How Does Heroin Damage Your Liver
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The liver is one of the hardest-working organs in the body, and it is also one of the quietest. It filters the blood, clears away waste and harmful substances, helps digest food, stores energy, and makes proteins that the body needs to heal and to fight infection. Most people rarely think about their liver until something goes wrong, because it does its work without pain and without fuss. Heroin damages the liver in exactly that quiet way. It does not usually cause a sudden, dramatic pain. Instead, it puts the liver under steady chemical strain, week after week, until the organ can no longer filter properly, and the signs of that failure begin to show in tiredness, in yellowing skin, and in blood tests that come back abnormal.
It is important to be clear about how this damage happens, because it is not always caused by heroin alone. Heroin itself is processed by the liver, and the process of breaking it down puts strain on liver cells. The substances mixed into street heroin can add to that strain, and so can alcohol, which is often used alongside heroin and is itself a well-known cause of liver damage. Infections that spread through shared injecting equipment, especially hepatitis, can attack the liver directly and cause lasting harm. Poor food, little sleep, and long-term stress make recovery harder. This article explains, in plain words, what the liver does, how heroin harms it over time, what the warning signs look like, and what generally improves after a person stops. It is general information only, not individual medical advice. If you are worried about your liver, or about someone else, a qualified health professional is the right person to talk to.
What the Liver Does
To understand why liver damage matters, it helps to understand what the liver actually does each day. Every time you eat, the food is broken down in the gut, and the nutrients travel in the blood to the liver. The liver sorts those nutrients, stores some as energy, and sends the rest on to the parts of the body that need them. It also filters the blood, removing waste, old red blood cells, and harmful chemicals, and it turns some of those harmful substances into forms the body can get rid of safely. It makes bile, a fluid that helps digest fat. It makes proteins that help blood to clot, so that a small cut stops bleeding, and proteins that help the body fight infection. It stores vitamins and minerals, and releases them when the body needs them.
Because the liver does so many jobs, damage to it affects the whole body. When the liver cannot filter properly, waste builds up in the blood, and a person feels tired, sick, and foggy. When it cannot make enough proteins, wounds heal slowly and infections take hold more easily. When it cannot process fats properly, a person may lose weight, or feel sick after eating. When it cannot clear a yellow substance called bilirubin from the blood, the skin and the whites of the eyes turn yellow, a condition called jaundice. None of these changes happen overnight. The liver has a remarkable ability to keep working even when it is damaged, which is why people can live with liver disease for months or years before they realise how serious it is. That ability to cope is also a danger, because it hides the damage until the liver has very little healthy tissue left.
The liver can repair itself, and that is good news, but only up to a point. If the harm stops early, liver cells can recover and the organ can heal. If the harm continues, healthy tissue is gradually replaced by scar tissue, a process called fibrosis, and later cirrhosis. Scar tissue cannot do the work of healthy liver cells, so as scarring spreads, the liver does less and less. The organ may shrink and harden. Blood flow through it becomes difficult, pressure builds up, and fluid can collect in the belly. At that stage, the damage is much harder to reverse. The message is simple, and it runs through the whole of this article: the earlier the harm stops, the more the liver can recover, and the longer it continues, the more is lost.
The Liver Over Time
In the early weeks of regular heroin use, the liver is already working harder than it should. It has to process the drug, and it has to process whatever else has been mixed into it, and it has to do that while the person may be eating badly, sleeping badly, and drinking alcohol as well. The liver cells become inflamed, which means they are irritated and swollen as the body tries to deal with the harm. Inflammation is the body’s way of responding to damage, but when it goes on for a long time, it causes damage of its own. Inflamed liver cells do not work as well, they may die, and they are replaced, over time, by scar tissue.
Blood tests are often the first sign that something is wrong. A doctor can measure levels of certain enzymes in the blood, and when liver cells are damaged, those enzymes leak out and the levels rise. A person may feel perfectly well and still have abnormal blood tests, which is why a routine check can be so valuable. Other tests may show low levels of proteins, or changes in how well the blood clots, or a rise in bilirubin, the substance that causes jaundice. None of these tests on their own proves that heroin is the cause, because many things can affect the liver, but together, in a person who uses heroin, they form a pattern that points clearly to liver strain, and they give the doctor a way to track whether the damage is getting better or worse over time.
