Signs of Abuse and Addiction

List of sings of substance abuse and addiction can help you to recognize that someone is an abuser. Remember what I have mentioned in one of previous articles – the sooner substance abuse will be recognized the better chances for successful treatment will be.

Signs of substance abuse:

any sudden changes in appearance (for example neglected hygiene, wearing sunglasses and/or long sleeve shirts at inappropriate times, glassy eyes, skin abrasions), changes in personality, school or work performance, overall attitude (points listed below),
ingesting more drugs than intended and more than ever before (people who abuse substance experience tolerance mechanism that makes them unable to achieve the same effect taking equal doses of medicament all the time; dose has to be enlarged),
giving up past activities (people who abuse substance spend less time doing activities that they used to do before; less time for hobbies, sports etc.),
no concern about future, self-exposing to risk (especially visible during 'hard' types of abuse like drug or alcohol abuse/addiction),
giving up meetings with friends to have ability to get high or drunk (some people who abuse substance or who are addicted become unable to have fun without doing drugs / smoking / drinking alcohol etc. In consequence if their friends do not accept abuse or addiction, people who abuse find it better to stay alone to have chance to use substance needed, without being criticized),
work efficiency decrease, declining grades, inability to fulfill obligations (substance abuse and addiction can interfere everyday life very strongly. Any sudden changes in attendance in school (or work) that are recurrent in time are fishy. Generally speaking abuse and addiction cause decline in quality of work or grades. Sometimes sudden changes in quality of things done – from good and great to bad results – are good sign of abuse of special psychoactive drugs),
financial problems, disappearing money or valuables, stealing, borrowing money (when substance cost is high – people who abuse substance need to sell possessions or steal items from home, employer, shops etc. to be able to buy drugs or alcohol),
apathy, aggressiveness, testiness, irritability, angry outbursts, forgetfulness, bad moods, exhaustion, depression, hopelessness,
frequent changes of mood (also connected with hangovers and having 'blackouts'. Mood swings are result of substance abuse cycle – satisfaction and content after ingestion, but on the other hand – irritability and difficulty to focus on something during long periods of time between ingestions),
using substance first thing in the morning (there are thousands of thousands of people who wake up in the morning, stretch out and stand in the window to smoke),
use of room deodorizers (teen trying to hide tobacco smoke (or chemical vapor) in their rooms),
lying about quantity of substance used and trying not to talk about addiction and substance abuses,
inability to stop using substance and withdrawal syndromes (characteristic for kind of substance abused),
and more...