10 Signs of Fentanyl Use: How To Know if Someone Has Fentanyl Addiction

Fentanyl’s silent grip can be deadly. Learn the warning signs to save a life.

What is Fentanyl and Why Is It So Dangerous?

Fentanyl has presented a significant challenge to communities, but by understanding its impact, we can empower ourselves to make a difference. As a potent opioid, fentanyl requires special attention due to its strength compared to other opioids. 

However, recognizing the signs of fentanyl use can be a powerful tool in saving lives and guiding people towards recovery. By staying informed and proactive, we can work together to create safer, healthier communities for everyone.

The Fentanyl Crisis: A Growing Epidemic

As we walk through neighborhoods across America, we see the impact of fentanyl, but we also see resilience and hope. While there are empty benches where friends once gathered, there are also vibrant community centers where people come together to support each other. Memorial flowers remind us of lives lost, but they also symbolize the love and care that remains.

This crisis is not just a challenge; it’s a call to action that unites us all, from suburban neighborhoods to city streets, in a shared mission to build safer, healthier communities for everyone.

10 Warning Signs Someone May Be Using Fentanyl

1. Drowsiness and Nodding Off

One of the earliest signs of fentanyl use is extreme drowsiness. They might start dozing off in the middle of conversations, meals, or even while standing up. Their head might drop suddenly, only to jerk back up as they struggle to stay awake.

It’s a warning sign that shouldn’t be ignored.

2. Confusion and Disorientation

You notice a decline in their cognitive function compared to their previous baseline performance. Once demonstrating exceptional recall of daily events, they now exhibit spatial disorientation even in familiar environments. Communication patterns have deteriorated, with evident difficulty processing routine information. 

When these concerns are addressed directly, they respond with either dismissal or defensive behavior, potentially indicating awareness of their cognitive changes and associated psychological distress.

3. Slowed Breathing

You observe a concerning pattern in their respiration rate—noticeably slower than normal, with periodic episodes of apnea followed by compensatory shallow breaths. This respiratory depression is not just indicative of fatigue, but rather represents a physiological response to fentanyl exposure, which characteristically suppresses the respiratory drive and can reduce breathing to clinically significant levels requiring immediate intervention.

Shallow breathing can be life threatening. Always call 911 if someone is unconscious or unresponsive, even if they appear to be breathing.

4. Pinpoint Pupils

Their eyes look different—tiny, constricted pupils even in dim lighting. If their pupils look like small dots, it could be a strong indication of opioid use.

5. Flu-Like Symptoms and Sweating

Withdrawal can hit hard. People addicted to fentanyl often go through cycles of use and withdrawal. When they don’t have the drug, they may experience flu-like symptoms—chills, excessive sweating, muscle aches, nausea. It might seem like they have a bad case of the flu, but it happens too often to be a coincidence.

6. Unpredictable Mood Swings

Fentanyl use can cause extreme mood swings, making it difficult to predict how someone will react. The emotional rollercoaster can be exhausting for both them and their loved ones.

7. Withdrawing from Family and Friends

They previously demonstrated consistent engagement in scheduled family gatherings such as weekly dinners and recreational events. Currently, there is a pattern of social withdrawal characterized by frequent cancellations accompanied by various justifications. Communication responsiveness has diminished significantly, with periods of unavailability and unexplained absences. 

A person who formerly exhibited extroverted social behavior now displays avoidance of interpersonal connection through reduced eye contact and increasing social isolation.

8. Financial Problems and Stealing

Addiction isn’t cheap. If someone is constantly borrowing money, selling personal belongings, or things start going missing from their home, it could be a sign that they’re struggling with substance use. 

9. Paranoia and Anxiety

People exhibit increased hypervigilance, characterized by frequent perimeter-checking behavior and elevated startle response. Their psychological presentation includes persistent apprehension and surveillance of their environment, consistent with heightened threat perception. 

This paranoid ideation and anxiety state are recognized neuropsychological effects associated with fentanyl use, which can induce a pathological sense of environmental threat even within previously neutral or safe context

10. Visible Track Marks or Skin Infections

If someone is injecting fentanyl, you might notice bruising, scabs, or infected wounds on their arms, legs, or hands. Others may smoke or snort the drug, leaving behind burnt foil or straws. These physical signs are often the hardest to see—but they are among the clearest indicators of a serious problem.

