History Main / AddledAddict

* In ''VideoGame/TheSims3'', you can make a Sim this by assigning them the Absent-Minded, Inappropriate, Insane, or Unstable traits (or all of the above) along with the Party Animal trait, and/or assigning them those traits and having them do nothing but drink, eat, eat/burn herbs, consume potions with negative effects, WooHoo with anyone and everyone, play video games nonstop, or otherwise engage in an addictive behavior.

When a drug addict is left a physical and mental wreck from their addiction to drugs or alcohol. The signs are typically what they would be in real life; their visage noticeably deteriorates, they are increasingly unreliable and regularly fail to meet obligations, are often visibly drunk or strung out and, if they are on drugs, may be associating with sketchy and often dangerous people, and are also prone to theft, scams, and scheming to acquire money to feed their habits. The decline is often documented as a way of showing DrugsAreBad. This is distinct from the FunctionalAddict (who is still capable of accomplishing the tasks of every day life), but the FunctionalAddict may become this. In cynical works, this can be the endpoint of a DescentIntoAddiction character arc.

* The trope image provider, ''Unkept Promise'', is a pro-temperance propaganda comic about the apparent dangers of alcohol, illustrating this with the story of family man who immediately goes on a hard downward spiral after trying just one glass of booze. He forecloses on his house, loses his job, repeatedly ends up in the drunk tank, his family falls into poverty, and apparently [[OffModel his hat turns blue.]]

* In ''ComicStrip/BloomCounty'', Bill the Cat is the character most frequently stated to use drugs other than alcohol, tobacco or [[ICantBelieveItsNotHeroin dandelions]], which helps explain why his average mood is practically brain-dead.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Coping}}'', Sunset's addiction to over-the-counter drugs contrasts with the other characters more stable usage of cigarettes and marijuana. Sunset's becoming more addicted. It's gotten to the point where even Twilight notices that something is wrong with her.

* In the ''Fanfic/LayingWasteToHalloween'', Annabeth becomes addicted to drugs, they have both physical and mental side effects. She has sores on her mouth from the drugs and she's started to disassociate and not be ''there''.

* ''Film/CitizenRuth'' has Ruth addicted to the petrol-based fumes of aerosol cans. She is found in an alley in a catatonic state by police, who identify her, and arrest her for being wasted in public. While in the city jail, Ruth gets a handful of pro-life protesters as cellmates. They take pity on Ruth, and discover that she's pregnant. Ruth shrewdly withholds some critical details, though: she's had four other children removed from her custody for being an unfit mother, and her current baby's father is a slumball john named Ricky.

* In ''Film/{{Kongo}}'', Dr. Kingsland is a wild-eyed, twitchy, hollow shell of a drug addict, hooked on "bhang root". Kingsland says that he was actually sent to the Congo to fight drug addiction in the colony, but at some point he "just stopped fighting."

* In the ''Literature/{{Flashman}}'' series, Flashman's father, Buckley, ends up in this state, helped along by experiencing a financial collapse from bad investments. In the first novel of the series, he's a bad-tempered old rake with a drinking problem, and shortly after that, he's put in an asylum to be treated for the DT's. He appears as a POV character in the spin-off novel ''Black Ajax'' but doesn't really show up after that (except for mentions of his bad physical and mental health), and it is implied that his son basically left him there to rot.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' Invoked in Season 2. Laurel is the only one to see through Sebastian Blood's VillainWithGoodPublicity act. Part of Blood's plan to discredit her is to expose her addiction problems. When everyone else learns of it, they (and even she) conclude her addiction is the only reason she thought this about him. Arguably inverted, as despite her addiction she was the only one to recognize he ''was'' in fact a villain.

* In ''Series/{{House}}'', Dr. House starts having a mental breakdown over his vicodin addiction [[spoiler:causing him to suffer hallucinations of Amber (Wilson's girlfriend whose death he inadvertently contributed to) and, at the end of season 5, Kutner (who committed suicide and whose death helped trigger the hallucinations).]]

** ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': We learn more of Raffi's backstory in "Stardust City Rag". When she falls prey to drug addiction after she's fired from Starfleet, she ends up neglecting her son and her husband to such a high degree that they kick her out of the house, which is why we see her living alone in a hovel in her introductory scene.

* Quite a few character in the songs of Music/TownesVanZandt, including "Waiting 'Round To Die" and "White Freight Liner Blues". Sadly, a case of WriteWhatYouKnow.

*** The Fiends, a gang of raiders who are defined by their drug-fueled insanity. A member of First Recon even mentions that she feels bad for them since unlike the Legion, she feels that they're not entirely lucid and aware of their surroundings.

*** Vera Keyes, the starlet who Sinclair fell for in ''Dead Money'' had a long running Med-X (painkiller) addiction. This made her susceptible to blackmail by Dean Domino. As the War drew closer, she became more addled, having a glazed look that even construction workers deduced was due to addiction, then needing Super Stimpaks to take the edge off. She eventually required an Auto-doc to be installed in her room exclusively for her use. Unbeknownst to her but know by Sinclair, Vera was terminally ill. When we find her, she is surrounded by Med-X needles, implying death by overdose.

* ''Webcomic/GurralTheSmasher'': [[BioweaponBeast Bioengineered alien gladiator]] Gurral is addicted to Impervium, a rare mineral that had a mutagenic affect on him, turning him into a fifty-meter-tall heavily-armored behemoth.

* On the ''LetsPlay/DreamSMP'', Schlatt's addiction to [[TheAlcoholic alcohol]], protein powder and anabolic steroids took a heavy toll on his health, both physical and mental, [[spoiler:and likely caused the heart attack (or stroke) that took his final life.]]

* ''Series/TheCallOfWarr'': Upon finding a jar of orange pills in the train-station, Killsin's instinct is to steal them and pretend they don't exist... while scarfing down as many as he can, in every scene he's in. As soon as episode two, he's already almost dead from an overdose, and it's implied the pills may be messing with his mind as well. Not that he cares, as he continues to take them, despite warnings.

** Sarah Lynn is a great example from a TV show about a horse. Her drug addiction spawned from a TraumaCongaLine including the burden of being a [[FormerChildStar child star]] who'd once had dreams outside of that realm, a [[TeenIdol sensation]] [[ThatSoundsFamiliar pop princess]] who was left isolated, strongly implied [[PaedoHunt inappropriate contact]] with her stepfather, [[AntiAdvice horrible advice]] from [=BoJack=] whom she looked to as a [[ParentalSubstitute father figure]] in light of her unexplained DisappearedDad, etc., etc., etc. By the time she was 30, she had become the typical starlet case–druggie whom no-one cared for anymore. [[spoiler: She died at only 32 years old after nine months of sobriety due to a heroin overdose.]]

%% Image selected per Image Pickin' thread: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1548304297003991200
%% Please do not replace or remove without starting a new thread.

[[quoteright:272:[[ComicBook/UnkeptPromise https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/unkept_promise_addled_addict.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:272:"When I was sober, my family loved me. [[OffModel And my hat wasn't blue...]]"]]

%% Caption selected per above IP thread. Please do not replace or remove without discussion here:
%% https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=1404492079030138900

-->-- '''Catherina''', ''{{VideoGame/Pathologic}}''

* ''Fanfic/CodexEquus'' has Moon Ray Vaughoof. Moon Ray's entry notes that he consumed so much drugs and alcohol that his judgement and music-playing were severely impeded, and he became [[AlcoholInducedIdiocy prone to making dumb choices]]. When he started having [[DreamingOfThingsToCome prophetic nightmares]] about himself drowning in water mo matter how hard he tried to swim up, Moon Ray tried suppressing them with ''more'' alcohol, and he [[SelfFulfillingProphecy later collapsed and nearly died on tour as a result]]. Both doctors and Zebra musician Smooth Neck predicted he wouldn't live long to the age of forty (which came true, but in a different way) because of how much he damaged himself with his habits. Fortunately, Moon Ray's near-death experience motivated him to clean himself up and cut out all the toxic people in his life, including his wife at the time, Crystal Light, whom he divorced after discovering her unsavory traits. Meeting Velvet Heart, his fiancee [[spoiler:and later wife]], made him swear off alcohol and drugs completely, and he was a completely RecoveredAddict by the time of his death. His presence in the Fourth Age as an [[PhysicalGod Alicorn god]] implies he has been sober for ''over tens of thousands of years''.

