The Effects of Drug Addiction

The effects of drug addiction, much like the effects of alcoholism, are numerous and severe. Except that with drugs the time frame for devastation and havoc is usually much shorter and more intense. Alcoholism is a disease that usually develops over many years, whereas drug addiction can literally happen within a matter of weeks or months if you’re dealing with a highly addictive substance like heroin, crack, or meth.

Drug addiction can literally eat away your very soul and leave you practically looking like a disfigured skeleton from your previous normal, healthy self. Just look at the image for proof. Not all drugs do that to you but the mental and health effects of drug addiction are scary to contemplate ...

The risk of overdose and death is always a real danger, you run the risk of various forms of heart disease that can lead to things like heart attacks and stroke; depression, anxiety and other mental health problems like schizophrenia and psychosis become real possibilities; but often the real frightening part is what lengths you go to to feed your addiction ...

Stealing from people you love, constantly lying and covering up to hide your addiction, sometimes even engaging in physical violence with anyone who stands in the way of your next hit, taking part in criminal activity to provide the means to fund your addiction, and in extreme cases even prostituting yourself to feed your habit ... the behaviour adopted to fund an addiction at times almost beggars belief.

Sure these are extreme cases, but if you’re addicted to particularly physically addictive drugs like heroin, crack or meth – what you’ll do to make sure you can get high is practially limitless. Your addiction controls your every waking thought and all the decisions you make revolve around your next hit and having the means to fund it.

People also mistakenly think that addiction to typical recreational type drugs like ecstasy, marijuana, and even cocaine isn’t necessarily all that dangerous, but countless lives are lost and destroyed just like they are with others drugs, except maybe not as suddenly and perhaps dramatically as with drugs like heroin or crack. Addiction wears many different masks, but the effects are ultimately almost always the same – jails, institutions and death.

Then just imagine the effects of drug addiction on the people you love. Can there be any worse nightmare being the parent or partner of a drug addict? Living in constant fear and anxiety as to what might happen to the person you love? Having to put up with the lies, stealing, and manipulation as you watch someone you once knew so well, but hardly even recognise anymore, literally withering away.

That constant stress can destroy not only you, but the other members of your family too ... because of all the anxiety, fear and tension it creates. So the effects of drug addiction extend far beyond the addict ... ultimately making it a family disease where all members are affected, leaving the potential for untold damage and scars that may never heal.

Drug addiction also has far reaching consequences for the community, not only because people we know and loved are increasingly being affected by this growing epidemic, but the drug trade is a multi-billion dollar industry controlled by people who have total disregard for life - and so bring nothing but chaos, destruction and death into our communities.

So if you or someone you care about is in the midst of an addiction, getting professional help via some form of addiction treatment program is non-negotiable and the only way to go. You can't afford to wait.