As months pass, the pattern becomes clearer in daily life. The person may feel tired in a way that rest does not fix. They may lose their appetite, or feel sick after eating, or notice that food tastes different. They may lose weight without trying. They may bruise easily, or find that small cuts bleed for longer than they used to. Their skin may become itchy, or dry, or pale. These are not dramatic symptoms, and each one on its own could have many causes, but together they suggest a liver that is struggling to do its many jobs. The danger is that a person who uses heroin may put all of these changes down to the drug itself, or to a poor lifestyle, and never have the liver checked. A check is quick, it is not painful, and it can reveal a problem while there is still time to slow it down or reverse it.
Fatigue From a Struggling Liver
Tiredness is one of the most common and most misunderstood symptoms of liver damage. It is not the ordinary tiredness that comes after a long day and is fixed by a good night’s sleep. It is a deep, heavy tiredness that stays, even after rest, and that makes ordinary tasks feel like hard work. A person may wake up tired, struggle through the morning, and feel worse as the day goes on. They may find it hard to concentrate, hard to remember simple things, and hard to stay interested in work or family life. They may describe it as feeling as if their body is running on empty, no matter how much they sleep.
There are several reasons why a struggling liver causes this kind of tiredness. First, the liver stores energy, and when it is damaged, it cannot store or release energy properly, so the body runs short. Second, the liver clears waste from the blood, and when it cannot do that well, waste builds up and makes the person feel foggy and unwell. Third, liver damage often goes together with poor appetite and poor diet, so the body is not getting the fuel it needs in the first place. Fourth, the infections that can damage the liver, such as hepatitis, cause tiredness in their own right. When all of these are present together, as they often are in a person who uses heroin regularly, the tiredness can be overwhelming, and it can be mistaken for laziness, or for depression, or for the after-effects of the drug, when in fact the liver is a large part of the story.
This tiredness matters, because it changes how a person lives. A person who is always tired does less, earns less, and withdraws from family and friends. They may stop eating properly, because cooking feels like too much effort. They may stop going for walks, or for check-ups, because leaving the house feels too hard. That withdrawal then makes the liver worse, because the body is getting less food, less movement, and less care. It is a cycle that is hard to break without help, and the first step in breaking it is to understand that the tiredness is not a character flaw. It is a symptom, and it deserves to be checked. A doctor who finds liver strain can explain what is happening, arrange the right tests, and help the person make a plan to protect the liver, starting with stopping the substances that are harming it.
Inflammation Builds Quietly
Inflammation is a word that is used a great deal, and it is worth explaining plainly. When a part of the body is hurt, the body sends extra blood and immune cells to the area to repair it. That is inflammation, and in the short term it is helpful: it is why a cut becomes red and warm as it heals. In the liver, however, long-term inflammation is harmful, because the liver is a delicate organ, and constant irritation damages its cells faster than they can be repaired. Heroin, the substances mixed with it, alcohol, and infections such as hepatitis all cause inflammation in the liver, and when they are present together, day after day, the inflammation does not get a chance to settle.
The trouble is that liver inflammation rarely causes pain. The liver itself has very few pain sensors, so a person can have a badly inflamed liver and feel no pain at all in that area. What they feel instead is the general effect: tiredness, poor appetite, nausea, and a sense of being unwell that is hard to pin down. Some people feel a dull ache or a feeling of fullness under the ribs on the right side, where the liver sits, but many feel nothing there at all. That lack of pain is one reason liver damage is so often missed. People wait for a clear signal, and the liver does not give one. The signal comes instead from blood tests, which can show the inflammation long before the person feels seriously ill, and that is why a blood test is worth having if there is any reason to worry.
Over time, constant inflammation leads to scarring. Healthy liver tissue is soft and flexible, and it can do the many jobs described earlier. Scar tissue is tough and stiff, and it cannot do those jobs. As scarring spreads, the liver becomes harder, smaller, and less able to filter blood. Blood flow through the liver becomes difficult, and pressure builds up in the veins that feed into it. That pressure can cause veins in the food pipe to swell and bleed, and it can cause fluid to collect in the belly. These are late, serious signs of liver disease, and they need urgent hospital care. The aim of all the advice in this article is to stop the process long before it reaches that stage, while the liver still has enough healthy tissue to recover. Stopping heroin, stopping alcohol, and getting infections treated are the steps that give the liver that chance.
