There are substance use disorder patients who have managed to lead busy lives. They might think that this means that there is no reason for them to seek professional treatment.
Gradual Effects
It’s true that it’s very common for substance use disorder patients to struggle with paying their bills and staying employed. However, not everyone who has this condition will be like that. Some people manage to more or less maintain at least some of their responsibilities while they have this disorder.
However, the people in this situation will often have a difficult time maintaining this sort of pace for a long enough period of time. These individuals are frequently hiding their substance use from the surrounding people and the individuals that they know, including their friends, coworkers, family members, and the other people in their lives.
That sort of pretense is difficult to maintain, and it can become another responsibility for these individuals just as quickly. They might eventually find that the pressure of even keeping up with the pretense is too much for them, which could lead to a terrible breakdown.
Substance use disorder patients who hide the condition from all the people in their lives will still also be spending lots of time and energy on that. They may have set aside some of their other goals in the process.
The stress of maintaining this difficult situation might also cause people to rely on the substances even more frequently, which will only make those circumstances less sustainable for them. Those people might be relieved to learn more about the possibility of recovering,
Disease Escalation
Individuals who are able to live relatively stable lives while suffering from a substance use disorder will also frequently have a support system and a degree of financial stability. However, it’s possible for both of those sources of support to suffer as the substance use disorder gets worse.
At that point, the patient in question will have a condition that is even more difficult to live with than it was before, but they will not have all the tools that they need to change their situation. The substances that people use will often be expensive, especially as they start needing more of them to continue to feel the primary effects associated with the drugs.
Individuals who may have been financially stable at one point can quickly lose most of the money that they’ve saved as the substance use disorder starts to get worse for them. Ultimately, substance use disorder patients can rarely continue to function this way because the condition itself is not stable.
Substance use disorders themselves usually get worse, so the mechanisms that people have used to reduce the disorder’s effects won’t always suffice in the future. Even the people who can avoid losing money or damaging the relationships that they have will still eventually find it too exhausting to keep up with a situation like this. They might decide to research detox centers and evaluate some of their choices when they reach this stage.
