What Happens When You Use PCP Every Day

PCP, short for phencyclidine, is a powerful drug that changes how the brain handles signals about the body and the world around it. It was first developed as an anaesthetic, a medicine meant to block pain during surgery, but it was withdrawn from medical use in people because its effects on the mind were too strong and too unpredictable. People who used it reported feeling detached from their own bodies, confused about where they were, and unable to tell what was real. Today it is sold illegally, and the powder, tablets or liquid that reach the street vary widely in strength, which makes every use a gamble. Nobody using it on the street knows exactly how strong the dose is, or what else may have been mixed into it.

Using PCP once is already risky, but using it every day is a different matter altogether. A single use can cause confusion, agitation and dangerous behaviour for hours. Daily use means the brain and body never get a proper chance to recover. The drug stays in the system, its after-effects pile up, and the person begins to organise their whole day around the next use. Sleep gets broken, appetite fades, thinking slows, and moods swing in ways that frighten the people around them. This article explains, in plain words, what daily PCP use does to the body and mind, why tolerance grows, and what tends to happen when a person stops. It is general information only, not personal medical advice. Anyone worried about their own use, or about someone close to them, should speak to a qualified health professional or a drug support service.

What PCP Does Inside the Brain

To understand daily use, it helps to know what PCP does in the brain. The brain works through chemical messengers that pass signals between nerve cells. One of the most important of these systems uses a messenger called glutamate, which helps with learning, memory and awareness of the world. PCP blocks the docking points that glutamate normally uses, known as NMDA receptors. When those points are blocked, signals slow down and become confused. The result is dissociation, a feeling of being cut off from your own body and surroundings. Sounds may seem distant, your hands and feet may feel as if they belong to someone else, and time can stretch or shrink in strange ways.

PCP also affects other chemical systems, including dopamine, which is linked with pleasure, motivation and movement. That is one reason the drug can produce a sense of euphoria or energy at first, followed by agitation, restlessness or aggression as the effect wears on. Because the drug interferes with several systems at once, its effects are hard to predict. The same person can feel calm and numb one day and frightened, suspicious and hostile the next, even after taking a similar amount. The setting matters too. A noisy street, a crowded room or a sudden shock can turn a confusing experience into a frightening one, and the person may react in ways they would never choose when clear-headed.

The drug lasts a long time. Its effects can begin within minutes and continue for four to six hours, and the confusion, poor coordination and strange thinking can linger for a day or more after that. PCP also stays in the body for days, and it can be detected in urine for a week or longer after use. When someone uses it every day, the drug and its breakdown products build up, so the person is rarely fully clear-headed. They may wake up still feeling detached or foggy from the day before, and then use again, which pushes the fog deeper. Over weeks, that constant haze becomes their normal state, and they may forget what clear thinking felt like.

Why One Day Becomes Every Day

Very few people plan to use PCP every day. It usually starts with occasional use, often in a group, often when someone is looking for a strong escape from stress, boredom or pain. The first experiences can feel exciting or numbing, and the drug’s long effect means a person does not need to take it often to feel its pull. But the brain adapts quickly. The same amount that once produced a strong effect begins to feel weaker, and the person takes more, or takes it more often, to chase the original feeling. That is tolerance, and it is one of the main forces that turns occasional use into daily use.

Craving plays a large part as well. As the drug wears off, many people feel flat, anxious, tired and unable to enjoy ordinary things. Food tastes dull, music sounds empty, and conversation feels like hard work. The memory of the drug’s effect promises relief from that flatness, and the urge to use again grows stronger. Because PCP can be taken in different ways and its effect lasts for hours, a daily user often plans their day around it: when to take it, where to be while it is working, and how to hide the signs from family or work. The drug stops being a weekend experiment and becomes the centre of the day.

Stress makes the cycle tighter. A person who is already anxious, depressed or sleeping badly may find that PCP blots out their worries for a few hours, and that temporary relief feels valuable even when the cost is high. But the relief is short-lived. As the drug wears off, the worries return, often worse than before, because sleep has been broken, money has been spent and relationships have been strained. The person then reaches for the drug again, not to feel good, but to feel less bad. That shift, from seeking pleasure to escaping discomfort, is a sign that dependence has taken hold, and it is the point where daily use becomes hardest to break without help.

