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- Isolation -

Overview

Addiction may start with recreational or social use of alcohol or drugs. In the more advanced stages of the disease, chemical dependency often isolates addicts or alcoholics from others. Their efforts to maintain their addiction usually distance them from family and friends. The isolation of addiction occurs as their involvement with the substances they use becomes an obsession that blocks out real involvements with family and friends.

As the disease progresses, chemically dependent individuals find the company of normal people too painful, or too intrusive, to bear. Some sink deeper and deeper into a drug subculture that shares the same language, beliefs, and attitudes towards drugs. Usually, such associations become little more than alliances of convenience rather than healthy, supportive relationships.

Typically, addicts or alcoholics must increasingly violate normal social rules to get their fix. Sometimes this means a life of criminal activity.

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