* Yukari in the ''Azumanga Daioh'' fic ''Fanfic/{{Control}}'' becomes this after she starts injecting drugs. The first chapter starts with her arriving at Nyamo's house in the middle of the night, beaten up and oblivious to her surroundings.

* Happens to [[TroubledButCute Matt]] in the ''It Matters'' collection of ''Manga/DeathNote'' fanfictions, brought on by Mello's ({{Canon}}) decision to leave Wammy's House (and thus Matt) behind without bothering to say goodbye or make contact with him until the (also {{Canon}} explosion. Matt began using drugs (opiates in particular), alcohol, and empty sex (as well as {{Self Harm}}ing) to cope with the pain of losing Mello. When they are reunited, he starts on a path to recovery by GoingColdTurkey. He is ''mostly'' successful, though he does fall OffTheWagon every now and again, which does put a strain on his marriage to Mello.

* ''Film/XMenDaysOfFuturePast'': Past Charles Xavier is so far gone with his alcoholism and self-medication that he can't function without Hank [=McCoy=]'s help.

* Jim/the Waco Kid starts out with a bad case of the DT's in ''Film/BlazingSaddles'', [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KF6tRXpw00 at least on one side,]] although he gets over it fairly quickly.
* Kyle and Dusty in ''Meth Head''. They struggled to find money and suffered some bad side effects from all the meth they snorted.
* ''Film/ThreeOnAMatch'': Vivian's degradation as she goes from society wife to companion of deadbeat loser Michael ends with her being addicted to heroin. She is gaunt, hollow-eyed, and twitchy when the kidnappers bring "Junior" to the hideout. Harve sees her compulsively rubbing her nose, mimics her nose-rubbing, and says "Uh oh!" Later Vivian goes through withdrawal.
* Christopher Boyce gets his drug dealer acquaintance Daulton Lee to help him conduct US military and intelligence secrets to the Soviets in ''Film/TheFalconAndTheSnowman''. He runs into problems because Lee gets greedy, and also because Lee's own addiction to cocaine makes him careless.
* While all the main characters in ''Film/RequiemForADream'' have their lives destroyed by their drug addiction, for three of them it's the things they do in an attempt to feed their addictions rather than the effects of the drugs themselves that do them in (although Harry loses his arm to gangrene). The only one who suffers from this trope is poor Sara, who's rendered insensible by her diet pill addiction until she's institutionalised, forced to undergo electroshock therapy, and reduced to a withered, insane, near-catatonic ruin.
* ''Film/JurassicCity'': Erika, one of the prisoners. She thinks she's hallucinating the dinosaurs and another time sees a giant bunny instead of one of them.
* ''Film/TheConfirmation'': Drake turns out to be high on meth while he's helping Walt and Anthony look for the stolen tools and needlessly provokes conflict while taking them on all kinds of dead ends.
* ''Film/AGirlWalksHomeAloneAtNight'': Hossein is a heroin addict, though he does have a few lucid scenes.

