7 Signs Your Friend is Addicted to Drugs - Don't Leave Them Behind

Realizing that your friend is addicted to drugs can be absolutely terrifying. What’s worse is suspecting that they could be but not knowing for sure, watching helplessly as their life spirals further out of control. 

Addiction is considered to be a physical or psychological dependency on a substance, despite prevalent negative consequences permeating into every area of their existence. Should you say something? Will it push them away? 

If you’re concerned about someone you know may have struggling with addiction or alcohol abuse take this short quiz to determine if they need addiction treatment.

Here are some vital clues that indicate undisclosed substance abuse - recovery is possible and powerful - don’t leave your friend behind! 

Their Physical Appearance Just Isn’t the Same

You meet up with your buddy that you haven’t seen in a while and you are in shock. It hasn’t been that long but you feel like you’re looking at a different person. 

They’ve gained or lost a huge amount of weight, their eyes are bloodshot, they may be slurring their speech while you chat, or they generally can’t keep focused when you’re with them. 

You may even notice their hands shaking while they reach for something, or their grip seems shaky and unsure. You are concerned - what has gone wrong? 

Psychologically and physically, extensive drug use takes its toll. It’s natural that the body can’t keep pace with the frequent damage it’s experiencing and something has to give. These physical giveaways can be accompanied by hyperactivity, paranoia, confusion, irritability or aggression.

Obvious Cravings - that aren’t for Coffee 

Intense, all-consuming cravings are part and parcel of drug addiction - no-one escapes. These cravings become so impossible to hide that you will see your friend sometimes debilitated by them. They lose the ability to focus on basic tasks or they lose the thread of a conversation halfway through. 

Depending on the substance you may see the intense craving lead to intense misuse - the addict’s way of overcompensating for the withdrawal period endured. This could look like gulping huge quantities of alcohol in one sitting, dragging the drinker closer to an unwanted blackout in front of your eyes. 

Or inadvertently finding “stashes” around their home of their preferred substance of choice - with a hoard of excuses as to what they’re doing with that much, why it was there, and how it’s “not a big deal, relax”.  One thing an addict won’t do is let themselves run dry. 

Dependance, Tolerance, Withdrawal 

Why do addicts try to never let themselves run dry? Because if they do, and they’re dependent, they will experience withdrawal. Not only withdrawal, but they need increasingly larger amounts to feel “good”, “high” or simply their new version of “normal”. 

They not only have a dependency now but a high level of tolerance for their preferred substance and nausea, depression, severe anxiety, sleep difficulties, and at worse seizures await them if they don’t keep up with their new lifestyle choices. It may be at this stage that you start to notice small requests for money, here and there. What becomes increasingly concerning is that returning it to you becomes here and there as well, followed by a horde of excuses about “next time” “it’s not that much” and “just do me this small favor”. Alarm bells should ring. 

Poor Judgement Gets Poorer, Risk-Taking Gets Riskier

You used to love spending time with your friend, they were so fun, alive. Nights out with them would lead to a whole load of stupid behavior that you would spend years laughing about later. 

That is until the stupid behavior didn’t stop at the occasional night out. You now see your friend’s attitude lean towards full-on self-destruction. They are drinking or using before work, eroding their self-respect and the trust they’d earned from their colleagues. 

They are smoking before engaging in physical activity or showing up in social situations wasted before they’ve even started. The stories they recount of their “fun nights out” no longer sound fun at all, they sound dark and frightening. You feel a cold stone of fear drop into your stomach. 

Responsibilities Fall to the Wayside 

Life can get on top of us all, it’s simply how it is. As we get older and our list of responsibilities increases. We have to become more and more agile to handle everything that gets thrown at us. A person that is struggling with addiction will start to feel like they are unable to keep up with even simple day-to-day tasks, appointments, or self-care. 

They miss work or class assignments, won’t go anywhere unless there’s a bar involved, and their hygiene schedules become erratic. If your 10k running, outdoors enthusiast friend now can’t make it to 5 pm without a beer or can’t perform at work or school like they used to then you need to make a judgment call. 

Temporary Escape, Permanent Problem 

Nobody likes to feel negative emotions, but a part of growing up is learning about how to sit with them and cope effectively with an objective to create solutions. Many of us have turned to alcohol and substances in the past when faced with overwhelm, but what happens when the solution always seems to be getting obliterated?

All feelings are temporary, both the negative and the positive and consistently escaping into the temporary release of substances is a progressively more severe form of self-harm. We wouldn’t sit back if we saw our friends cutting themselves, so we can’t afford to sit back when the negative behavior takes another form which could be just as self-destructive. 

Strained Relationships

Your friend just can’t seem to get a break. Their co-workers are “being difficult”, their partner “needs to stop being so highly strung”, their boss “is an *&!”£$*%” and their other friends “are boring now”. 

They don’t seem to see that the common denominator in all of these messy interpersonal dynamics is them. They can’t see that they are losing everyone around them because it’s easier to blame outside circumstances as opposed to looking within. 

They don’t see that their substance has now become a priority and that they are now seeking out unhealthy relationships with people in the same boat as them. Get your friend's help as soon as you see this happening! 

These are seven clear indications that your friend is struggling with addiction and we urge you to help them to get help before it’s too late. The quicker they get help, the sooner they can get back on track. There is hope.  

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