Jaundice and Yellowing Skin
Jaundice is one of the clearest visible signs that the liver is in trouble, and it is the sign that families often notice first. The whites of the eyes turn yellow. The skin turns yellow, sometimes faintly, sometimes strongly. The urine may become dark, like strong tea, and the stools may become pale. The skin may itch, sometimes badly enough to disturb sleep. Jaundice happens because the liver cannot clear bilirubin, a yellow substance that is made when old red blood cells are broken down. Normally the liver processes bilirubin and sends it out of the body. When the liver is damaged, bilirubin builds up in the blood, and it colours the skin and the eyes.
Jaundice is not a disease in itself. It is a sign that the liver, or the tubes that carry bile away from the liver, are not working properly. In a person who uses heroin, it can mean several things: the liver is inflamed and cannot process bilirubin, the liver is scarred and cannot do its work, or an infection such as hepatitis has damaged the liver. Any of those is serious, and jaundice should always be checked promptly. It is not something to wait and see about, because it can appear when the liver is already badly damaged, and because it can get worse quickly if the cause is not found and treated. A person who notices yellowing in their own eyes or skin, or whose family points it out, should see a doctor the same day if possible, and should explain honestly about heroin and alcohol use, so the doctor can order the right tests without delay.
It is worth saying clearly that jaundice can be frightening, and that fear can make a person avoid seeking help. They may worry about being judged, or about what the doctor will find, or about being told they must stop using heroin at once. Those worries are understandable, but avoiding care does not make the problem go away. It only gives the liver more time to be damaged. A doctor’s job is not to punish a person for using drugs. It is to find out what is wrong and to help. A blood test, an examination, and a conversation about what has been taken are the usual first steps, and they are not painful or shameful. They are the way to find out whether the liver can recover, and what needs to happen next. The sooner that conversation happens, the better the chances.
Extra Risk From Mixing
Heroin rarely travels alone. Many people who use it also drink alcohol, or use other drugs, or take medicines that affect the liver, and each of those adds to the harm. Alcohol is the most important of these, because it is itself a major cause of liver damage. When alcohol and heroin are used together, the liver has to process both, and the total strain is greater than either one on its own. A person who drinks heavily and uses heroin regularly is at much higher risk of serious liver disease than a person who does only one of those things. The same is true of some medicines, including painkillers that are taken in large amounts or over a long time, which can also damage the liver. Mixing substances does not only add risks together. It can multiply them, because the liver is being attacked from several directions at once.
Infection is the other great added risk, and it is closely linked with injecting. When injecting equipment is shared, or when it is not clean, viruses that attack the liver can spread from one person to another. The most important of these are hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which cause inflammation of the liver and can lead, over years, to scarring, cirrhosis, and liver cancer. These infections often cause no symptoms at first, so a person can carry one for years without knowing, while it quietly damages the liver. That is why health workers strongly recommend testing for hepatitis for anyone who injects drugs, and why vaccination against hepatitis B is offered where it is available. A test is a simple blood test, and knowing the result matters, because hepatitis can be treated, and treatment can slow or stop the damage, but only if the infection is found.
There is also the risk from the drug supply itself. Street heroin is rarely pure. It is often mixed with other substances, some of which are harmful to the liver in their own right, and the person using it has no way of knowing what is in it or how strong it is. That uncertainty makes the harm unpredictable: one batch may be weaker, the next may be much stronger, and the liver has to cope with whatever arrives. That is another reason why general advice about heroin and the liver cannot be reduced to a single simple rule. The harm comes from the drug, from what is mixed with it, from alcohol, from infections, and from the poor diet and poor sleep that often go with long-term use, all working together. Protecting the liver means addressing all of those, not only one.
Blood Tests Tell the Story
Because the liver works quietly, blood tests are one of the best tools for finding out what is really happening. A doctor can order a set of liver tests, often called liver function tests, which measure enzymes, proteins, and bilirubin in the blood. When liver cells are damaged, enzymes leak into the blood and their levels rise. When the liver cannot make enough protein, protein levels fall. When it cannot clear bilirubin, bilirubin levels rise. Together, these results give a picture of how well the liver is working, and how much damage there may be. The tests do not hurt, they are not expensive in most health systems, and they can be repeated over time to see whether things are getting better or worse.