* In ''Literature/DragonBones'', there is the protagonist's mother, who takes several drugs, and is almost always drugged. The fact that she's ''never'' quite there strongly implies that the drug abuse has affected her brain. [[spoiler: Close to the end, Ward uses his magical "find" ability to look for her ... and doesn't find her, even when he finds her body.]]
* King Wargun and Krager in ''Literature/TheTamuli''. Wargun (who is still sane in ''Literature/TheElenium'') is said to be insane from drink and locked in one wing of the palace at the beginning, and Krager has lost his mind and is dying at the end. It's mentioned that, by the end of ''The Tamuli'', Wargun is dead as well.
* In ''Literature/TheFirstLaw'' series, the LovableRogue mercenary leader Nicomo Cosca goes from a FunctionalAddict with a drinking problem to one of these by the end of ''Literature/RedCountry'', with a lot of description given to how much of a physical and mental wreck he has become. It also seems like as his alcoholism gets worse from novel to novel, he also declines morally, and is basically the BigBad of ''Literature/RedCountry''.
* In the ''Literature/{{Flashman}}'' series, Flashman's father, Buckley, ends up in this state, helped along by experiencing a financial collapse from bad investments. In the first novel of the series, he's a bad-tempered old rake with a drinking problem, and shortly after that, he's put in an asylum to be treated for the DT's. He appears as a POV character in the spin-off novel ''Black Ajax'' but doesn't really show up after that (except for mentions of his bad physical and mental health), and it is implied that his son basically left him there to rot.
* Father Kabani from ''Literature/HardToBeAGod'', alchemist, [[TheAlcoholic alcoholic]] and a total burnout. He started to [[DrowningMySorrows drown his sorrows]] after seeing too many of his inventions used for war and torture. By the time of the novel, he is a complete wreck.

* Bulwa of ''Literature/ShamanBlues''. He apparently tried to shut down his magic Sight with alcohol and drugs, and by the time Witkacy meets him, he's an insane beggar living in the gutters and babbling incoherently.

* Literature/SherlockHolmes is portrayed like this in some pastiches, most notably ''Literature/TheSevenPercentSolution''.

* By the time of ''Literature/{{Borrasca}} V'', the main character has become a complete wreck who's totally dependent on heroin as a way to escape the [[TraumaCongaLine physical and emotional pain of the first story]]. It's even [[InvokedTrope invoked:]] [[spoiler: Sam's father has been secretly paying off his dealer for the express purpose of keeping him drug-addled and docile.]]

* Ellie Rooney on the short-lived show ''EZStreets'' is a barely functioning heroin addict.
* Dolores Mayo, the interim civilian aide played by Creator/LolaGlaudini on ''Series/NYPDBlue'', just seemed shy at first. Then it was revealed she was using heroin. Then she went downhill very fast.

* ''Series/StarTrekDeepSpaceNine'': We have the Jem'Hadar, a race of artificially-grown alien soldiers for the Dominion who are genetically engineered to be addicted to a narcotic called Ketracil White, as a means of ensuring their loyalty to the Founders. Jem'Hadar who go without Ketracil White for too long lose their ability to cloak themselves and risk going into cardiac arrest or going on a berserk rampage.
* ''Series/StarTrekPicard'': We learn more of Raffi's backstory in "Stardust City Rag." When she falls prey to drug addiction after she's fired from Starfleet, she ends up neglecting her son and her husband to such a high degree that they kick her out of the house, which is why we see her living alone in a hovel in her introductory scene.

* ''Series/{{Arrow}}'' Invoked in Season 2. Laurel is the only one to see through Sebastian Blood's VillainWithGoodPublicity act. Part of Blood's plan to discredit her is to expose her addiction problems. When everyone else learns of it, they (and even she) conclude her addiction is the only reason she thought this about him. Arguably inverted, as despite her addiction she was the only one to recognize he ''was'' in fact a villain.

* Music/DannyBrown's "Party All the Time" (which [[SequelSong is very likely about the girl from "Nosebleeds"]]) chronicles the downward spiral of a HardDrinkingPartyGirl as she becomes less and less able to control her substance usage, shifts to harder and harder drugs, drops out of college, and begins prostituting herself to fund her habit.

