If you are reading this, you already suspect you have a problem. Knowing for sure can help you make important decisions about how to proceed. People get caught up with many different drugs and each person is an individual, however, if the following traits sound familiar, you may be an addict. Here are some of the ways your life may be impacted by addiction:
Work: If your drug use negatively impacts your job, and instead of giving up drugs you continue to risk that job, you may be addicted. Problems such as tardiness, incomplete work, stealing from the company, or not showing up for shifts are common among addicts. Other signs include calling out sick, because work interferes with drug seeking time, or frequently leaving work early because you are in withdrawal.
Finances: Your bills no longer get paid on time. The key is that they used to. If your drug use causes you to now spend money that used to take care of rent, mortgage, electricity, food, clothing for the kids, etc., you may be addicted. How much sense does it make to not pay the rent just so you can get high? To the non-addict, it makes no sense at all. To the addict, it makes all the sense in the world, in that moment. Borrowing from friends and family to make up for the bill money you are spending on drugs does not mean you aren't addicted. It means you are trying to cover your addiction.
Strained Relationships: Addicts and non-addicts mix about as well as oil and vinegar. Relationships fall by the wayside, unless of course that person can help you get drugs. Everybody else is a waste of time. Even worse are those who try to stop you. If you are arguing with people you used to get along with and cutting anyone out of your life that is not connected to drugs, you may be addicted. It is easy to rationalize and convince yourself that all these people have offended you somehow. But if the only people you associate with now are connected to drugs, its time to face the possibility that you have an addiction.
Legal Troubles: Committing crimes to support a drug habit goes far beyond recreational use and points to addiction. It doesn't matter which crimes you choose. If it is to pay for drugs, you have a problem. Addicts have been known to shoplift, burglarize homes and cars, sell their bodies, sell drugs, commit violent acts for pay and forge checks. Basically, if you make choices in life that can land you in jail, or have been to jail because of those choices, all to obtain more drugs, you probably have an addiction.