Thinking, Memory and Mood Under Daily Use

Daily PCP use changes how a person thinks, and the changes are usually visible to the people around them long before the user notices. Concentration becomes weak. A person may start a simple task, such as making a meal or paying a bill, and lose track halfway through. Conversations become hard to follow, because the thread of what was said slips away. Reading a page of a book can feel exhausting, because the words do not stay in place. These are not small annoyances. They make work, study and ordinary chores far harder, and they leave the person feeling frustrated and embarrassed.

Memory suffers in a particular way. PCP interferes with the brain’s ability to form new memories, so a daily user may forget what happened during the hours they were under its influence, and may also struggle to remember things from the days between uses. Appointments are missed, promises are forgotten, and stories are repeated because the person does not remember telling them before. Over months, this patchy memory can damage trust. Family members begin to feel that the person is not listening or does not care, when in truth the brain is struggling to hold on to new information.

Mood is perhaps the most frightening change. Daily users commonly report anxiety, low mood, irritability and sudden outbursts of anger. Some develop suspicious thoughts, believing that others are watching them, talking about them or planning to harm them. In some cases this grows into a lasting psychosis, a state in which the person loses touch with reality and holds beliefs that are not true, or hears voices that are not there. Health services have long reported that PCP can trigger psychotic episodes that last for days or weeks after the drug has left the body, and that people with a family history of mental illness may be more vulnerable. Even without full psychosis, the daily swing between numbness and agitation wears down a person’s sense of who they are, and leaves them feeling frightened of their own mind.

The Body Pays a Price Too

PCP is often talked about as a drug of the mind, but the body pays a heavy price as well. The drug raises blood pressure and heart rate, and it can cause the body temperature to climb to dangerous levels. A person under its influence may not feel pain normally, because the drug numbs sensation, so they can injure themselves without noticing. They may fall, walk into traffic, or hurt themselves in a struggle, and only realise the damage hours later when the numbness fades. Emergency departments have seen people arrive with broken bones, cuts and head injuries they cannot explain, because the drug took away the warning signal of pain.

Repeated use can damage muscles in a serious way. Intense agitation, thrashing and overheating can break down muscle tissue, a condition called rhabdomyolysis, which releases substances into the blood that can damage the kidneys. Kidney failure is a medical emergency, and it is one of the most serious physical risks linked with PCP. Seizures are another risk, particularly after heavy use, and they can happen without warning. The drug can also cause breathing problems, especially when combined with alcohol or other sedatives, because the combination slows the body’s ability to keep breathing steadily.

Over weeks and months of daily use, the body shows the strain in quieter ways. Weight often falls, because appetite disappears and meals are skipped. Sleep becomes broken and shallow, which leaves the person tired, pale and run down. The immune system weakens, so colds and infections take longer to clear. Teeth and skin can suffer when self-care slips, because washing, brushing and eating properly no longer feel important. None of these changes happen in a single day, which is why they are easy to ignore. But added together over months, they leave the body weaker and less able to cope with illness or injury.

Tolerance and the Rising Risk

Tolerance is the body’s way of adapting to a drug, and with PCP it develops fast. After a few days of regular use, the same amount produces a weaker effect, so the person takes more to feel the same way. But taking more does not simply restore the old feeling. It increases the risk of the drug’s worst effects: severe confusion, aggression, overheating, seizures and accidents. The gap between the amount that produces the wanted effect and the amount that causes harm narrows, and the person is walking closer to the edge without realising it.

There is another danger in tolerance. When a person stops for a few days, perhaps because they cannot get the drug or because they are trying to cut down, their tolerance falls. If they then return to the large amount they were taking before, the body is no longer prepared for it, and the risk of a serious reaction rises sharply. This pattern, stopping and restarting at the old level, is linked with some of the most serious harms from many drugs, and PCP is no exception. It is one reason why cutting down or stopping is safest with proper support and medical advice, rather than alone.

Dependence is not only about tolerance. It is also about the way the drug takes over a person’s priorities. A daily user may spend money they cannot afford, miss work, neglect children, and lose interest in things they once loved, all to keep using. They may tell themselves they can stop any time, while finding every reason to put off stopping until tomorrow. That gap between intention and action is a hallmark of dependence, and it is not a sign of weakness. It is a sign that the brain’s reward and motivation systems have been changed by repeated use, and that change takes time and help to reverse.