[[folder:Theater]]

* The painkiller Joy plays a fairly large role in ''VideoGame/{{LISA}}''; the protagonist, Brad, along with several recruitable party members, suffer from Joy Withdrawal. When suffering withdrawal, the character's stats tank and they are practically useless until the withdrawal is gone. You can even make your other characters Joy addicts by giving them some of the drug.
* In ''VideoGame/TheSims3'', you can make a Sim this by assigning them the Absent-Minded, Inappropriate, Insane, or Unstable traits (or all of the above) along with the Party Animal trait, and/or assigning them those traits and having them do nothing but drink, eat, eat/burn herbs, consume potions with negative effects, WooHoo with anyone and everyone, play video games nonstop, or otherwise engage in an addictive behavior.
* ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas'' has the Fiends, a gang of raiders who are defined by their drug-fueled insanity. A member of First Recon even mentions that she feels bad for them since unlike the Legion, she feels that they're not entirely lucid and aware of their surroundings.
** ''Old World Blues'' has [[spoiler:Dr. Mobius]], who regularly abuses drugs such as Mentats and Psycho, which furthers his mental degradation to the point of making him senile. [[spoiler:He uses the Psycho to give himself the edge to threaten the other members of the Think Tank since he's normally incredibly docile]].
** Vera Keyes, the starlet who Sinclair fell for in ''Dead Money'' had a long running Med-X (painkiller) addiction. This made her susceptible to blackmail by Dean Domino. As the War drew closer, she became more addled, having a glazed look that even construction workers deduced was due to addiction, then needing Super Stimpaks to take the edge off. She eventually required an Auto-doc to be installed in her room exclusively for her use. Unbeknownst to her but know by Sinclair, Vera was terminally ill. When we find her, she is surrounded by Med-X needles, implying death by overdose.
* ''VideoGame/Fallout4'': Cait, who is on the fast lane to becoming one due to her addiction to Psycho, which makes her unstable and eventually causes her to start coughing up blood.

[[folder:Webcomics]]

* ''WebComic/GurralTheSmasher'': [[BioweaponBeast Bioengineered alien gladiator]] Gurral is addicted to Impervium, a rare mineral that had a mutagenic affect on him, turning him into a fifty-meter-tall heavily-armored behemoth.

* ''Series/TheCallOfWarr'': Upon finding a jar of orange pills in the train-station, Killsin's instinct is to steal them and pretend they don't exist...while scarfing down as many as he can, in every scene he's in. As soon as episode two, he's already almost dead from an overdose, and it's implied the pills may be messing with his mind as well. Not that he cares, as he continues to take them, despite warnings.

** Sarah Lynn is a great example from a TV show about a horse. Her drug addiction spawned from a TraumaCongaLine including the burden of being a [[FormerChildStar child star]] who'd once had dreams outside of that realm, a [[TeenIdol sensation]] [[ThatSoundsFamiliar pop princess]] who was left isolated, strongly implied [[PaedoHunt inappropriate contact]] with her stepfather, [[AntiAdvice horrible advice]] from [=BoJack=] whom she looked to as a [[ParentalSubstitute father figure]] in light of her unexplained DisappearedDad, etc., etc., etc. By the time she was 30, she had become the typical starlet case – druggie whom no one cared for anymore. [[spoiler: She died at only 32 years old after nine months of sobriety due to a heroin overdose.]]
--->'''[=BoJack=]:''' Well you should... not... do that [contact one of the billion people who ''will'' let her party at their house].\\

* "The Wolf" by SIAMES is about three addicts being tirelessly chased by a wolves (or pack of them) who symbolize their respective vices and are hellbent on catching them to show that they can't avoid the consequences of their actions.

* "The Wolf" by Music/SIAMES is about three addicts being tirelessly chased by a wolves (or pack of them) who symbolize their respective vices and are hellbent on catching them to show that they can't avoid the consequences of their actions.

[[caption-width-right:272:"When I was sober, my family loved me. [[Off-Model And my hat wasn't blue...]]"]]

[[caption-width-right:272:"When I was sober, my family loved me. [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking And my hat wasn't blue...]]"]]

