Addiction steals from you. It depletes vital parts of your life that you do not notice are gone until they have been completely depleted. There are many things that addiction takes away, this is only a few of them. Most of the things that it takes are not noticeable until it is way too late.
1. The Vitamins and Minerals in Your Body
Addiction depletes key nutrients in your body. It starts to eat you from the inside out.
2. The Muscle in Your Body
When your body is being depleted by the addiction, it starts to waste away the muscles in your body.
3. Your Overall Health
As it takes away vital nutrients either from lack of healthy eating or the drug itself, your health declines.
4. Your bank account
The financial cost of drug addiction is astronomical. You will pay for everything from high priced drugs to legal fees if you are caught.
5. Your Self-Esteem and Self-Respect
Eventually, drugs take away your self-esteem and self-respect until you are willing to do anything to get the drug including theft and prostitution.
6. Your Family
Addiction makes you forget your family. They will leave if you do not seek treatment.
7. Your Friends
You forget your friends that do not use. Most people won’t stay around an addict that continues to destroy themselves.
8. Your Job
You forget to go to work or show up late. This eventually depletes your bosses patience and they will fire you for it.
9. The Time you Would Spend Doing Things you Enjoy
After a while, you stop doing things that you enjoy. You stop living unless you are doing the drug.
10. Your Sanity
Depending on the substance, your addiction depletes your sanity. Some drugs do this faster than others but all addictions do this eventually.
11. Your Brain
Most addictions begin to destroy the neural pathways in your brain causing cognitive dysfunction and serious damage.
12. Your Creativity
You stop thinking about anything but the drug after awhile. Most people think they are more creative on drugs but they really are not.
13. Your Sex Drive
Most drugs affect your sex drive. Even ecstasy is not a stimulant for sex.
14. Your Sense of Self
You lose yourself to the drug. Who you are disappears under the weight of the addiction.
15. Your Ability to do Things that You Enjoy
Your are consumed by getting the drug, using the drug, coming down off the drug, and things the things that you enjoy fall by the wayside.
16. Several Neurotransmitters
Addiction changes the way that your brain works. The neurotransmitters like dopamine and serotonin become depleted as the addiction progresses.
17. Your Ability to Process Things
You lose your cognitive abilities during the addiction process. Most people suffer some form of brain damage while they are addicted to drugs.
18. Sometimes your Ability to Have Children
Many drugs start to effect the reproductive system of both male and female users. Not only might your child be deformed but you might not be able to have children at all.
19. Your Freedom
Using drugs for recreation is illegal, even alcohol will eventually get you into trouble with the authorities. You will eventually get arrested and most likely incarcerated.
20. Your Life
You not only lose your lifestyle and way to live to the drug, you could actually kill yourself while using the drug. Most people who overdose on a drug, say that they won’t shortly before dying.
Fortunately, there is a way out. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, addiction is treatable.