If the devil finds work for idle hands, it is equally true that there is probably no greater temptation for addicts to resume using illegal drugs than sitting for hour after hour in a house or a flat with nothing to do. If you've got something constructive to do, that gives you something to concentrate on, to blank out the drugs. I don't think I'd have lasted. I'd have been away chasing the drugs again. Another way in which work is important to the recovering addict is in allowing the person to develop a sense that, for the first time in their life, they have a future which stretches out further than their next hit.
Work opens up a future of opportunities, of things to do, people to meet and places to go to.
This sense of a future, which most of us take for granted, is in many instances entirely new for the recovering addict. It is easy to see why many employers are wary of responding positively to encouragement to assist recovering addicts by finding them work. Helping an addict is unlikely to be high on most employers' list of priorities. But it is difficult to overestimate the value of that help, where it is given. Our medical and social work services can do a lot to help people come off drugs, but they cannot build a life for the recovering addict.