How Drug Addiction Affects Social Relationships

You’re probably here because you’re curious about how social relationships go when one person suffers from drug dependence. Perhaps, too, you’ve found a potential person you want to be a part of your life, whether as a friend, lover, or acquaintance, and this person has substance addiction.

Contents

Codependency Destruction of intimacy Mistrust Abuse Falling out Conclusion References

It may also be that you’re researching this topic because a friend or loved one is desiring to enter a relationship with someone with substance use disorder. Or maybe you’re a substance user yourself and you want to see how you’ll fare once you reintegrate yourself into society. Whatever reasons you have, it pays to know how drug addiction can affect social relationships.

Codependency

A friendly, romantic, or even platonic relationship with a person with substance use disorder could result in codependency. Codependency happens when a person becomes overly reliant on another for their physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs. In the case of drug-dependent persons, they may become codependent because of their intense craving for the substances they use. (1)

Codependency could quickly manifest if people surrounding a substance user are helping them the wrong way. Instead of encouraging them to stop feeding their addiction and get them the help they need, they provide them with the things they want. In turn, these people feel a sense of satisfaction as they lead themselves to believe they’re overly needed. Ultimately, this makes codependency highly unhealthy and destructive. (1)

Especially if there are two addicts in a relationship, codependency could instantly develop. Such a situation could easily subject both to enabling behaviors, making it more difficult for them to escape their plight.

Destruction of intimacy

In some cases, addiction starts because a person suffers from trauma. A person with substance use disorder could have experienced grave events early on in their life and relied on substances to help them forget these experiences, even only temporarily. For this reason, a relationship with a person suffering from drug dependence may be devoid of meaningful intimacy.

Addiction can also introduce sexual and deviant behaviors into the relationship. For instance, the drug-dependent partner may involve drugs during intimate and sexual activities. There are many consequences to this. First, the other person may feel emotionally neglected. Second, that person may experience sexual dissatisfaction. Third, they could be at risk of becoming substance dependent, too.

Mistrust

Every relationship is based on trust. One of the biggest concerns about persons with substance use disorder is their tendency to be secretive or dishonest about their activities, including when using drugs. Depending on your awareness of the severity of their addiction, you may find it difficult to trust them.

Stealing because of drug dependence is also a common issue with a user because of the wrenching financial costs of addiction. This behavior is one of the unscrupulous things a drug-dependent person may subject their loved ones to due to their uncontrolled urges.

Abuse

The level of abuse a substance user may display in a relationship varies. It mainly depends on the type of substance they’re taking, the severity of their addiction, and their mental health. Many people with mental health illnesses are said to experience drug dependence issues. In fact, according to a 2017 statistic, 8.5 million Americans suffered from both mental health and substance use disorders. (2)

To explain it more clearly, when a person with mental health problems becomes addicted to drugs like methamphetamine or cocaine, it could only push them to suffer extreme depression, anxiety, and paranoia. These mental conditions could easily make them violent and abusive in a relationship.

But while people may think abuse in a relationship only comes from the drug-dependent party, this may not be true in all cases as abuse may also come from the other person. Sometimes, marital abuse and intimate partner violence could be the cause of substance dependence.

Violence may be the most prominent form of abuse in addiction relationships, but abuse can also consist of verbal lashing, manipulation, and humiliation. These kinds of abuse only make it difficult to help someone who struggles with addiction.

Falling out

Having a social relationship with a person suffering from drug addiction takes a lot of patience and care. A person who’s not ready for all the harmful effects of substance use in a relationship can quickly become outraged, appalled, and exhausted. And these can easily lead to a falling out.

Multiple groups have found a solid link between drug addiction and divorce. In some marriages, the drug-dependent partner is found to spend at least 50% of their income on drugs. This causes financial and trust issues between couples, consequently resulting in divorce. (3)

Conclusion

Individuals with substance addiction can be easily judged, and many unfavorable and unpleasant things are often said about them. However, it doesn’t mean they can’t have meaningful and healthy social relationships with others. Having a connection with a person suffering from substance addiction could nonetheless pose many complex challenges in the future. So whatever your reason for finding this article and whatever situation you’re in, stay strong and good luck.