How Opioid Addiction Can Affect Your Social Life

Opioid addiction is a chronic disease that can negatively affect many aspects of your life and physical health. Regardless of this impact, people with an opioid addiction may still find it incredibly difficult to stop misusing opioids without help.

At Revolution Psychiatric and Addiction Treatment, our addiction expert, Richard E. Repass, MD, offers a range of services that support you in overcoming your addiction to opioids. Dr. Repass specializes in BR+NAD™ infusions, which help you kick your addiction for good without the pain of withdrawal.

Understanding opioid addiction

Opioids are a powerful class of drugs that relieve pain but can be highly addictive. The medications, which include oxycontin, morphine, methadone, and heroin, stimulate your brain’s reward system and trigger a release of endorphins that give you a sense of euphoria.

Doctors prescribe opioids to treat chronic pain conditions. But the euphoric sensations the medications produce cause some people to misuse or abuse them. Opioid abuse can quickly lead to an addiction, or an inability to stop using the medications.

Trying to quit opioids on your own can cause a range of withdrawal symptoms, which make quitting more difficult. Withdrawal symptoms can include:

• Anxiety
• Depression
• Irritability
• Nausea
• Sweating
• Vomiting
• Insomnia

Another concerning side effect of opioid addiction is opioid withdrawal syndrome, a potentially life-threatening condition that can lead to respiratory arrest.

Social impact of opioid addiction

An addiction to opioids causes a fallout that can reach all areas of your life. The social consequences of addiction may be the first warning sign that you or someone you love is dealing with addiction.

The two primary ways opioid addiction affects your social life include:

Personality changes

Those addicted to opioids can experience noticeable changes in their personality. Many with addiction become irritable, anxious, and even mean-spirited because of the effects of the drugs.

For this reason, relationships can change for the worse. Friends and family may not know how to deal with their loved one’s personality changes and may become more distant.

Addiction can also cause trust issues in a relationship, especially if the person addicted to opioids steals or uses manipulation to satisfy their drug cravings.

Self-isolation

Many people who misuse or abuse opioids know what they’re doing isn’t healthy, so they start isolating themselves from the people close to them. They use drugs in secret, so they can avoid the shame, guilt, and other emotions that come up.

Self-isolation can also occur when the person becomes so dependent on opioids that nothing else seems to exist. They focus only on the drugs and their ability to get more of them.

Getting help for opioid addiction

If you’re tired of living in the vicious cycle of addiction but are too afraid of withdrawal to seek recovery, we can help.

To get you started on your journey to recovery from opioid addiction, we can help you safely detox from opioids using BR+NAD infusions. Your body naturally has nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) that your cells use to produce energy. 

Since opioid addiction can reduce NAD levels in your brain, infusions are an important first step in the recovery process. Dr. Repass administers a megadose of BR+NAD into your bloodstream by a slow-drip infusion to stop your cravings and give your brain a chance to heal.

We also offer medication-assisted treatment (MAT) and general psychiatric counseling services to support your long-term recovery from opioid addiction.

Don’t wait another day to start your recovery journey. Call our Mercer Island, Washington, office today to book an appointment.