Sleep, Appetite and Everyday Health

Sleep is one of the first things daily PCP use damages, and one of the last to recover. The drug keeps the brain in a state of arousal and confusion, so falling asleep becomes difficult, and the sleep that does come is light and broken. A person may lie awake for hours, or drift in and out of strange, vivid dreams, and wake up feeling as tired as when they went to bed. After several nights like this, exhaustion builds up, and the tiredness itself makes thinking, mood and judgement worse. Tired people are more likely to be irritable, more likely to make mistakes, and more likely to reach for the drug again to get through the day.

Appetite fades in a similar way. PCP dulls hunger, and the long hours under its influence are hours when meals are forgotten. A daily user may eat one small meal a day, or go for long stretches with nothing but sugary drinks or snacks. Over time, weight loss, low energy and poor nutrition follow. The body needs regular food to repair itself, to keep the immune system working, and to keep the brain supplied with energy. Without it, the person becomes more vulnerable to infections, slower to heal from injuries, and less able to think clearly. Family members often notice the weight loss and the tired, drawn look before the user does, because the change happens gradually, day by day.

General health also suffers from the neglect that daily use brings. Doctor’s appointments are missed, prescriptions are not collected, and early signs of illness are ignored. A cough that would normally be checked is left for weeks. A cut is not cleaned properly. Dental pain is endured rather than treated. The drug’s numbing effect can mask pain that would normally send a person to seek help, so problems grow worse before they are noticed. This neglect is not laziness. It is the result of a brain that is focused on the next use and has little attention left for anything else, including its own health.

Relationships, Money and Ordinary Life

Daily PCP use rarely stays a private matter. It spreads into every part of a person’s life, and the people closest to them feel it first. Partners notice the mood swings, the forgetfulness and the long hours of strange, distant behaviour. Children notice that a parent is not really present, even when they are in the same room. Parents notice the money disappearing and the excuses growing thinner. Trust, which takes years to build, can wear away in months, because promises are broken again and again, and because the person under the drug’s influence may say cruel or frightening things they do not mean and cannot remember.

Money is often the most visible damage. PCP costs money, and daily use means daily spending. A person may start by using spare cash, then move on to borrowing, selling belongings, or taking money meant for rent, food or bills. Debt builds up quietly, and the stress of debt makes the urge to escape stronger, which feeds the cycle. Work suffers at the same time, because the person is too tired, too confused or too absent to do their job well, and income can fall just as spending rises. That squeeze, less money coming in and more going out, is one of the most common reasons daily use ends in a crisis.

Ordinary life shrinks. Hobbies are abandoned, friendships fade, and the person’s world narrows to the drug, the people who supply it, and the hours spent under its influence. A person who once enjoyed football, music, cooking or time with friends may stop doing all of them, not because they no longer like those things, but because the drug has taken the energy and interest they need. That shrinking is one of the saddest effects of daily use, because it removes the very things that could help a person recover: connection, purpose and joy. When those things are gone, the drug can feel like the only thing left.

The Long Shadow After Months of Use

The effects of daily PCP use do not vanish the moment the drug leaves the body, and that long shadow is something people often underestimate. Health guidance has long noted that some users experience flashbacks, sudden returns of the drug’s strange perceptions, days or weeks after they last used it. A person may be walking down a street or sitting at home when the world suddenly feels unreal again, or when sounds seem distant and distorted for a few minutes. These episodes are usually brief, but they are frightening, because they arrive without warning and the person cannot control them. They are more likely after heavy, frequent use, and they are a reminder that the brain takes time to settle after repeated chemical disruption.

Lasting mental health problems are the deeper worry. Some daily users develop depression or anxiety that stays long after they stop using, and a smaller number develop persistent psychotic symptoms that need ongoing care. It is not always possible to say whether the drug caused the problem, triggered a vulnerability that was already there, or simply made an existing problem worse. What is clear is that the risk rises with frequency, amount and length of use, and that daily use carries far more risk than occasional use. A person who uses every day is not just repeating a single risk. They are multiplying it, week after week, and the damage can outlast the habit itself.

There is also the question of what daily use does to a person’s sense of self. Months of confusion, forgetfulness and mood swings can leave someone unsure of their own judgement. They may doubt their memory, avoid making decisions, and lose confidence in their ability to work or to care for others. That loss of confidence can linger even after thinking improves, because confidence is rebuilt through experience, not just through chemistry. Doing small things well, keeping a promise, finishing a task, and seeing that they can be relied on again, is how confidence returns. It is slow work, but it is real work, and it is one of the reasons recovery is about more than stopping the drug. It is about rebuilding a life that feels steady and trustworthy again.

