There was a time when addiction in Bangladesh was spoken about only when it became unavoidable. Even then, the words were carefully chosen, lowered voices, closed doors. In many families, it still carries the weight of shame more than concern. But outside those homes, on city streets, university corridors, and the corners of tea stalls, it has already become part of everyday life.
It rarely announces itself in the beginning. A cigarette passed around after class, a pill taken to stay awake before exams, a friend saying, “Just once won’t hurt.” Most young people do not remember the exact moment it starts changing shape. Stress sits underneath many of these stories. So does uncertainty. Jobs are hard to find. Pressure to perform never really ends. For some, there is also loneliness that does not get named.
A nationwide survey conducted by Bangladesh Medical University (BMU) estimates that around 8.2 million people in the country are currently using illicit drugs. A large share of them are under 30. Behind those numbers is a simple pattern repeated in different places: early exposure, usually during teenage years or just after.
Ayan (pseudonym), 22, left Dhaka University in his second year. “It didn’t start like addiction,” he said. “We used to smoke in the hall after classes. That was normal. Then one night before an exam, someone gave me Yaba. He said it would help me stay awake.”
He smiles a little, but it doesn’t last. “At first, I thought it was helping. Then slowly it became necessary. If I didn’t take it, I couldn’t focus. Later, I couldn’t sleep at all without it.” He still hasn’t gone back to university.
“My family thinks I am trying again. I let them believe that. Truth is, I am just trying to stop,” he added.
Smoking is often where it begins. In many campuses and neighbourhoods, cigarettes are not treated as unusual. They sit in the middle of conversations, exam pressure, boredom, and even celebration.
“Nila” (pseudonym), 19, remembers it clearly in a way she wishes she didn’t. “After class, everyone used to stand outside and smoke,” she said. “I didn’t want to feel left out. It felt like everyone else was handling stress better than me. Now I get anxious if I don’t smoke. It doesn’t even feel like a choice anymore.”
She has tried to quit more than once. It never lasts through exam season.
Yaba has added a harsher layer to this picture. Small, easy to hide, easy to move. It travels fast through informal networks and reaches young users with little warning. The first feeling is usually energy, alertness, and confidence. But that stage does not stay.
People who work in treatment centres describe the later phase more quietly: sleeplessness, paranoia, sudden anger, and collapsing routines. In some cases, long-term use leads to lasting psychological damage. Other substances also circulate, including heroin, cannabis, ice, ketamine and misused prescription drugs, moving through both urban neighbourhoods and quieter rural pockets.
Rafiq (pseudonym), 29, has been clean for 14 months. “I used to think I had control,” he said. “But addiction doesn’t ask permission.”
He remembers the slow breakdown more than a single moment. “Jobs went first. Then relationships. Then family trust. After a while, you stop recognising yourself.” Recovery, he says, is still ongoing. “Even now, there are days the urge comes back. Not like before, but it’s there.”
What families see is often different from what users experience internally. At home, changes begin quietly. Sleeping patterns shift, money disappears, conversations reduce, and meals are skipped. Then comes irritability, silence, sudden anger over small things. Some families describe a sense of living beside a stranger they once knew.
A mother of a drug user shared how gradual it felt at first. “Nothing big happened suddenly,” she said. “First, I noticed money missing. Then he stopped sitting with us. Then he would come home late and not say anything.”
At one point, she said, the house stopped feeling like a home. “We tried shouting. We tried punishment. Nothing worked. It only became worse.” The turning point came much later, through conversation rather than control. “When we finally spoke calmly, he agreed to treatment,” she said. “That was the first step.”
Her son is now in rehabilitation. She does not call it an ending. “It is not recovery like a straight road,” she said. “Some days are better. Some days feel like everything is starting again.”
Treatment specialists say this unevenness is normal. Detox alone is not enough. Long-term recovery depends on counselling, family involvement, and rebuilding everyday structure. But access is uneven, and stigma still prevents many from seeking help early.
For many young people, the hardest part is not only stopping use but talking about why it started. Behind the statistics, the pattern keeps repeating in different forms: stress, silence, pressure, escape. In that repetition, the problem stops being individual. It becomes something shared but rarely spoken about out loud.
Not every story ends the same way. Some continue, some break, some are still in the middle of becoming something different. But almost all of them begin in the same quiet place, long before anyone calls it addiction.
