Mental illness and self medication
A lot of people fall into addiction because they are trying to treat a mental illness without knowing how to name it, and without getting the right help early. They are not chasing chaos, they are chasing normal. They are chasing sleep, calm, confidence, quiet, or the ability to get through a day without feeling like their skin is too tight. In South Africa, mental health support is often delayed by cost, stigma, long waiting lists, and families that still treat depression and anxiety like attitude problems. So people do what humans always do when they are suffering and unsupported, they look for relief that is available, fast, and private.
Substances offer that relief. Alcohol can slow anxiety and soften social fear. Cannabis can quiet racing thoughts and make the body feel less tense, until it does the opposite and amplifies paranoia in the wrong person. Sleeping tablets can force rest when insomnia becomes torture, until dependence forms and the fear of not sleeping becomes its own monster. Stimulants can create focus, confidence, and drive, until the crash brings panic, irritability, and darker depression. For many people, addiction begins as self medication that gradually becomes a cage.
The restless engine that makes escape feel logical
Anxiety is not always obvious panic. It can be constant tension, irritability, overthinking, health fears, social avoidance, and a body that cannot relax even when nothing is happening. People with anxiety often live in a state of anticipation, waiting for the next problem, the next judgement, the next failure, the next threat. They may look high functioning, but internally they are burning through energy just to appear normal.
Alcohol is one of the most common anxiety medicines people prescribe themselves, because it works quickly. It slows the nervous system. It makes you feel less self conscious. It helps you talk. It makes conflict easier to tolerate, at least in the moment. That is why so many anxious people become dependent without realising it. A drink before a social event becomes two, then it becomes a requirement. A drink to sleep becomes a nightly ritual, then it becomes a fear, because without it the mind starts racing and the body refuses to settle.
The problem is that alcohol rebounds. It can increase anxiety the next day and disrupt sleep quality. The person then drinks again to stop the anxiety that the drinking helped create. That loop is not a moral failure, it is a predictable chemical cycle that turns anxiety management into dependence.
When numbness makes substances feel like colour
Depression is not just sadness. For many people it is emptiness, low energy, low motivation, guilt, self disgust, and a sense that nothing matters. It can also show up as irritability and anger, especially in men who have been taught that sadness is weakness. Depressed people often feel like they are dragging themselves through life, and substances can feel like the first thing that makes them feel something again.
Alcohol can create a temporary lift, then deepen depression later. Cannabis can create a short window of relief, then worsen motivation and emotional flatness in some people. Stimulants can create energy and confidence, then crash into darker lows. Pain pills and sedatives can create a warm blanket feeling, then leave the person colder without them. If someone is depressed and they find a chemical that creates a burst of relief, their brain starts prioritising that chemical as a solution, especially when they have no other tools.
Depression also increases isolation, and isolation increases addiction risk because there is less accountability and less human connection. People often use alone, and using alone is one of the fastest ways a habit becomes dependence, because the substance is no longer linked to social context, it is linked to internal survival.
When the high feels like the real self and the crash feels unbearable
Many people fall into addiction because they have mood instability that has never been properly assessed. Bipolar patterns can include periods of elevated mood, increased energy, decreased need for sleep, impulsive decisions, and intense confidence, followed by crashes into depression. In an elevated phase, people may drink more, take drugs more, gamble more, and chase stimulation because the brain is already in overdrive and the person feels untouchable.
In the crash phase, substances become escape. The person feels ashamed of what they did, overwhelmed by consequences, and desperate to numb out. This creates a rhythm where substances are used to extend the high or to shut down the low. Families often misread this as personality, irresponsibility, or immaturity, and they push the person to just calm down, which does nothing because the brain is not calm. Without treatment, the person can bounce between extremes, and substances become the unreliable steering wheel.
This is why proper assessment matters. If someone has repeated cycles of intensity, impulsivity, and collapse, it is not enough to tell them to be more disciplined. Discipline does not stabilise mood disorders. Treatment and structure do.
When the brain chases dopamine and finds it in a bottle
Adults with ADHD and emotional dysregulation often fall into addiction because their brains are wired for stimulation and quick reward. They struggle with boredom, impulse control, time management, and emotional intensity. Substances offer state change. Alcohol calms. Cannabis slows. Stimulants focus. Pills sleep. The person starts using to manage a brain that feels too loud or too scattered.
The risk here is that many adults are undiagnosed and carry shame for years. They believe they are lazy, unreliable, messy, or broken. That shame drives more escape. A person who feels like a disappointment is more likely to use because using offers a break from self judgement, even when it creates new reasons to judge themselves later.
When insomnia becomes the gateway
Sleep is a major doorway into addiction because sleep loss makes people desperate. If you cannot sleep for weeks, your mood becomes unstable, your anxiety increases, your cravings increase, and your ability to cope shrinks. People start using whatever knocks them out. Alcohol, cannabis, sleeping tablets, pain pills, and combinations that become dangerous quickly.
The hard truth is that forced sleep is not restorative sleep. Alcohol sleep is fragmented. Sedative sleep can become dependence. Cannabis sleep can become required. When sleep is chemically managed for long enough, the body forgets how to downshift naturally. The person then fears bedtime and uses more. This is one of the fastest ways a person becomes trapped, because sleep feels like survival, and anything linked to survival becomes hard to stop.
Why people treat themselves instead of seeking help
Many people do not seek help because they fear labels. They fear being seen as weak, dramatic, unstable, or a problem. They fear workplace consequences. They fear family judgement. They fear being told to pray harder or just toughen up. So they choose the private solution, a substance, because it feels controllable and because it does not require vulnerability.
The problem is that private solutions become private disasters. The person hides, lies, and isolates. Families only see the surface and get confused when the person reacts badly to small stress. Employers see performance dips and apply pressure. Pressure increases anxiety. Anxiety increases substance use. The system becomes self reinforcing.
Why “just stop” fails, the substance is doing a job
If you want to understand why people fall into addiction, stop asking why they cannot stop, and start asking what the substance is doing for them. It is calming anxiety. It is numbing depression. It is creating energy. It is forcing sleep. It is reducing social fear. It is shutting off intrusive thoughts. It is making the person feel normal.
When you remove a substance without replacing its function, the person feels exposed and overwhelmed, and relapse becomes predictable. This is why treatment needs to be more than detox. It needs to build emotional regulation, sleep routine, coping skills, and honest mental health care. It also needs accountability and boundaries, because mental illness explains behaviour but does not excuse harm.
People fall into addiction when suffering is untreated and relief is available
Addiction often begins when a person is suffering and a substance provides fast relief. If the suffering is mental illness, the person is not weak, they are untreated. The way out is not judgement. The way out is treatment that addresses both the substance and the mind that reached for it, with structure, accountability, and a home environment that stops rewarding secrecy.