What Happens When Daily Use Stops

Stopping daily PCP use is not easy, and the first days can be difficult. There is no single, predictable withdrawal pattern in the way there is for some other drugs, but many people report strong cravings, anxiety, low mood, tiredness and trouble sleeping for days or weeks after they stop. Some feel restless and unable to sit still, while others feel flat and exhausted. Confusion and strange thoughts can linger for a while, especially after heavy, long-term use, and this can be frightening. These effects are the brain slowly readjusting to working without the drug, and they usually ease with time, but they are a real reason why stopping alone, without support, is hard.

The risks of stopping suddenly should not be ignored. A person who has been using heavily every day and then stops may become agitated, confused or distressed, and in rare cases may develop lasting psychotic symptoms that need medical care. That is why health professionals advise people to seek help before stopping, rather than trying to push through alone. A doctor, a drug support service or an addiction clinic can assess the situation, offer a safe plan, and provide support for the cravings and low mood that follow. There is no shame in asking for that help. It is the sensible, safe way to stop.

Recovery is gradual, and it is worth describing honestly. Thinking and memory often improve over weeks and months, though the improvement may be slow, and some people find that concentration takes longer to return than they hoped. Sleep usually improves first, which helps everything else, because a rested brain thinks more clearly and copes better with stress. Mood also tends to steady, although low mood and cravings can return in waves, especially in stressful moments or in places linked with past use. Rebuilding relationships and routines takes longer still, because trust and habits are rebuilt one day at a time. But people do recover, and many go on to rebuild work, family life and health. The first step is the hardest, and it is the step of asking for help.

My Take:

I will start with the thing that strikes me most about daily PCP use, which is how quietly it takes over. Nobody I can imagine wakes up one morning and decides to give their whole life to a drug. It happens in small steps, a little more here, a little more often there, until one day the drug is the first thing they think about in the morning and the last thing they think about at night. That slow takeover is what makes it so dangerous, because there is no single dramatic moment when a person can say, this is where it went wrong. By the time the damage is obvious, months have passed, and the person has lost ground in every part of their life at once.

What worries me most is the effect on thinking. We talk a lot about drugs and the body, about hearts and lungs and livers, and those matter, but thinking is the thing that makes a person who they are. It is how you remember your child’s birthday, how you follow a conversation with a friend, how you do your job and make a plan for tomorrow. Daily PCP use chips away at all of that, not in one sudden blow, but in a slow erosion that the person may not even notice. I find that frightening, because you can see a broken arm and know it needs help, but you cannot see your own memory getting weaker in the same way, and by the time others point it out, the damage has already been done.

I also think about the families. A partner or a parent who watches someone they love change day by day, becoming more distant, more forgetful, more suspicious and more angry, goes through their own kind of suffering. They try to help, they make excuses, they cover up missed work and unpaid bills, and then they feel guilty for not doing enough, or angry at being lied to, or frightened by behaviour they do not recognise. That family pain is real, and it is often invisible, because families hide it out of love or shame. If you are in that position, I want you to know that your pain counts too, and that support services exist for families as well as for the person using the drug. You do not have to carry it alone.

The tolerance trap is something I think people need to understand more clearly. It sounds like a small technical detail, the idea that the same dose stops working, but in practice it is the engine that drives daily use into danger. The person takes more to feel the same, the risks rise, the money runs out faster, and the body gets less and less rest. And when they try to stop for a few days and then go back to the old amount, the risk jumps again, because the body has lost its adaptation. I do not think most daily users know that. I think they believe they know their dose, that they have it under control, when in fact tolerance has been quietly moving the ground under their feet.

I am struck, too, by how much of the harm comes from numbness. PCP takes away pain, and pain is the body’s alarm system. Without it, a person can fall, cut themselves, overheat or strain their muscles without realising, and the injury is discovered far too late. That is a strange and cruel trade. The drug offers escape from feeling, and the price is that the body cannot warn you when something is wrong. I think that is worth saying plainly, because it is not the kind of harm people expect. They expect a drug to make them feel bad. They do not expect it to make them unable to feel the bad things that are already happening.

