Substance addiction is an ugly and painful thing, no matter how you try to sugarcoat it. It is physically and mentally dangerous, and it is heartbreaking and difficult for your loved ones to go through with you.
While your health, both mentally and physically, is important, the costs do not end there. Drug addiction is also extremely expensive, not only because of the costs incurred when you use your drug of choice, but because of the consequences that come with that use.
Many people want to break the cycle and stop their addiction, but they are afraid to get help because they think that recovery centers are too expensive. While they are usually not free, they are also cheaper in the long run than continuing to live with an addiction.
7 Ways That Recovery is Cheaper Than an Addiction
Keeping in mind that the severity of the addiction will determine whether you need to have an inpatient or an outpatient stay, and that the costs will vary because of this difference, there are some common ways that addictions are expensive.
- Those who live in or near poverty face the highest costs.
Even if it seems like a small amount of money being applied to your addiction, that five or ten dollars can be a huge percentage of your family’s income for the month.
If your addiction is more expensive, or if you are a heavy user, you may even be spending huge chunks of what could have gone towards basic living expenses, food, gas, or other necessities.
- When you live paycheck to paycheck, you have to be extra careful to avoid addictions.
People who live at this level are more susceptible to the “escapist” effects that substance use can bring. The use of the drug can help you forget, for a short time, the problems that you are facing.
This instant gratification becomes harder and harder to get, and you continue to chase it more and more frequently, resulting in that small expense becoming a huge burden on you and your family before you notice what is going on.
- Your drug habits can affect your children and their future generations.
If your substance abuse is causing your children to struggle, they are likely not paying attention in school or getting the support they need to be successful, and, worse, they may even copy your habits, developing addictions early in life themselves and repeating the cycle for their children.
- The savings you gain from quitting your addiction, over a period of time, will actually pay for the recovery center and then some.
Any substance addiction costs, even something that appears harmless, like a bottle of beer. Over time, this continual use has a major detrimental effect on your pocketbook.
Think about it this way: If you spend $5 a day to purchase your cigarettes, alcohol, or other drug, that is $35 a week. This becomes almost $!50 each month. What could you do with $!50 every month? Your family could use that money to get out of the hole they are in, or you could travel.
That $150 each month becomes $1000 in six months. If you were not spending $1000 every six months on your addiction, over the course of the next few years your life would significantly improve.
Consider what it would be like if your $5 habit is more costly. Harder drugs are even more expensive, and in the long run, what could you be doing with that money instead of slowly damaging your mind and body, and destroying your family?
The price of the recovery center, like ArcProject.org.uk, is a drop in the bucket compared to how much you will save by quitting your addiction permanently.
- Chronic drug use almost always leads to loss of income.
Drug abuse takes its toll in little ways. You may find that you would rather be at home using your drug of choice than at work, at a job you are beginning to hate more and more.
You may find that, when you do push yourself and go to work, your temper is more irritable. People who you used to get along with may irritate you, your temper may flare more often, and your work quality will likely go down. The more people notice and try to help you, the angrier you get, and you probably blame everyone else. You may even take it out on your family and close friends.
This cycle can not last long before you begin missing out on promotions, start losing hours, or even lose your job entirely. In fact, most chronic addicts who lose their job remain unemployed, end up in jail, or are forced to enter a long-term rehabilitation facility.
These years of lost productivity add up astronomically, and the impact over your lifetime can be significant. Your time of substance abuse can affect you financially until you die. This cost can easily be offset by your choice to attend a rehab center.
- Society pays for your addiction, as well.
The consequences of your drug use do not just stay limited to you and your family. In reality, your drug use costs society billions of dollars because your chronic addiction will, inevitably, lead to health care expenses and lost productivity that will cause you and your family to turn to the government for financial support.
In addition to those costs, substance abusers are more likely to turn to crime to pay for their drugs and the bills they can no longer afford. This results in the need for an increase in law enforcement, and more need for jails and prisons, guards, employees, and the costs that are incurred while drug users are imprisoned.
Statistics show that alcohol alone results in costs of over $249 billion annually to society, with illicit drug use adding another $!93 billion in costs.
However, spending $1 on substance abuse treatment can save society $4 on health care costs and $7 on law enforcement costs. Your choice to enter rehab will pay for itself exponentially.
- Think Carefully About How You Spend Your Money
Drug use is an addiction, and that’s understood. You may not be able to control your choices on your own, and you may understand that what you are doing is wrong on many levels. Maybe you even want to stop.
But you can’t do it on your own.
Seek help, and let the experts at an addiction recovery center guide you in this life-saving process.
If you or a loved one is suffering from addiction act now. The longer you wait the higher the chances are of having an overdoes. There are great rehab programs in Colorado that are ready and willing to help.
