Could Better Employment Help Prevent Opioid Addiction?

Could a spread of family addiction be prevented by a simple solution?

A hypothetical solution would involve an increase in the availability of well-paid jobs.

This would lead to the individual’s regained independence, therefore restoring his/her dignity.

In turn, this would facilitate the rebuilding of family, breaking the rapid sequences of relapses, and slowing the recycling of the addiction disease, and an overall drop in overdose mortality.

A working patient would be able to pay for their house, support their family, and afford treatment.

It is our experience that patients’ success, job, and therefore therapeutic stability are gradually recognized by the family, allowing for the rebuilding of broken relationships.

As these relationships are rebuilt, the patient is often able to support their family, encouraging them to seek treatment and change their own behavior, providing an escape from this vicious cycle and freedom for the whole family.

In addition, an increase in the availability of jobs would help prevent the initial loss of self-reliance and despair that prompt addiction in the first place; many would-be addicts would likely never develop addiction at all. -Dr. Bogdan Nowicki