Living With An Addict: What It’s Like

Addiction not only affects the addict, but also the family. The loved ones living with an addict are the ones who had to deal with the negative effects and behavior addiction brings. They have to go through the lies, manipulation, deceit, secrecy, blame, as well as emotional and even physical abuse. For someone who lives with an addict, or co-dependent, daily life revolves around sadness, hurt, fear, worry, despair, and a never-ending search for that elusive hope.

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This daily struggle with the addict and with their emotions can lead co-dependents to endure mental health issues as well:

Depression

Depression is one of the two most common things that people living with addicts battle with. The feeling of being let down, disappointed, hurt, and hopeless can be so overwhelming that you feel like you’re neck-deep in sadness and just can’t get out. Having depression for prolonged periods of time can affect your health physically and mentally. Its effects are as follows:

• change in eating habits
• abnormal hormones/ hormonal changes
• changes in mood
• inability to deal or feel pleasure
• changes in sleeping habits
• having morbid thoughts
• restlessness
• listlessness
• lethargy
• feeling fatigued

Feeling depression is far from just being sad. When you are depressed, there’s no easily snapping out of it. You cannot just get up and decide to be thankful and happy, just like what motivational quotes say. It doesn’t work that way for depressed people. Clinical depression changes your body and your brain in a way that makes it hard for you to just light up and be positive.

You can feel situational depression or major depression. When you live with an addict and go through many heartaches and problems such as loss, divorce, and other issues, you may feel situational depression that will eventually work out in time. However it’s often that situational depression progresses to major depression when you live with an addict because there is always problems, struggles, instability, and fights within the household.

Being depressed can cause you to entertain suicidal thoughts, so it is important to have depression treated by a professional before these thoughts become acted upon.

Anxiety

Often, there’s an interplay between anxiety and depression. Depressed people experience anxiety and vice versa. Anxiety comes when you are constantly uneasy, worried, stressed out, afraid, or even when you experience panic disorder.

Aside from panic disorder, anxiety can also cause changes in eating habits, deterioration of immune functions, and worsened chronic illnesses.

When you live with an addict, you live like you’re on the edge and walking on broken glass all the time. There’s a sense of instability and uncertainty that can leave you drained yet always on alert. Often, it can cause Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, something which veterans coming home from war also struggle with.

You also need help

The negative effects of addiction also trickles from the addict down to their family members and loved ones. As much as they need help, you need help too.

You can talk to our counselors for help with dealing with living with an addict. Bridges of hope has psychologists and social workers as well who can help you out.

Just reach out and call or text us at 09175098826.