How does the Drug Addiction Impact Society?

Introduction

In today’s world, human society is reeling with a multitude of problems. It won’t be wrong to say that most of these problems are the ruthless offering of the social structure that we live in. More and more people are increasingly inclined to try and get a feeling of high and lightness by use and mostly abuse of the substance. The increase in dependence on substances affects the psychological and mental well-being of an individual. The problem doesn’t end here. The practice of substance abuse has become so deeply ingrained in our modern-day culture, facilitated by pop and media, it’s almost a trend or in modern terms, “hip” to be a substance or drug addict.

Although drug addiction is a broad umbrella term used to refer to a wide range of addictions including alcohol abuse, natural drugs such as marijuana and synthetic drugs like cocaine, heroin, LSD, meth, etc. Mostly when we say drug abuse we refer to addictions to the synthetic drugs because of the severity they pose to the mental and physical well-being of an individual.

Causes of drug addiction

Most mental physical health professionals who treat drug addiction stress on the complex nature of the addiction problem about how it develops in an individual. Most stress on the fact that the underlying mental health issues are the sole reasons for developing an addiction. Untreated mental health conditions like anxiety and depression. The sudden rush of the feel-good hormones with the onset of drugs is what attracts people to try drugs. It’s mostly seen in people who have –

Gone through trauma or abuse

Some sort of mental illness

Extremely low self-esteem

Lives in poverty

Gone through relationship problems

Lost an extremely loved one

Chronic stress or pain

Chronic physical health condition

The problem of addiction doesn’t take much time to go out of control, so timely rehabilitation and counselling are extremely necessary.

Effects of drug addiction

Drug abuse is a tragic plague that has blown the society. More deaths are reported each year, due to the problem of drug addiction. Addictions not only harms the individual but also the friends and family who are related to them. The ways how drug addiction slowly affects the individuals are listed below-

A highly damaged immune system – People with drug abuse tendencies tend to have very weakened immunity, as a result, are more prone to getting infectious diseases, like AIDS.

Increased risk of cardiovascular disease – People with drug addictions tends to have risky cardiovascular conditions, increasing the risk of heart attacks and vein collapse.

Constant feeling of nausea and abdominal pain – People who abuse drugs have a constant feeling of vomiting and have little appetite to eat, causing them to lose weight tremendously.

Liver Failure – Physically drug abuse causes a widespread malfunctioning of various organs of the body, but mostly liver. The liver which helps in breaking down the food particles is tremendously strained because of the involvement of drugs in the body, which causes it to fail.

Loss of Memory – Drug abuse hampers with our ability to remember things and also harms our sense of rationality and common sense.

More chances of getting strokes and seizures – Since drug abuse causes such widespread problems in our body, it’s no surprise that anytime any vital organs of our body may cease to function properly and give strokes.

Apart from physical health, drug abuse causes the following problems with our lifestyle too –

Unemployment risk – Since drug abuse reduces the productive efficiency of an individual, it may pose a risk of getting unemployed due to this.

Relationship loss – A person who truly loves you wouldn’t want to see you go down. If they feel pressured by your behaviour, they may leave you because of the addiction.

Prone to self-harm – Since drug abuse hampers with all the cognitive abilities of the individual, it causes them to harm themselves.

Loss of Home and Money – Addictions are an expensive affair, and that may cause an individual to lose a lot of money to procure the substances.

Risky sexual behaviour – Drug addicts have a high chance of being prone to getting sexually – transmitted diseases because of the lack of will to take protection.

Conclusion

Drug addictions are not only harmful to the individual concerned but for society as a whole. More efforts should be undertaken by the government and society to curb the menace of drug abuse.

If you find yourself or your loved ones dealing with this issue, you need to get in touch with the concerned departments who provide help. There are various government sites that will give you information regarding addiction issues.