Hello, I am by no means an expert on this topic, so you are free to ignore my thoughts or feelings, but I figured that I would give my two cents on it anyway.

If I am being honest, I have been surrounded by chronic drug users all my teenage life, and have even used them before. In my experience,  these were not bad people, people that were lazy, unmotivated, etc.. I really hate to use those terms because they never define what a person is. We define who we are by the story that we tell ourselves.

The thread that I observed in my long history of being exposed to such people is that many of them just want to escape. Many of them were struggling with deep emotional pain, loneliness, and a remarkable amount of self hatred.  It makes sense: nobody likes to feel pain, boredom, sadness, etc.. so we try to avoid those feelings as much as possible.  If we grow up in a healthy environment, our parents and our friends are supposed to help us learn how to deal with these difficult emotions in healthy ways, but not all of us grow up in a healthy environment, so we instead look to things to help us cope with that which we cannot stand.

The addiction comes from our brain reaching a threshold response in which we can no longer get the same dopamine response as we did previously. The only option at this point to continue getting a bigger response is to increase the dose and frequency, which leads to a hedonic treadmill effect, essentially our mood can remain more or less the same so long as the dose and frequency is at a minimum.

Don’t ever hate addicts. They need all the help and compassion that we can muster, but at the same time it is important to recognize your own boundaries as well.  Drug addiction takes away a lot more than it gives, and can lead to worse outcomes in relationships, finances, and can even lead to abuse and neglect.  Do your very best to encourage that he seek help, but recognize also when it is time to give up.  As hard as it is to hear, the only person that will ever heal him is himself, and he has to decide for himself whether he is worthy enough to accept help.

Pray for him and shower all the hope and compassion that you can muster.  You are in my thoughts.