The Drug Was Doing a Job
We spend a lot of time talking about what drugs do to people; we never ask what it was doing for them.
This is an important difference.
When someone’s substance use gets heavy, we only see the consequences that follow. The behaviours, the destruction, the damage, and the chaos. We notice the decline in mental health and physical health. A change in behaviours. The chaos becomes loud, and it demands attention.
The function of the drug is often quieter.
It can be buried underneath the behaviours. It is often described as recklessness. We focus on what the person is doing, rather than trying to understand what the function of the substance use is. Why would people repeat something that gives them nothing in return? They wouldn’t, and this is why we need to understand the function it plays.
Without any doubt, the substance will always be taking more than it is giving. To the person using the substance, it is the opposite. It is still performing a function for them, and they will defend their position regardless of the negative consequences they find themselves in. Because if the substance is offering them an escape, dulling of emotional pain, and possibly confidence. If we want to understand the addiction, then we must understand the job the drug is doing.
For some people, alcohol can provide them with confidence to socialise. Alcohol can help make them funnier, louder, more confident, and outgoing. Alcohol can help make the person more able to enter into rooms and not feel judged. Their anxiety drops. Their fear loosens, and their inner voice quietens down.
For others, stimulants can play a major role in their daily living. They can create energy, focus, and a sense of power. Someone who normally feels sluggish, inadequate, and unseen can suddenly feel powerful and ready. It changes who they believe they are for a short period.
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An opiate user’s claim is that using them feels warm and almost like a hug. It offers love and connection. Alcohol offers belonging. Cannabis slows thinking down. Different substances can give distinct experiences, and the same substance can serve many functions for the same person. This is why asking about the consequences only takes us so far.
The person using the substance already knows the cost.
Broken relationships, financial problems, and even homelessness. They can carry guilt about the person they have had to become. Repeating this behaviour over and over can create fear, but the fear alone doesn’t explain why they keep returning to using substances; the function will. If the consequences were enough to stop the behaviour, people would have stopped years ago.
Working out the why will bring us beneath the visible behaviour. Getting beneath the behaviour is about getting to the root of what the substance was providing that people couldn’t provide themselves. “What did it give?”, not “Why did they do it again?”, and asking “What did you believe it would give you?” Asking these type of questions can help the person unravel their why and help them to create their own pathway out. These questions do not excuse the behaviour; they expose its purpose. There is a big difference between asking “why did you do it again and asking what did you believe it would do for you.
The first question can seem like somebody is actually listening, and the other seems very accusatory. For some, the substance may have given genuine relief while causing serious harm. The substance could have offered confidence, and at the same time destroying any self-belief left. Substances could have created belonging but put a wedge between those that genuinely cared. That is why asking the question “why did they do it again” can make the substance user isolate away from the people who care. Without understanding what the substance provided, the substance user will assume they are being judged because, without understanding, the supporter will sound accusatory.
If we remove the drug without understanding the job it was doing, we leave a vacancy behind. The anxiety remains. The shame remains. The loneliness, anger, memories and racing thoughts are still there. The person may be substance-free, but they are now standing face to face with everything the substance helped them avoid. Everyone else can see progress while the person feels exposed.
Recovery has to become more than removing a substance. It has to help the person build what was missing. If the drug provided confidence, we need to explore how confidence can be created. If it provided belonging, we need to understand where connection can be found. If it regulated emotions, the person needs opportunities to learn how to recognise and sit with those emotions without immediately escaping them.
The function may have been real, but the solution was temporary. It borrowed relief from tomorrow and returned it with interest.
When we understand the job, we can begin questioning whether the drug was ever doing it as well as the person believed. Did it create confidence, or did it lend confidence for a few hours before taking more self-belief away? Did it remove the pain, or only delay the moment when the pain had to be faced? Did it create belonging, or did it slowly isolate the person from everyone who genuinely cared?
Working Out the Why gives us somewhere honest to begin. It moves the conversation away from blame and towards understanding, responsibility and choice. Because if we only remove the drug, the vacancy remains. But when we understand the job it was doing, we can help the person build something stronger, something real, and something that does not demand their life in return.
