how dose drug addiction effect the family and love ones?

Answer 1

On the Individual

People who use drugs experience a wide array of physical effects other than those expected. The excitement of a cocaine high, for instance, is followed by a "crash" : a period of anxiety, fatigue, depression, and an acute desire for more cocaine to alleviate the feelings of the crash. Marijuana and alcohol interfere with motor control and are factors in many automobile accidents. Users of marijuana and hallucinogenic drugs may experience flashbacks, unwanted recurrences of the drug's effects weeks or months after use. Sudden abstinence from certain drugs results in withdrawal symptoms. For example, heroin withdrawal can cause vomiting, muscle cramps, convulsions, and delirium. With the continued use of a physically addictive drug, tolerance develops; i.e., constantly increasing amounts of the drug are needed to duplicate the initial effect. Sharing hypodermic needles used to inject some drugs dramatically increases the risk of contracting AIDS and some types of hepatitis . In addition, increased sexual activity among drug users, both in prostitution and from the disinhibiting effect of some drugs, also puts them at a higher risk of AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases . Because the purity and dosage of illegal drugs are uncontrolled, drug overdose is a constant risk. There are over 10,000 deaths directly attributable to drug use in the United States every year; the substances most frequently involved are cocaine, heroin, and morphine, often combined with alcohol or other drugs. Many drug users engage in criminal activity, such as burglary and prostitution, to raise the money to buy drugs, and some drugs, especially alcohol, are associated with violent behavior.

Effects on the Family

The user's preoccupation with the substance, plus its effects on mood and performance, can lead to marital problems and poor work performance or dismissal. Drug use can disrupt family life and create destructive patterns of codependency, that is, the spouse or whole family, out of love or fear of consequences, inadvertently enables the user to continue using drugs by covering up, supplying money, or denying there is a problem. Pregnant drug users, because of the drugs themselves or poor self-care in general, bear a much higher rate of low birth-weight babies than the average. Many drugs (e.g., crack and heroin) cross the placental barrier, resulting in addicted babies who go through withdrawal soon after birth, and fetal alcohol syndrome can affect children of mothers who consume alcohol during pregnancy. Pregnant women who acquire the AIDS virus through intravenous drug use pass the virus to their infant.
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/d/drugaddi.asp
http://www.arts.uwaterloo.ca/~cellard/teaching/PSYC261/drugpaper.pdf

Answer 2

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Answer 3

1) You can no longer trust the addict
2) They might steal from you to fund their habit
3) They can bring down the reputation of the family
4) They won't care about you - only where their next fix is coming from

It doesn't have to be this way though. I'm sure there are lots of families who have helped & supported family members through addiction without any of the above problems.


:-)

Answer 4

where do i start.
obviously there are health reasons....overdosing ,sharing needles,threat of heart failure etc... other health reasons include abcesses,tooth decay, skin looks manky, hair gets thin, platelets in blood can drop to low level, also can be related to mental illness. if its your son ,daughter,brother sister ,mum or dad taking drugs you cannot help but worry about thier health....
then theres the bad company that they may be keeping.....i dont know of many habitual drug users who can hold down a full time job...im not saying for one minute that there arent any users who work fulltime-but if their timekeeping and performance or attitude goes downhill they soon see themselves out of work..
a habitual drug habit is also expensive. no matter what drug it is..they are not cheap.. its easy to get sucked into dealing drugs... or selling possessions for drugs.and when there is nothing left to sell, easy to sell someone elses possessions. ....things can spiral out of control very fast....and it hurts to see someone you care about being so destructive.... stealing from family and friends, getting arrested, getting known by local people as a drug addict or dealer...
best thing is to avoid them in the first place.

Answer 5

Hey I work with kids who have lived in a house with an alcoholic or drug addicts or are addicts themself. I f you wish to contact me via email i will let you know more

Answer 6

1

Answer 7

It,s the same as crucifiction only it takes longer stop Now - your life and your families lives are worth much much much more

Answer 8

In my case my fathers adiction lead to emotional abuse that nearly ruined my life, it cost him two wifes and two children (myself and my half-brother who has been out of contact for 25 years now), it of course cost a lot of money, cost my father his life...and so on.

Answer 9

It destroys their lives.