The Cost of Opioid Addiction
Cost to Insurers
Insurance companies pay around $3500 on average for a regular patient. For opioid addicts specifically, insurers are cost upwards of $19,000 comparatively. Spending on healthcare and treatment for opioid addiction costs $28 billion. That $28 billion contributes to a larger $75 billion sum which is the cost of overdose, abuse, and dependence on opiates.
Cost to America
Opioid addiction costs the United States just under $80 billion per year. Opioid addiction, or the overuse, abuse, and misuse of opioids all have a devastating affect. When someone is addicted to or misusing opiate drugs, they are usually unproductive. Additionally, their priorities get rewired, making them care less about important things. Some of that cost is in care, loss of productivity at work, and the cost of processing opioid addicts through the criminal system. Overdoses are costly as well. Fatal overdoses cost over $20 billion. Non-fatal overdoses cost the same.
Cost to Family
2 million people could be diagnosed with opioid use disorder, which would indicate the presence of opioid abuse or opioid dependency. Over 15,000 deaths each year are connected to opioid overdose. An estimated 40 people or more die every day from fatal overdose on prescription opioids. The number is higher when including opioids found on the street, like heroin.
Addiction is a disease that effects the whole family. When 40 people die every day, they are leaving behind 40 families who have to grapple with the loss of a loved one. Families try to get their loved ones into treatment and help them in any way they can. Addiction is taxing on everyone involved. The emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual cost of having a loved one who is in active addiction is high.
Cost to Ourselves
When we become chemically dependent upon the presence of substances like opiates, we cost ourselves years of our lives. Those years could have been spent happy and healthy, making positive choices for our lives as well as having a positive impact in others. We might cost ourselves financial stability by spending any all money on drugs or alcohol. We might cost ourselves our health as we deplete our immune system and mental health with every hit. We cost ourselves the spiritual growth, serenity, and peace we could be experiencing. Years of our lives spent in addiction can never be recovered- but we can.
