The drugs that humans have discovered or invented are designed at addressing a special purpose. Every drug is engineered to fight some disease condition of the body.

However, it is unfortunate that many of these drugs that are used for medicinal purposes are also habit forming. That is the reason some people use drugs when they shouldn’t. Such a usage of the drug is known as drug abuse.When you use a drug for a purpose other than it is intended to be used, for recreation, then it is known as drug abuse.

Drug abuse is a subset of substance abuse. There are other substances that can be abused for recreation purposes, such as alcohol and nicotine from cigarettes.

However, when a person abuses a drug, it does not mean that the person will become totally dependent on the drug. Some people have good resistance built in their bodies which allows them to use drugs without getting addicted to them. But in several people, using the drug becomes a compulsive habit that they cannot break out of. This is the phase when they become a slave of the drug and their whole lifestyle undergoes a change. Such a habit is known as a chemical dependency, or in simple language, drug addiction.

Drug addiction happens when a person is compulsively dependent on the drug and experiences several physical symptoms when he or she is not allowed to consume drugs.

It can be seen that all drug addicts are drug abusers, but all drug abusers are not drug addicts.