[[folder:Real Life]]
* Jacques François Mouret, once an excellent chessplayer and director of The Turk (a chess-playing "automaton") was a notorious drunk. George Walker would later mourn "he unhappily formed habits of dissipation fatal to his respectability and standing in society. He burnt out his brain with brandy and died recently in Paris reduced to the extremest stage of misery and degradation." Mouret was only 50 years old.
* [[Music/HidetoMatsumoto hide]] was an extremely talented guitarist, one of the pioneers of AvantGardeMetal, and likely could have been one of the few people with the capability to have made Japanese HeavyMetal and VisualKei a fixture in the global metal scene far earlier than it was. Unfortunately, he was also a hardcore alcoholic, and while he remained a FunctionalAddict for a while, around 1994, his alcoholism had reached the point of severe and life-threatening, and only worsened from there. In 1998, he died as a result of [[NoodleIncident an accident involving self-inflicted asphyxiation]], with a BAC buried in alcohol poisoning range and evidence of methamphetamine use, at 33 years old.
* Music/TaijiSawada was a virtuoso bassist and guitarist, one of the first Japanese rockers to fuse metal and country-western music, and unfortunately a raging alcoholic and user of stimulant drugs as well. He moved from FunctionalAddict to AddledAddict territory around the early 1990s, in part leading to his being kicked from both Music/XJapan and Music/{{Loudness}}, becoming entirely broke and homeless and his mental illnesses getting out of control, being almost killed in a fight with another homeless man, and only slowly putting his life back together - only to fall OffTheWagon again, one last time, in 2011, which led to his arrest and to his [[PoliceAreUseless suspicious]] [[PoliceBrutality death]] at 45 years old.
* Music/SydBarrett, a former Music/PinkFloyd member around when the band just released their first album. He became increasingly paranoid and schizophrenic and his drug use didn't help matters much. During recording sessions and concerts he phazed out, unable to do anything but stare. The others kicked him out of the band and Barrett recorded two solo albums, after which he became a recluse dealing with drug addiction and mental instability for the remaining 40 years of his life.
* Music/HermanBrood, a Dutch rock star, was infamous for using every possible drug in existence. During interviews he often appeared to be confused or continually drawing attention to himself in ways that didn't always make a lot of sense. Many people had sympathy for Brood, who could be a very nice and charming person. Unfortunately this was also one of the reasons why his addictions wrecked his health. Police officers and customs agents never confiscated his drugs because they took sympathy on him. By 2001 Brood was told by his doctor that his body was totally spent and he had only two months to live. The rock star decided not to wait that long and committed suicide by jumping of the roof of a hotel building.
* Music/AmyWinehouse's drug addictions also took their toll later in her career. Despite having a best-selling record, ''Music/BackToBlack'', she was never able to cash in on it properly, because she was often too stoned or drunk to actually be able to record or perform. She often made the news for public drunkenness or drug use, and died at age 27, with the long anticipated successor to ''Back To Black'' only appearing after her death.
* Similarly, Music/CourtneyLove has a notable record of drug abuse, leading to an infamous appearance on TheRoast of Creator/PamelaAnderson in which she was ''very'' visibly out of it despite protestations of "[[ImplausibleDeniability I've been sober for a YEAR]]!"
* [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Katz Phil Katz]] was a genius computer programmer and the creator of the .zip file format, as well as a pioneer of freeware and shareware. His crippling social awkwardness forced him to turn to alcohol to loosen up while running his company, PKWARE. Unfortunately, this led to extreme alcoholism and estrangement from his family and co-workers, and he drank himself to death in 2000 at age 37.
[[/folder]]

* Music/HermanBrood, a Dutch rock star was infamous for using every possible drug in existence. During interviews he often appeared to be confused or continually drawing attention to himself in ways that didn't always made a lot of sense. Many people had sympathy for Brood, who could be a very nice and charming person. Unfortunately this was also one of the reasons why his addictions wrecked his health. Police officers and customs agents never confiscated his drugs because they took sympathy on him. By 2001 Brood was told by his doctor that his body was totally spent and he had only two months to live. The rockstar decided not to wait that long and committed suicide by jumping of the roof of a hotel building.

