Even drug addicts don’t understand the full financial costs of their problem. Drug addiction takes a significant toll on its victims. Firstly, drug addicts have frequent emotional struggles. The victims are often emotionally unstable, which affects the emotional state of people around them. In addition, drug addiction can severely affect the addict’s relationships.
Essentially, drug addiction can make you a liability. Therefore, this can strain your personal and professional relationships. This is because keeping you close will be a burden. Worse still, drug addiction has health and medical implications. Continuous use of harmful substances will significantly damage your health.
However, these aren’t the only disadvantages of drug addiction. Instead, there are also financial costs to addiction. The financial strain is less talked about, though. At Carolina Recovery in Durham, we can help you beat drug addiction. Then, you can be free from all these harmful side effects.
What Are the Financial Costs of Drug Addiction?
There are financial costs to drug addiction. So, this article explains these disadvantages to both individuals and society.
Cost of Buying Drugs
The financial costs of drug addiction include the cost of purchasing drugs and other controlled substances. Hard drugs and prescription medication are usually costly. However, an addiction makes it costlier. This is because of the continuous purchase of these drugs.
For example, let’s say you’re addicted to a $7 pill. In a month, you may waste up to $210 on that drug. The year’s end might also see you spend $2,485 on your drug addiction. A report has shown that Americans spend billions of dollars on drugs annually. These are funds you could have invested in a profitable business venture.
Healthcare and Medical Bills
Drug addicts have a significant chance of developing major health challenges. This is especially the case with long-term drug abuse. Overdosing is also a possibility for drug addicts. All these mean that drug addicts are frequent visitors to hospitals.
Therefore, they’ll struggle to pay exorbitant medical bills – another of those financial costs many don’t realize happens. In addition, health insurance premiums will go up once there’s evidence of drug abuse. This is because insurance companies will consider you a high-risk policyholder. That is, your addiction increases the chances of insured diseases or death occurring.
Loss of Income and Reduced Productivity
Drug abuse can reduce your overall productivity. For instance, students can slack in their school work. This then leads them to drop out and lose their chances of getting well-paying jobs. In addition, addicted employees may struggle to remain productive at work. For example, you’re no use to your employer if you’re intoxicated during work hours.
Even if you can stay alert, your work performance will be very low. You can thus miss out on promotions, bonuses and may have to take on extra jobs. Finally, your employer may have to sack you. Once employees lose their jobs, they usually find it hard to get another or even end up in jail. The financial impact can be immense in this case.
Legal and Litigation Fees
Drug addicts often have constant run-ins with the law. Firstly, possession and consumption of many controlled substances and hard drugs is a crime. Therefore, the police can arrest and charge you for such offenses. Acting under the influence of drugs and alcohol can also make you commit other offenses.
For example, driving under the influence of drugs is an offense in North Carolina. This is also the legal position in most American states. So, you may become a frequent visitor to police jails. This means that you’ll also require lawyers to avoid convictions or get lighter sentences. Therefore, you’ll have to pay hefty legal fees.
Cost of Addiction to the Society
Drug addicts aren’t the only ones who bear these financial consequences. Instead, the entire country pays for the actions of drug addicts. These losses manifest as increased healthcare costs, lost productivity, and drug enforcement programs. Furthermore, drug addicts wouldn’t contribute their economic quota to nation-building.
Available data also shows that the US has spent over a trillion dollars on the fight against drugs in the last 50 years. Unfortunately, drug abuse is still on the rise in the US. Therefore, the country will lose more money, except drug addicts join the fight by getting help.
Let’s Help You Get Better at Carolina Recovery in Durham!
No one wants to suffer these financial consequences because of drug addiction. However, ditching drug addiction isn’t as easy as starting drug consumption. Therefore, you’ll need professional help to get better. Fortunately, helping drug addicts is all we’re about at Carolina Recovery. We’ve helped many people escape the shackles of drug addiction. So, visit our Durham center today to start your recovery process.