The Consequences of Fentanyl Addiction

Fentanyl Overdose Symptoms:

• Unresponsiveness
• Slow or stopped breathing
• Bluish skin, lips, or nails
• Gurgling or choking sounds
• Weak or absent pulse

Overdose can happen in an instant. Families across the country wake up every morning, hoping today isn’t the day they receive the call that shatters their world.

Beyond the Immediate: Long-Term Health Impacts

The damage doesn’t stop with each high. Like water slowly eroding rock, fentanyl carves away at the body’s systems over time.

Imagine the strain of a heart forced to work with less oxygen, struggling with each beat. Picture lungs becoming less elastic, each breath shallower than the last. Think about a brain repeatedly deprived of oxygen, critical neural connections fraying like old rope.

Former users often describe feeling decades older than their actual age – dealing with chronic pain, damaged organs, and a body that can’t quite remember how to function normally.

Finding Hope: Treatment Approaches That Work

In the darkness of addiction, pinpoints of light still break through. I’ve sat in recovery meetings where people who once seemed beyond reach share stories of rebuilding their lives piece by piece.

Comprehensive Treatment Approaches

First, people should stop misusing substances. The next step is rebuilding a life worth staying sober for.

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) creates new pathways in the brain. Imagine thoughts as water flowing downhill – CBT redirects those streams to healthier destinations. “I need fentanyl to cope” gradually transforms to “I have better tools now.”
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches people to sit with discomfort without reaching for substances. Picture someone learning to stand steady in emotional storms that once would have knocked them flat.
• Recovery Support Groups provide the understanding that only comes from shared experience. There’s a powerful healing in a room of people who know exactly what you’re going through without judgment – who recognize the struggle behind a simple statement like “Today was hard.”

Levels of Care That Meet Individual Needs

Recovery isn’t a straight line but a winding path with different terrain requiring different equipment.

• Partial Hospitalization Programs (PHP) wrap structure around days that once had none. Imagine having a place to go each morning, people expecting you, and a purpose beyond surviving until the next high.
• Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP) allow people to test their recovery wings while maintaining a safety net. Picture someone practicing their sobriety skills in real-world settings, then returning to process what worked and what didn’t.
• Sober Living Facilities create breathing room from old triggers and associations. Envision a house where the refrigerator door isn’t where the drug money is hidden, where the bathroom isn’t where deals went down – where spaces can begin to mean something new.

Dual Diagnosis: Addressing the Whole Person

For many, fentanyl became the answer to questions they couldn’t otherwise answer: How do I quiet the anxiety that screams through my body? How do I face memories that haunt me? How do I function when my brain chemistry feels constantly off-balance?

Living with both addiction and mental health conditions like Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, or PTSD is like trying to sail a boat with two different leaks. Plug just one, and you’ll still sink.

Effective treatment sees the whole person – not just the substance use, but the underlying pain and struggle beneath it.

The Skypoint Recovery Difference

In Akron, Ohio, our approach recognizes that healing doesn’t happen in isolated pieces. our team understands that each person’s journey into fentanyl addiction came through a unique door, and our way out needs to be equally personalized.

Our programs – from Partial Hospitalization to Intensive Outpatient to Sober Living – form a continuum of support that can adjust as recovery progresses. And because money shouldn’t stand between someone and their chance at life, we accept Medicaid insurance and work with patients to navigate financial options.

Change Can Start Now

If you’re reading this because someone you love shows signs of fentanyl use, I know the churning fear in your stomach. The way you check on them while they’re sleeping to make sure they’re still breathing. The calculations about how to get them help without pushing them away. The grief for the person they were before fentanyl.

If you’re reading this for yourself, recognizing your own struggle in these words, know this: You matter. Your life has value beyond this substance. The strength it takes to even consider getting help is already inside you.

The hallways of Skypoint Recovery are filled with people who once stood exactly where you’re standing now – scared, unsure, wondering if change is really possible. They took one step, then another. You can too.

Don’t let another sunrise come without reaching out. Fill out our online form or call 855-612-3488 today.

Some calls change everything. This could be yours.