It is important not to over-read a single set of results. Liver tests can be abnormal for many reasons, including a recent illness, a medicine, or a heavy night of drinking, and a single high reading does not always mean serious liver disease. What matters is the pattern over time, and the result taken together with the person’s history and examination. A doctor will usually repeat the tests, ask about alcohol and drug use, check for hepatitis, and sometimes arrange a scan of the liver to look at its size and texture. In some cases, a more detailed scan or a specialist referral is needed. None of this is a reason to be afraid. It is the normal, careful way of working out what is wrong, and it is far better than guessing, or than waiting until symptoms are severe.
For a person who uses heroin, regular liver tests are a practical and sensible step, even if they feel well. They provide an early warning, they give a clear record to compare against, and they can show improvement after a person stops, which is encouraging and can help them stay on track. If the tests are normal, that is reassuring, but it does not mean the liver cannot be damaged in the future if use continues. If the tests are abnormal, it is a reason to act, not a reason to give up. The liver can recover a great deal if the harm stops early, and the tests are the way to know whether that recovery is happening. Asking for a test is not admitting defeat. It is taking control, and it is one of the most useful things a person in this situation can do.
My Take:
When I think about the liver, I think about a quiet worker who never asks for thanks and never complains until it is almost too late. It filters your blood all day, every day. It clears away waste, helps you digest food, stores energy, and makes the proteins that help you heal. You do not feel it working, and you do not notice it when it is healthy. You only notice it when it begins to fail, and by then a great deal of damage may already have been done. That, for me, is the saddest part of what heroin does to the liver. It harms an organ that cannot shout for help, and it does so slowly, so that the person has time to get used to feeling tired and unwell, and to accept that tiredness as normal, when it is not normal at all.
What troubles me most is the tiredness, because it is so easy to dismiss. A person who uses heroin and feels tired all the time may be told they are lazy, or that they need to try harder, or that the tiredness is just the drug wearing off. In many cases, the tiredness is also the liver. A liver that cannot store energy properly, cannot clear waste properly, and cannot make the proteins the body needs will leave a person exhausted, no matter how much they sleep. That exhaustion then makes everything else harder: work, cooking, looking after children, going to a clinic. It is a cycle, and breaking it starts with understanding that the tiredness is a symptom, not a flaw in the person. If you feel tired in that deep, unshifting way, and you use heroin, please have your liver checked. It is a simple test, and it may explain more than you think.
Jaundice is the sign that stays in my mind, because it is visible, and because families notice it before the person does. A mother notices that her son’s eyes look yellow. A partner notices that the skin has changed colour. A child asks why their parent looks different. That moment, when a family sees the change, is often the moment when the problem can no longer be ignored, and it is a painful moment for everyone. I would ask families to treat that moment kindly. Do not use it to blame. Use it to help. A person with jaundice needs a doctor, and they need that doctor promptly, and they are far more likely to go if someone they trust offers to go with them, and explains that the doctor’s job is to help, not to judge. The yellowing is not a punishment. It is a warning, and warnings are meant to be acted on, not hidden.
The infections that travel with injecting are another part of this story that I think needs to be said plainly. Hepatitis B and hepatitis C are serious liver infections, and they spread easily through shared injecting equipment. They often cause no symptoms for years, while they quietly scar the liver, and by the time they are found, the damage may be advanced. That is a terrible waste, because these infections can be tested for with a simple blood test, and hepatitis C in particular can now be treated effectively in many places. A person who injects heroin and has never been tested for hepatitis is living with an unknown risk, and that unknown risk is easy to remove. Get tested. Ask about vaccination for hepatitis B. Use clean equipment and never share it. These are not small, technical points. They are practical steps that can save a liver, and they cost very little compared with the cost of liver failure.
Alcohol is the part of the story that people often leave out, and I do not want to leave it out. Many people who use heroin also drink, sometimes heavily, and alcohol on its own is a major cause of liver disease. When the two are combined, the harm is greater than either one alone, because the liver is being attacked from two directions at once. A person who stops heroin but keeps drinking heavily is still putting their liver at serious risk, and a person who stops drinking but keeps using heroin is still putting it at risk. Recovery works best when both are addressed, together, with support. That is not a judgement about drinking. It is a plain statement about how the liver works, and about what it needs in order to heal: a break from the substances that are harming it, time, decent food, and rest.