* The protagonist of ''VideoGame/DiscoElysium'' starts the game after having drunk so much and having snorted so much speed that he has amnesia about who he really is. He's also deranged (HelpfulHallucination sometimes usefully) and massively suicidal and self-loathing as the result of his own addictions, and it's stated that the alcohol has aged him and mangled his body so much that he's a major risk for a heart attack for acts of normal exertions, such as [[CriticalExistenceFailure sitting in an uncomfortable chair or turning on the lights while hungover]]. He finds that his behaviour under the influence has caused him to wreck his police car, lose his badge, pawn off his gun and make all of his coworkers loathe him so much that they assigned him on a case as an insult to the other department involved.

When a drug addict is left a physical and mental wreck from their addiction to drugs or alcohol. The signs are typically what they would be in real life; their visage noticeably deteriorates, they are increasingly unreliable and regularly fail to meet obligations, are often visibly drunk or strung out, and, if they are on drugs, may be associating with sketchy and often dangerous people, and are also prone to theft, scams, and scheming to acquire money to feed their habits. The decline is often documented as a way of showing DrugsAreBad. This is distinct from the FunctionalAddict (who is still capable of accomplishing the tasks of every day life), but the FunctionalAddict may become this. In cynical works, this can be the endpoint of a DescentIntoAddiction character arc.

* Music/DannyBrown's "Party All the Time" (which [[SequelSong is very likely about the girl from "Nosebleeds"]] chronicles the downward spiral of a HardDrinkingPartyGirl as she becomes less and less able to control her substance usage, shifts to harder and harder drugs, drops out of college, and begins prostituting herself to fund her habit.

* ''Videogame/FalloutNewVegas'' has the Fiends, a gang of raiders who are defined by their drug-fueled insanity. A member of First Recon even mentions that she feels bad for them since unlike the Legion, she feels that they're not entirely lucid and aware of their surroundings.
** ''Old World Blues'' has [[spoiler:Dr. Mobius]], who regularly abuses drugs such as Mentats and Psycho, which furthers his mental degradation to the point of making him senile. [[spoiler:He uses the Psycho to give himself the edge to threaten the other members of the Think Tank since he's normally incredibly docile]].
** Vera Keyes, the starlet who Sinclair fell for in ''Dead Money'' had a long running Med-X (painkiller) addiction. This made her susceptible to blackmail by Dean Domino. As the War drew closer, she became more addled, having a glazed look that even construction workers deduced was due to addiction, then needing Super-Stimpacks to take the edge off. She eventually required an Auto-doc to be installed in her room exclusively for her use. Unbeknownst to her but know by Sinclair, Vera was terminally ill. When we find her, she is surrounded by Med-X needles implying death by overdose.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* Ellie Rooney on the short-lived show ''EZStreets' is a barely functioning heroin addict.
* Dolores Mayo, the interim civilian aide played by Lola Glaudini on ''Series/NYPDBlue'', just seemed shy at first. Then it was revealed she was using heroin. Then she went downhill very fast.

* Music/AmyWinehouse's drug addictions also took their toll later in her career. Despite having a best-selling record, ''Music/BackToBlack'', she was never able to cash in on it properly, because she was often too stoned or drunk to actually be able to record or perform. Everytime she made the news it was for public drunkenness or drug use, making a total fool out of herself. She died at age 27, with the long anticipated successor to ''Back To Black'' only appearing after her death.

* Happens to [[TroubledButCute Matt]] in the ''It Matters'' collection of ''Manga/DeathNote'' fanfictions, brought on by Mello's ({{Canon}}) decision to leave Wammy's House (and thus Matt) behind without bothering to say goodbye or make contact with him until the (also {{Canon}} explosion. Matt began using drugs (opiates in particular), alcohol, and empty sex (as well as {{Self Harm}}ing) to cope with the pain of losing Mello. When they are reunited, he starts on a path to recovery by GoingColdTurkey. He is ''mostly'' successful, though he does fall OffTheWagon every now and again, which does put a strain on his marriage to Mello.

* In ''Fanfic/{{Coping}}'', Sunset's addiction to over-the-counter drugs contrasts with the other characters more stable usage of cigarettes and marijuana. Sunset's becoming more addicted. It's gotten to the point where even Twilight notices that something is wrong with her.