Nearly half of Americans have a family member or close friend who struggles with drug addiction. Addiction can unfortunately rob you of your health and happiness and impact your quality of life and relationships for the worse. It can be extremely hard to watch a family member or friend struggle with addiction, and inevitably addiction can fracture relationships. In this article, you’ll learn more about how addiction impacts relationships.
Worthy Wellness is a top-rated women’s San Diego drug rehab that is committed to helping women achieve life-long sobriety. We offer a range of personalized addiction treatment services that can help you build a foundation for long-lasting recovery. Contact us today to learn how we can help you overcome addiction.
8 Ways Addiction Impacts Relationships
From increased conflict to emotional strain, addiction can hurt relationships. Keep reading to learn more about how addiction impacts relationships.
- Emotional Strain and Distance
First, addiction can cause emotional strain and distance between you and your friends and family members. Many of your loved ones will notice that you are no longer the person they remember you to be, and many people struggling with addiction spend less quality time with loved ones. The person struggling with an addiction may feel isolated from their loved ones, especially if they are hiding their addiction, and their friends and family members may feel this distance.
- Stress and Anxiety
Inevitably, there will be more stress and anxiety in your relationships when you are struggling with addiction. This can be due to a number of reasons, such as the stress of trying to hide your addiction or the anxiety your family may feel if they know you are struggling with an addiction.
- Trust Issues
Next, addiction can create a lack of trust within a relationship. This is especially true if a person continually denies and lies about their addiction. Eventually, family members and friends may lose trust in the relationship.
- Potential for Enabling One’s Addiction
It can be difficult watching your loved one struggle with addiction. Unfortunately, many friends and family members may try to help their loved one struggling with addiction when their behaviors may actually only be enabling their addiction. An example of enabling would be giving money to a loved one, who then uses that money to fuel their addiction.
- Increased Conflict
Addiction can create conflict in a relationship, especially if there is broken trust and a lack of clear communication. This conflict can lead to problems in the relationship.
- Hurts Honest Communication
Many people struggling with addiction try to hide their substance abuse; therefore, addiction doesn’t just break trust in a relationship but it hurts honest, healthy communication in the relationship. This can lead to resentment and further conflict.
- Raises Sense of Betrayal
Many loved ones can also feel a sense of betrayal due to the lack of communication, trust, and conflict within the relationship. This is especially true if a loved one struggling with addiction seemingly abandons their family in pursuit of fueling their addiction.
- Financial Strain
Finally, addiction can put a financial strain and burden on relationships. For example, many people may struggle to keep a job when they are struggling with their addiction, and without any income coming in, this can put a strain on members of the relationship, such as a spouse or parent, who may likely feel responsible for having to pay for the expenses of the person with an addiction.
Help Is Available
Addiction can hurt relationships in a number of ways, from causing emotional strain and distance to a lack of communication and connection. However, your relationships don’t have to be like this forever. There is help available for you to safely overcome addiction, heal, and rebuild your relationships.
At Worthy Wellness, we help women struggling with mental illness and addiction get the personalized care they need to lead a healthier, happier life. We understand that each person’s recovery journey is unique. That’s why our team offers personalized care to ensure you receive the right care that best suits your recovery needs. Contact our women’s drug rehab today to learn how we can support your road to recovery.