I am often asked whether the liver can recover, and I want to answer that honestly, because the answer is hopeful but not unlimited. The liver is one of the few organs that can repair itself, and if the harm stops early, a great deal of recovery is possible. Blood tests can improve. Tiredness can ease. Appetite can return. Energy can come back, slowly, over weeks and months. That recovery is real, and it is worth working for. But if the harm continues for years, and healthy tissue is replaced by scar tissue, the recovery becomes limited. A scarred liver cannot do the work of a healthy one, no matter how much time passes. That is why timing matters so much. Stopping now, rather than in a year, is not a small difference. It can be the difference between a liver that heals and a liver that does not, and that is a difference worth taking seriously.
Stopping heroin is hard, and I do not want to pretend otherwise. Withdrawal is unpleasant, and it is frightening, and many people try more than once before they succeed. That does not mean they have failed. It means they are learning, and each attempt teaches them something about what helps and what makes the hard days harder. Support makes a real difference: a doctor, a clinic, a support group, a family member who listens without judging. A person who tries to stop alone, without food, without sleep, and without anyone to talk to, is trying in the hardest possible way. A person who stops with help, with a plan, and with someone to call when the cravings hit, has a far better chance. If you have tried and it did not work, please do not take that as proof that you cannot stop. Take it as proof that you need more support, or a different plan, and try again.
Families have a part to play here too, and it is a part that is often overlooked. A family that notices tiredness, or yellowing skin, or a loss of appetite, and talks about it plainly and kindly, can be the reason a person finally gets checked. A family that cooks decent food, that encourages regular meals, that helps with appointments, and that does not use mealtimes as a time for blame, can make recovery easier in practical ways. The liver needs food to heal, and a person who is eating badly will recover more slowly than a person who is eating well. That sounds simple, and it is simple, but it matters. A regular meal, a glass of water, a walk in the fresh air — these small, ordinary things help the liver, and they help the person, and they are within reach even when the bigger problems feel out of reach.
There is a point about young people that I feel strongly about. A young person who is offered heroin is unlikely to be thinking about their liver. They are thinking about the feeling, or about their friends, or about escaping a bad day. They are not thinking about what their liver will be like in ten years, or about hepatitis, or about scarring. That is natural. But the liver damage described in this article does not only happen to older people. The strain starts early, the infections can be picked up from the first shared needle, and the tiredness and the abnormal blood tests can appear within months. If a young person reads this, I would ask them to think about the body they will need for the rest of their life, and about the quiet organ that will have to filter their blood for decades to come, and to weigh that against a drug that asks it to work harder, with more poison and less rest, every single time it is used.
Money is a practical point that is worth naming. Heroin is expensive, and the money spent on it is money that cannot be spent on food, which is exactly what a struggling liver needs. When a person stops, that money comes back, and it can be used for better food, for medical care, and for the ordinary things that make a household stable. I have heard people who stopped describe the shock of adding up what they had spent, and the relief of seeing that money stay in their pocket. It is not the most important reason to stop, but it is a real one, and for a liver that needs decent food to heal, it is a practical one too.
Finally, I want to say something to anyone who has never used heroin and is thinking about trying it. Do not. It is not a harmless experiment, and it is not a shortcut to feeling calm. It is a drug that puts your liver under chemical strain, exposes you to infections that can scar it for life, and, when mixed with alcohol, can destroy it altogether. The first time may feel like nothing special. The habit that follows is hard to escape, and the damage it does builds quietly, year after year, until it cannot be ignored. Your liver has to last you a lifetime, and it is the one organ that filters everything you take in. Protect it. If someone offers you heroin, walk away. That single decision may be the most important one you ever make for your health, and it costs you nothing at all.
If you are already using heroin and you are reading this, I would ask you to do two simple things this week. First, ask a doctor for a liver blood test and a hepatitis test. You do not need to have decided to stop before you go. A test is simply a way to find out where you stand, and it gives you and the doctor a clear starting point. Second, tell someone you trust how tired you feel, or that you have noticed yellowing, or that you are worried. You do not have to carry this alone, and you do not have to wait until the symptoms are severe before you ask for help. The liver can recover, but only if the harm stops, and the sooner it stops, the more can be recovered. That is not a lecture. It is a fact, and it is a hopeful one, because it means that what you do now still matters.
