How Addiction Hurts Family and Friends

If you have never known someone with an addiction, it's easy to think it's something that only affects the user. Of course, those with addictions feel the most damage. Their minds, bodies, and lives suffer from the weight of substance abuse. While it's true these individuals face the most significant battle, the people in their circle will suffer, too. 

Friends, family, partners, and children will not go untouched. It's a traumatic situation on both sides. People with addictions leave a lot of emotional damage as they continue down this path.  Their loved ones may suffer beyond the emotional weight as well, being forced to deal with legal, medical, and financial damage, too. 

Addiction often leads to broken relationships.

Addiction is a heavy weight on any relationship. It's hard for parents to see their child battling substance abuse and for friends to see someone they care for struggling. However, romantic relationships tend to feel this weight the most. 

Marriages end over addiction all the time. People with an addiction tend to want to hide things and may experience extreme behavior changes. Communication becomes more complex, a vital part of any successful romantic relationship. 

Addiction is a heavy weight to bear, and unfortunately, it leads many relationships down the drain. Substance use sucks up time that could be used to cherish your partner. This leads to emotional distance, which is hard to heal. With drugs come heightened emotions, which can lead to way more fights in the home. 

Addiction can lead to a loss of trust in any relationship, whether that's with a friend or something more. Many who battle addiction find themselves with significantly fewer people in their lives. On the bright side, people can turn this around through recovery at a treatment center.

As someone who identifies as anything outside of being heterosexual and cisgender, it can be hard to find the right fit for treatment. If one of your most significant reasons to get help is to heal your relationship and reconnect with your partner, it's essential that you can be the most authentic version of yourself while seeking care. You need to feel heard and feel able to connect with this part of yourself along your healing journey. 

Addiction hurts the children in your life.

Addiction becomes all the more hurtful when children are in the picture. They will struggle to see someone they look up to change because of drugs. Some witness their parents doing drugs in front of them, and in the worst cases, even dying, which can create a lifelong issue for them. 

Generational trauma is a primary concern here. Children who witness their parents doing drugs or are surrounded by substances in the household may grow up to repeat this cycle. Many kids who grow up seeing addiction somehow blame themselves, which can lead to low self-confidence and image. 

Parents who struggle with addiction may not always see the harm they're doing right away, but it's there. Choosing to purchase drugs adds up and can impact a child's access to basic needs. It's common for addiction to impact a child's performance at school and attendance as well. Addiction takes so much away from young people. 

It's common for those with addictions to come in and out of their kids' lives. In some cases, they may lose custody. Having a child removed from the home is hard on both parties. This lack of security is another factor that can lead a child to abuse substances themselves when they get a bit older.

Addiction impacts friends, too. 

Addiction doesn't just harm family members, partners, and kids; it hurts friends, too. 

No one wants to be the final reason someone starts using drugs, but peer pressure is a real problem. If a person with an addiction is around a close friend often, that person may feel pressured to give substances a try. This may look innocent at first, but it can lead to another person's addiction. 

If the friends don't want to join in, those who abuse drugs often lose them entirely. Many people don't feel comfortable being around a person with an addiction, especially if they have a choice, like with friends. People with an addiction tend to develop a new personality, which can be hard to get used to. Sometimes, new behaviors are negative, and the person becomes flakey, which would be hard for anyone to work with. 

Those with addictions often change friend groups as they want to be surrounded by people who enjoy the same lifestyle as them. Other addicts may not judge and instead support the continuation down this path, which makes someone who doesn't want to quit more comfortable. This can continue poor habits and make it way more challenging to stop doing drugs. 

Recovery can help protect and rebuild relationships.

Although it might not feel like it right now, sobriety is possible. Whether you struggle with alcohol  or another drug, treatment can help. It can be beneficial to have somewhere that encourages you to embrace your LGBTQ+ identity while you recover. Pride Detox is here to help.