficult or undesirable reality. Perhaps when you’re not on the drug, your life feels meaningless, boring, or pointless. Yet at the same time, being on the drug makes you irritable, moody, or anxious. You might feel completely unmotivated to do anything beyond a certain level of expectation. Your personality might even change drastically because the drugs are changing your regular behavior.

If the drug is illegal, you are taking a risk with the law simply by purchasing it, and the more times you purchase the drugs, the more you’re putting yourself at risk of getting arrested and going to jail, thus affecting your employment situation. There are other challenges concerning employment as well, whether or not you are being unlawful. If you are on drugs at your workplace, even if you believe you are functioning properly, you are putting your co-workers at risk because your judgment is being impaired. However, if you become newly hired somewhere and stop taking the drugs upon employment, your withdrawal symptoms can also affect your work.

How Drug Addiction Affects Other Relationships

Many of the people close to you are likely affected by your addiction. Over time, the drugs can spark negative interactions with the people around you. Your friends and family members might be annoyed that you always seem “out of it” or not yourself when they talk to you. Those who know about your drug use may try convincing you to get a lower dosage or take the drug less often as a means of helping you seem more “yourself”. You may become angry or hostile toward loved ones when going through withdrawals from the drugs, or lie to them often, which may sever those relationships after consistent negative reactions.

You may not want to be around most people anymore, or you isolate yourself when you are not on the drug, causing you to lose contact with most of your friends. In more extreme cases, you might take up dangerous or unlawful habits as a means of staying on the drugs. For example, if your paycheck is a week away and you’re completely out of drugs, you might choose to steal money from your parents because the thought of going one week without the drugs makes you feel completely helpless. Under the same circumstances, you might try to manipulate people into letting you borrow money without paying them back out of desperation. Doing things like this only discourages people from wanting to associate with you - some might forgive you after you get help for your addiction, but not all friendships can last through the hurt they experience from you.

How Therapy Can Help

It can sometimes feel as though there is nothing we can do about our addictions because we lack the willpower to quit. Fortunately, we do not have to hit rock bottom in order to get over our addictions. It might seem challenging, but addiction can be treated with therapy. A therapist can help us identify the reasons behind our addiction, helping us overcome the issues we have on a deeper level to the point where we do not have to rely on drugs for happiness. The results won’t be instant, but there is always a way we can overcome our addictions.


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