Addicted to drugs
A drug addiction is a serious problem with great consequences for the addict as well as for his or her environment. There is a drugs problem when the substances are or can no longer be used recreationally and the drug use controls a person’s social life, work or study but also starts to affect relations with the people in his direct environment, sports performances or hobbies.
Drugs can roughly be divided into 3 categories:
- Narcotics – such as heroine and opium
- Stimulants – such as cocaine and amphetamine
- Hallucinogens – such as LSD and mushrooms
Cannabis (weed, hash, marihuana) has multiple simultaneous effects and can have a numbing as well as a hallucinatory effect. In particular weed is a very underestimated drug both in terms of its effect as well as in terms of the physical and psychological damage which this drug can cause.
From recreational use to drug addiction
It often takes a long time before you realise that your recreational drug use has turned into obsessive use. Each time you are determined that this will be the last time, but the moment always comes when you cave in again. This has nothing to do with weakness: you are addicted to drugs.
Just as with other addictions, when you admit that you are addicted and you really want to overcome this addiction, this constitutes a great victory over yourself.
Denial of a drug problem
Often you yourself deny for a long time that you have a drug problem. You think that you can stop at any time. Often you have good intentions with regard to taking fewer drugs or stopping; but then nothing ever comes of it. For a long time you suppress and gloss over your drug problem. Then the moment comes when you or the people in your immediate surroundings realise that it can’t go on like this any longer. SolutionS is regularly approached by worried partners, parents or family members and their feeling of powerlessness is often harrowing. They really want to help they but don’t know how.