The Hidden Cost of Addiction

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The Hidden Cost of Addiction

The Cost of an Addiction

It is possible to estimate the amount of money we’ve spent on a drug. Taking alcohol as an example, we could look at the average amount we spend every week, and then extrapolate how much we have spent to date. But would this really be showing us the cost of addiction?

Unfortunately, no.

In most cases the real cost of addiction remains hidden. Most of it may not be open to being calculated as a monetary value.

What price should we put on emotional pain, physical damage, and psychological struggle?

The Physical Cost of Addiction

The body will develop tolerance to a drug we use regularly, but this does not mean that we are protected from it. In fact, the way the body adapts might put us more at risk of physical damage.

Tolerance means the body adapts to a harmful substance we are ingesting. This means we need more to get the same effect that we would have gotten before with a weaker dose. It doesn’t stop the damage.

Imagine a large crater appears on the road we take to work. We would need to find a detour to get to our destination. The crater would still be there, and our journey to work would become more difficult.

Tolerance is like the detour we make when a local road is damaged. It allows us to continue with the behaviour, so we cause more damage. New craters appear on the new route. This continues until we run out of roads to damage. The body is no longer able to adapt.

Substance misuse can eventually start to damage the organs in the body such as the heart, liver, and pancreas. It can reach a point where the chances of a full physical recovery disappear. The most worrying part is that a lot of this damage can occur without us even noticing any symptoms.

For example, long-term heavy drinking can cause fatty liver disease. This can happen without there being any obvious signs unless the person gets a liver function blood test. If the alcohol misuse goes on for long enough, it can lead to liver cirrhosis where the damage can’t be undone (although even then there is still some hope for the future if the person stops).

"Alcohol gave me wings but then it took away the sky"

Anonymous

The Psychological Cost of Addiction

Some of us turn to alcohol or other drugs because we are struggling with our mental health. Maybe we are anxious or depressed, or dealing with a bereavement. In the beginning this self-medication can seem to make things better, but in the long term it makes things much worse. One way people in recovery describe the situation is that “alcohol gave me wings but then it took away the sky”.

The problem with self-medication is that it involves suppressing symptoms rather than treating the underlying cause of them. This symptom relief is only ever temporary, and due to tolerance, it comes at an increasingly high cost. The comedown afterwards can be worse than the symptoms we were trying to treat.

Even if we didn’t start out self-medicating an underlying mental health issue, substance misuse is enough to cause one. Alcohol-induced depression is a real risk, and other drugs can trigger psychotic episodes and delusions. The psychological stress of dealing with an addiction also damages our mental health.

The Emotional Cost of Addiction

The emotional cost of addiction includes guilt, shame, loss, and grief. We can feel haunted by choices we made while under the influence and struggle to forgive ourselves. We may experience shame over lost opportunities and damage to our reputation. Then there is the grief for all that is lost to the addiction.

Once an addiction takes hold, it starts to dominate our life. It doesn’t leave much room for relationships or other interests. For example, we might only be interested in social gatherings where there is alcohol involved. Or we might always get home late, when the children are in bed, because we need a few beers in the pub to unwind after work.

Even if we are high-functioning (e.g. still successful in a career), neglect will be happening in at least some areas. In fact, we may use this to justify the neglect – don’t I deserve to relax after a hard day at work?

The Gains of Recovery

If you been reading up until this point, the picture may look bleak.

The good news is that there is the hope of regaining much of what has been lost. In fact, if we learn from our time in addiction, we may end up better able to handle the future. Even if there has been some serious physical damage (e.g. liver cirrhosis), there is still the possibility of a brighter future.

Ending the substance misuse may prevent further damage, but recovery usually requires adopting a new way of living. It may involve working with a counsellor/therapist to get to the roots of the problem. Perhaps we will benefit from approaches like mindfulness or CBT that help us to deal better with our thoughts, emotions, and moods. We may need help to deal with relationships more smoothly. Doing this work doesn’t get us back to where we were prior to addiction, it leads us to something much better.

If you have any questions or want to find out more about the program at Hope Rehab Thailand, please contact us now for information.