How Does Drug Addiction Affect Mental Health?

Drug addiction has an impact on several areas of life, not just for the person who has the addiction but for their close friends and family. But how does drug addiction affect mental health? It can disrupt emotional regulation, interfere with relationships, lead to depression or anxiety, and increase symptoms of isolation and loneliness. 

How Does Drug Addiction Affect Mental Health?

Regular drug and alcohol abuse changes the way the brain functions. It reduces the reward system’s ability to respond to input the way it should. Under normal circumstances, your brain releases positive chemicals as a reward for activities that are healthy and good for you, like eating a healthy meal, exercising, or having sex.

Finding the type of treatment is because it helps you to bring your brain’s reward system back to normal, providing rewards for the healthy activities and not the unhealthy ones.

This means it can have a profound impact on several areas of your mental health, particularly your mood and your emotional regulation.

Emotional Regulation

Long-term drug abuse changes the physical size of things like the amygdala versus the prefrontal cortex. Under normal circumstances you need these two to be relatively balanced so that the prefrontal cortex can help control the impulsivity of the amygdala.

When they are out of balance because of things like substance abuse or severe mental health disorders, it leads to increased impulsivity and detrimental behaviors. These behaviors have consequences, namely reduced emotional regulatory abilities.

In effect, this means that you won’t be able to control your emotions as well, and you might have extreme outbursts for situations that don’t warrant it or have feelings of severe depression in situations that aren’t as depressing or stressful as you might think.

In the long term, this can interfere not just with your emotional regulation but also with your subsequent relationships. If you struggle with continual outbursts or overwhelming anxiety, it can take away from stable relationships with friends and family. 

Depression

As a result of the way that drug addiction changes the brain, there are subsequent risks of isolation and depression. Depression is often a result of the brain failing to produce certain chemicals at the right levels in areas of the brain, like the prefrontal cortex. When this area of the brain doesn’t develop to the size it should be or function as it should, it can increase the risks of depressive disorders and anxiety.

So, how does drug addiction affect mental health in this way? Long-term addiction can cause physical changes to these areas and increase your risk of depression.

Isolation

It’s very common for people who struggle with addiction to have feelings of loneliness. In some cases, loneliness was part of an existing mental health disorder that contributed to substance abuse and subsequent addiction. 

In other cases, individuals who struggle with addiction or recovery might be ashamed of the things they have done in the past or get help for their addiction and realize that that means they can’t maintain the same friendships they once did. This can leave individuals feeling very isolated and lonely.

Getting Help for Drug Addiction with Ritual Recovery

If you are struggling with drug addiction and poor mental health as a consequence, Ritual Recovery offers an intensive outpatient program with upscale facilities and housing. Our outpatient programs come with flexible schedules, so you can ensure you have a schedule that fits your needs without having to reside full-time at your treatment center. 

During the course of your treatment, you will participate in regular individual and group therapy sessions designed to not only help you overcome your physical addiction but to reverse some of the impact that addiction has had on your mental health. This includes things like emotional regulation training and cognitive behavioral therapy, where you can learn more about identifying negative automatic thoughts and replacing them with positive ones and better communication with those you love. 

Overall, drug addiction can affect several areas of your mental health, making it more challenging to maintain good relationships, emotional regulation, and positivity. However, if you are struggling with drug addiction, you can find treatment at a level that works for you.

Contact our team to learn more about our flexible IOPs.