Sleep is another part I keep returning to. We all know what a few bad nights feel like, how irritable and foggy and slow we become, and daily PCP use turns that into a permanent state. The person is always tired, always a little behind, always struggling to keep up with a day that moves too fast for them. And tiredness makes everything else worse. It makes cravings stronger, moods darker, and judgement poorer. It is a cycle that feeds itself, and breaking it means getting sleep back, which is not as simple as going to bed early. It means giving the brain weeks of rest without the drug, and that is hard when the drug is the thing that promises rest in the first place.

I do not think it helps to talk about daily users as if they are foolish or weak. Most of them are people who were looking for relief, or excitement, or belonging, and found a drug that promised all three and delivered none of them for long. The drug changed their brain chemistry in ways they did not choose and cannot simply wish away. Blame does not fix that. What fixes it is honest information, proper support, and time. I would rather see a person get help early, when the damage is still limited, than watch them sink deeper while everyone around them argues about whose fault it is.

If you are using PCP every day and reading this, I want to be direct with you. You may feel that you have it under control, that you can stop when you want to, that the problems in your life are caused by other things. I understand why that feels true, because the drug makes it hard to see clearly, and because admitting the scale of the problem is frightening. But ask yourself a simple question. Has your life got better since you started using every day, or has it got smaller? Are you sleeping better, thinking more clearly, closer to the people you love, and more secure in your money and your work? If the honest answer is no, then the drug is not helping you, whatever it promises in the moment. That is not a judgement. It is a fact worth facing.

Stopping is hard, and I will not pretend otherwise. The cravings, the low mood, the broken sleep and the restlessness in the first weeks are real, and they are the reason many people go back. But they pass, and the brain does recover, slowly and unevenly, in a way that is easy to miss day by day and obvious when you look back over a month or two. The people who get through it are rarely the ones who try to be heroic and do it alone. They are the ones who ask for help, who talk to a doctor or a support service, who tell someone they trust, and who build a daily routine that does not leave empty hours for the drug to fill. Help is not a sign of failure. It is the practical, sensible way to get through something difficult.

I think about the money, too, because money is concrete and it is often the thing that finally makes a person stop and count the cost. Daily use is expensive, and the expense is not just the price of the drug. It is the lost wages, the missed work, the debts, the things sold, and the opportunities that slipped away while the person was too foggy to take them. Add it up over a year, and the number is usually shocking, even to the person who spent it. That money could have gone to rent, to food, to children, to a holiday, to a fresh start. It is gone, and it cannot be recovered, but the spending can stop, and every week without the drug is a week when that money stays in the person’s pocket.

For families, I would say this. Do not wait for the perfect moment to talk about it, because the perfect moment never comes. Talk calmly, when the person is as clear-headed as they get, and focus on what you have seen, not on accusations. Say that you are worried, that you have noticed the forgetfulness and the mood changes, and that you want to help them get support. Do not try to fix it alone, and do not cover up the consequences so thoroughly that the person never sees them. Love is not the same as protection from consequences, and sometimes the kindest thing is to be honest about what daily use is doing, even when that honesty is painful to hear.

I am also honest about the limits of what information alone can do. Reading an article will not cure dependence, and it will not undo months of damage. What it can do is give a person a clearer picture of what is happening, and a reason to take the next step. That next step might be a phone call to a support service, a visit to a doctor, or a conversation with a trusted friend. It does not need to be dramatic. It needs to be real, and it needs to happen soon, because every week of daily use adds more damage and makes recovery longer. The best time to ask for help was months ago. The second-best time is today.

One more thing I think about is how hard it is for a daily user to ask for help, and how much courage that first conversation takes. Many people put it off because they are ashamed, or because they fear being judged, or because they believe they should be able to sort it out on their own. I understand all of those feelings, and I also think they are the drug talking as much as the person. The drug teaches a person to hide, to make excuses, to keep the problem private, and that privacy is what lets the problem grow. Breaking the silence, even with one trusted person, changes the shape of the problem. It stops being a secret that has to be carried alone and becomes a difficulty that can be shared, and that sharing is often the first real step towards stopping.

