When substances become the cheapest coping tool
People love neat explanations for addiction because neat explanations let you judge from a safe distance. The truth in South Africa is that a lot of addiction grows in the same soil as survival stress. When life is a constant calculation, when there’s never enough money, when the month is longer than the pay, when the fridge is a negotiation, when transport costs eat your dignity, when every emergency wipes out what you tried to build, your body doesn’t relax. It stays switched on. It stays braced. That state is not a mindset issue, it’s a nervous system issue, and substances become attractive because they offer something rare, a break.
For some people, that break looks like a drink that turns down the noise. For others, it’s cannabis that quiets the tension in the chest. For others, it’s pills that knock them out because sleep feels impossible when worry is constant. For others, it’s stimulants to push through fatigue, because rest is not an option when you’re trying to keep a household standing. Addiction doesn’t always start with pleasure. In survival contexts it often starts with relief, and relief is addictive because relief feels like safety.
Chronic stress rewires decisions
Chronic stress narrows thinking. It’s not because the person is stupid. It’s because the brain becomes focused on immediate threats. Long term planning becomes harder. Patience becomes thinner. Impulse control becomes weaker. The body is running on adrenaline and cortisol, and that makes quick reward feel urgent. It also makes risk feel normal. When your daily life is already uncertain, you stop fearing uncertainty. You start living for short term wins.
This is one reason addiction can develop faster in people under long term financial pressure. They are not “careless,” they are overloaded. If the mind is constantly busy with bills, debt, food, school costs, rent, family needs, and the fear of losing work, a substance that temporarily reduces that load feels logical. People don’t reach for the healthiest coping tools when they’re drowning. They reach for what’s available.
The humiliation factor
Poverty isn’t only about numbers, it’s about humiliation. It’s about being treated like you are less. It’s about being spoken to with impatience. It’s about watching other people move forward while you feel stuck. It’s about the silent comparisons, the clothes, the phone, the car, the ability to pay without checking your balance first. Even when people never say it out loud, financial stress can create a deep shame that eats at identity.
Shame is one of the most reliable drivers of addiction because shame makes people want to disappear. It makes them want to switch off their own mind. It makes them want to become someone else for a while, someone who doesn’t feel judged and small. Substances offer that temporary transformation. Alcohol can make you feel powerful in a room. Stimulants can make you feel sharp and important. Cannabis can make you feel unbothered. Pills can make you feel nothing, which can be a relief when everything else feels heavy.
The tragedy is that the coping tool often creates more shame. Money disappears. Work performance drops. Relationships strain. The person starts lying. The person starts hiding. Now they are not only ashamed of being broke, they are ashamed of being addicted, and shame stacked on shame is where people become trapped.
When financial stress makes home a trigger
Many families think addiction is the thing that makes the home tense. Often the home was tense long before the addiction became obvious. Financial stress creates constant conflict. Couples argue about priorities. Parents carry fear and become short tempered. Children absorb the anxiety and act out or withdraw. Everyone is tired. Everyone is reactive. In that environment, substances become a quick method of emotional control.
If a person drinks and the house gets quieter for a few hours, the family may accidentally tolerate it because they crave peace. If cannabis stops someone from snapping, the family may see it as “helping.” If pills help someone sleep and therefore function, the family may ignore the risk. This is how addiction becomes a household coping style. It’s not only the user using, it’s the household adjusting to keep the machine running.
This is also where enabling becomes complex. Families might depend on the person’s income when they’re sober and functional, so they avoid confrontation because they fear losing that stability. Or they might fear violence, so they choose silence to protect themselves. Or they might fear community gossip, so they hide it. The household becomes trapped in a survival mentality where the goal is not health, it’s avoiding collapse, and addiction thrives in that space.
The boredom of unemployment
Unemployment creates a specific kind of psychological pain. It’s not only financial. It’s identity loss. It’s waking up with no structure and no external validation. It’s applying again and again and being ignored. It’s watching your value be questioned. It’s being asked what you do, and feeling shame in your throat before you answer. In that space, time becomes heavy.
Substances fill time and numb the humiliation. A person can sleep through the day. They can smoke and let hours disappear. They can drink and create false social confidence. They can join a group where everyone is in the same position and everyone uses, because it makes the day pass faster. That’s how addiction can become routine in unemployment, because the substance becomes the schedule.
Families often respond by calling the person lazy. Sometimes the person is avoiding responsibility, yes. Often the person is avoiding shame. Either way, shame rarely motivates change. Shame usually motivates escape, and escape is what substances are designed to deliver.
The grind of employment
There’s also another side people miss. Some people work hard and still feel trapped. They commute long distances. They do physically demanding jobs. They deal with disrespect. They work for money that barely covers survival. They feel used up. They feel invisible. They go home to more responsibilities. There is no space for rest. They don’t drink because they love partying. They drink because they need to feel like a human being for a few hours.
This is where alcohol becomes deeply normalised. A drink after work becomes the only ritual that signals the day is over. If a person doesn’t have other forms of decompression, safe recreation, exercise, social support, therapy, sleep, the drink becomes the one tool that consistently works. Over time it stops being a choice. It becomes a requirement to downshift.
What pushes people into self medication
If therapy is expensive, if clinics are stretched, if waiting lists are long, if the culture mocks vulnerability, the person will do what’s available. They will self medicate anxiety, depression, trauma symptoms, insomnia, and anger. They might not call it mental health. They might call it stress. They might call it pressure. They might call it being tired. The body doesn’t care what you call it. If the distress stays untreated, the person will keep reaching for relief.
This is why telling someone in a survival context to “just do therapy” can sound tone deaf. Treatment has to be realistic. It has to meet the person where they are. It has to include practical structure, community support, family education, and strategies that don’t depend on having endless time and money.
Survival stress makes addiction understandable
If you want to understand why people fall into addiction, you have to stop pretending everyone has the same options. Chronic stress changes behaviour. Shame changes behaviour. Limited support changes behaviour. In survival contexts, substances can feel like the cheapest coping tool available. The solution isn’t judgement. The solution is realistic treatment that builds structure, restores dignity, and creates accountability strong enough to compete with the relief the substance provides. Relief is powerful, but a life with self respect and stability can be stronger if the person gets the right support early enough.