I also want to say something about hope, because it is easy for an article like this to sound as if the damage is already done and nothing can be changed. That is not true. The liver is forgiving in a way that few organs are, and it responds to care. A person who stops using heroin, who stops drinking, who eats regular meals, and who gets hepatitis treated is giving their liver the best possible chance, and the improvement can be felt in ordinary life: less tiredness in the morning, a better appetite at lunch, a clearer head in the afternoon. Those changes are not dramatic, and they do not happen in a single week, but they are real, and they build on each other. A person who feels a little stronger is more able to eat well, and a person who eats well feels a little stronger again. That slow, steady improvement is how recovery actually works, not in a sudden transformation, but in small steps that add up over months.
There is one more practical point I would add, and it is about keeping appointments. A liver check is not a one-time event. It is something that should be repeated, so that the doctor can see whether the numbers are improving, staying the same, or getting worse. A person who has one test and then never goes back has only half the picture. A person who goes back, even when they feel well, gives the doctor the full picture, and gives themselves the chance to catch a problem early. If transport, cost, or fear makes appointments hard, it is worth telling the health worker, because clinics often have ways to help, and they would rather help than have a person stay away. Showing up, again and again, is a quiet act of care for yourself, and it matters more than most people realise.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is a liver under chemical strain from Heroin dangerous?
Yes, it can be very dangerous. A liver under strain may become inflamed, then scarred, and over time it may stop filtering blood properly, making proteins, and clearing waste. That can lead to jaundice, severe tiredness, bleeding problems, fluid in the belly, and liver failure. The risk is greater with regular use, with alcohol use, and with hepatitis infection. Anyone with yellowing skin or eyes, dark urine, severe tiredness, or swelling should seek medical help promptly.
What should I do if Heroin is causing jaundice and yellowing skin?
Seek medical help the same day if possible. Jaundice means the liver is not clearing bilirubin properly, and it can be a sign of serious liver damage or hepatitis. A doctor can arrange blood tests, check for infection, and advise on next steps. Be honest about heroin and alcohol use so the right tests are done quickly. Do not wait to see if the yellowing goes away on its own, and do not try to treat it yourself.
Does long-term liver scarring from Heroin go away after stopping?
Some early damage can improve after stopping, especially inflammation and abnormal blood tests, and many people feel less tired and eat better over weeks and months. Mild scarring may improve slowly, but advanced scarring, called cirrhosis, is usually not fully reversible. Stopping still matters, because it prevents further damage, lowers the risk of new infection, and gives the liver its best chance to recover what it can. The earlier a person stops, the better the outlook usually is.
Who is most at risk of a liver working overtime from Heroin?
The risk is highest for people who use heroin regularly over a long time, people who drink alcohol as well, people who inject and share equipment, and people who already have hepatitis or another liver condition. People who eat poorly, take large amounts of certain painkillers, or have other health problems face extra risk too. Even so, liver strain can appear in anyone who uses regularly, which is why blood tests are worth having however short the history of use.
Can Heroin really cause jaundice and yellowing skin?
Yes. Heroin can damage liver cells and cause inflammation, which reduces the liver’s ability to clear bilirubin from the blood. When bilirubin builds up, the skin and the whites of the eyes turn yellow, urine becomes dark, and stools may become pale. Hepatitis infection, which can spread through shared injecting equipment, is another common cause of jaundice in people who use heroin. Yellowing should always be checked by a doctor promptly.
How soon can long-term liver scarring appear after using Heroin?
There is no single timetable, because it depends on how often heroin is used, whether alcohol is also used, whether hepatitis is present, and the person’s general health. Inflammation and abnormal blood tests can appear within weeks of regular use. Scarring builds up over months and years, and serious cirrhosis usually takes years of continued harm, though it can develop faster when alcohol and hepatitis are also present. That is why early testing and early stopping matter so much.
Sources
- National Institute on Drug Abuse — https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/heroin
- U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration — https://www.dea.gov/drug-information
- Mayo Clinic, Drug addiction — https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/drug-addiction/symptoms-causes/syc-20365112
- World Health Organization, Substance abuse — https://www.who.int/health-topics/substance-abuse
- NHS, Drug addiction: getting help — https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/addiction-support/drug-addiction-getting-help/
This article is general information only. It is not medical advice. If you are worried about your health or about someone else, speak to a qualified health professional.