I also want to be honest about what recovery actually looks like, because the stories people hear are often too neat. Recovery is not a single decision followed by a straight line upwards. It is messy. There are good weeks and bad weeks, moments of clear thinking followed by days when cravings return out of nowhere, and times when a person feels proud of their progress and times when they feel they have lost it all. That uneven pattern is normal, and it does not mean the person has failed. It means the brain is healing slowly, and healing is rarely smooth. The people who succeed are usually the ones who expect the setbacks, plan for them, and keep going after them instead of deciding that one bad day has undone everything.

There is a practical side to recovery that matters as much as the emotional side. A person who stops using needs somewhere to go, something to do, and people to be with, because empty hours are dangerous. Rebuilding a routine, even a simple one, a regular time to wake up, a walk in the morning, a meal eaten at a table, a job or a course or a hobby, gives the day a shape that the drug used to provide. It sounds ordinary, and it is ordinary, but that ordinariness is the point. A life built from small, steady, ordinary things is far stronger than a life built around a drug, and it is the kind of life that makes staying stopped possible. Support services can help with the practical parts too, not just the talking, and that help is worth taking.

Finally, I want to say something to anyone who has never used PCP and is curious about it. Do not start, and do not let anyone tell you that daily use is something you can control. The drug’s effects are unpredictable, its strength on the street is unknown, and its ability to take over a life is far stronger than most people expect. The first use may feel like an adventure, but daily use is not an adventure. It is a slow narrowing of everything that makes life good: clear thinking, restful sleep, steady moods, trusted relationships and a future you can plan for. Walk away from the first offer, and you will never have to fight your way back from the daily habit.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can daily PCP use damage your health?

Yes, daily PCP use can damage health in serious ways. It raises blood pressure and heart rate, can cause overheating and seizures, and can lead to muscle breakdown that damages the kidneys. It also harms thinking, memory and mood, disrupts sleep and appetite, and weakens the body over time through poor nutrition and neglect of ordinary health care. Because the drug stays in the body for days, daily use means the brain and body rarely get a full chance to recover, so the risks build up week by week. Anyone worried about their health should speak to a qualified health professional.

Why does daily PCP use build tolerance?

Tolerance builds because the brain adapts to repeated exposure. PCP blocks certain chemical signals in the brain, and with daily use the brain adjusts its chemistry around that block, so the same amount produces a weaker effect. The person then needs more to feel the same way, which raises the risk of confusion, aggression, overheating and accidents. Tolerance can also fall quickly after a few days without the drug, so returning to the old amount is particularly dangerous. This is one reason stopping or cutting down is safest with proper support.

How does daily PCP use affect work?

Daily use affects work through poor concentration, weak memory, broken sleep and unpredictable moods. A person may forget tasks, miss deadlines, arrive late or not at all, and struggle to follow instructions or hold a conversation with colleagues. Irritability and suspicious thinking can damage working relationships, and the drug’s long-lasting confusion makes safety-critical jobs especially risky. Over time, missed days and poor performance can lead to warnings, lost income or losing a job, which adds financial stress and makes recovery harder.

What happens if you stop daily PCP use?

Stopping can bring cravings, anxiety, low mood, tiredness and trouble sleeping for days or weeks, and confusion or strange thoughts can linger after heavy use. These effects usually ease with time as the brain readjusts, but they can be distressing, and in some cases lasting mental health symptoms need medical care. That is why health professionals advise seeking help before stopping, rather than doing it alone. A doctor or drug support service can offer a safe plan, support for cravings and low mood, and help with rebuilding sleep and daily routines.

What happens when you use PCP every day?

Using PCP every day means the brain is rarely clear-headed, because the drug’s effects last for hours and it stays in the body for days. Thinking and memory become weaker, moods swing between numbness and agitation, sleep and appetite are disrupted, and the risk of accidents, overheating, seizures and kidney damage rises. Tolerance grows, so more is needed for the same effect, and the drug begins to organise the whole day around itself. Relationships, money and work usually suffer, and dependence can take hold, making stopping difficult without help.

Is daily PCP use addictive?

Yes, daily PCP use can lead to dependence. The drug affects the brain’s reward and motivation systems, and repeated use can create strong cravings, especially when the person feels flat, anxious or tired as the drug wears off. Many daily users find they keep using even when they can see the harm it is doing to their health, work and relationships, and find it hard to stop without support. Dependence is not a sign of weakness. It is a change in brain chemistry that takes time and proper help to reverse, and support services exist for exactly that reason.

Sources

This article is general information only. It is not individual medical advice. If you are worried about your health, talk to a qualified health professional.