Drug addiction is costly. Shoveling out money for the next high is a daily occurrence. Even the richest of drug addicts end up emptying their bank accounts to avert from experiencing withdrawal or not experiencing the high they’re after. But, not only will drug addiction drain your pockets but other areas of life too. Drug addiction can cost your happiness, support, emotional stability, and even your health. In this article, we determine the true cost of becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol.

The Different Costs of Addiction

Depending on how long a person has struggled with addiction and the types of addiction present, the costs of addiction may vary from person to person. However, regardless of the type of addiction, each person that struggles with it can expect it to be costly in some way. Throughout active addiction, there are many things a person can lose due to the costs of becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol. And, they may be more than one would ever think to lose.

The Obvious: Financial Costs of Drug or Alcohol Addiction

One of the most obvious costs of addiction is money. It’s not cheap keeping up with a daily drug or alcohol addiction. But, this doesn’t just lead to loss of spending money. It can lead to loss of every much more like:

• A job that brings in money
• A home or apartment a person is living in
• Automobiles that are being paid off due to repossession
• Inability to pay for needed things like clothes, shoes, and even food

The financial costs of addiction lead to the average view of the drug-addicted; living in unwashed clothing and sleeping outside in dark alleyways. However, this may not be every addict’s experience with the financial cost of addiction. Certainly, they may spend more money than they need to, but not every person gets to the point of having nowhere to live or clean clothes on their backs.

The Less Obvious: Emotional Costs of Drug or Alcohol Addiction

Drug and alcohol addiction can send a person’s emotional state on a roller coaster. This is due to a number of reasons that may include:

• Being mentally unstable to begin with. Most people who struggle with drug or alcohol addiction also struggle with mental health conditions. And, abusing drugs or alcohol doesn’t help to better manage emotions for these individuals.
• Feeling emotions as a result of emotion-altering chemicals found in some drugs.
• Inability to manage emotions due to the numbing effects of certain drugs and alcohol.

Many people develop drug or alcohol addictions as a result of their poorly managed emotions. As a way to cope or hide unwanted feelings, people begin to use drugs or alcohol as a way of self-medicating. Thus, developing drug or alcohol addictions completely unintentionally. But, further on down the road, they find out that rather than these substances helping to manage emotions, they actually make things much worse. And, experience the downside to addiction as there is a great emotional cost to developing one.

How the Physical Self Pays for Addiction

Certainly, drug addiction can lead to a number of physical costs. This is because drugs affect the body negatively, leading to a number of things like:

• Organ failure
• Heart disease
• Brain damage
• Faster aging
• Weakened immune system
• And more

Additional to these physical symptoms, drug addiction can actually result in other physical issues like a lack of sleep, nutrition, and hygiene. Thus, leading to even more physical illness.

How the Mental Self Pays for Addiction

Finally, addiction costs one mentally as well. Because addiction messes with a person’s reward system, which is a natural reward process of our brains that helps us to eat, sleep, and have sex regularly, a person’s mental state can be severely affected. Thus, leading to problems in these three areas of life. And, psychologically affecting a person until they can move on from using their drug of choice and join recovery.

Stop Paying the Cost of Addiction

Are you tired of the costs you pay to be addicted to drugs or alcohol? Fortunately, there is help available that can help you to establish a life free from these costs.

Here at Willow Place for Women, we offer addiction treatment for women struggling with any and all types of addiction. To learn more about enrolling in our outpatient program and getting started on your journey to recovery, contact us.