Drug addicts will usually have mood changes. An example of this comes from Recovergateway.org: “More than 75 percent of domestic violence victims report that their assailant had been drinking or using illicit drugs at the time of the incident.” This is an important statement because it proves that under the influence, domestic violence occurs. In addition, this shows an example of how drugs really do affect the way a person is acting. Adding onto behavior problems, addicts tend to lie and steal. Witnessing it with my own eyes, I’ve seen many people lie about needing money (for example, saying they need money for gas for their car) and then turn around and spend it on narcotics. Without realizing it, drugs make many addicts become very secretive about doing certain things so they can keep getting money. The reason they are lying and stealing is because since their body is so used to getting drugs, it feels it needs drugs to survive and keep functioning. In the book Addiction, Christine Watkins has written, “Many experts believe addiction changes a person’s thinking process and causes one to disregard his or her customary sense of right and wrong. Once addicted, the majority of addicts will do anything, including lie, cheat, and steal, to get the next drink, hit, or fix” (Watkins 142). What Watkins means is when addicts are looking for drugs, they will do whatever it takes to make sure they get the substance they are craving. …show more content…
Marina Barnard wrote, “The severe stress that families experience in the lurch from crisis to crisis both causes and contributes to the fractured family response to the drug problem” (51). What she means by this is the addict causes so much stress on their families from situation after situation. Some stressful things they have to worry about is for their family member’s safety or even their own safety, what the addict might come home like (messed up or high from their addiction), or about what is going to go missing next. This again, can push his or her loved ones away. In conclusion, an effect on the addict and everyone else around them is stress that the addict causes because of their