How to cure addiction in Starfield

Look, we've all been guilty of over-indulging at one time or another in our lives. Maybe there was a particularly gruelling Starfield battle coming up and you wanted to make sure your damage output was high and your defense was solid, so you popped some Squall. Maybe you wanted to absolutely charm the pants off your romance target, so you necked a few bottles of wine before your date.

Though booze can give you a bonus to your persuasion (just like in... real life?) relying on it to get you through the trickier social interactions the game throws at you is not a good idea; hit the sauce, or the pills, or the inhalers a bit too often and you'll wind up addicted.

What is addiction in Starfield?

Now, depending on the flavour of addiction you have in Starfield, different things may happen – you might see that your equipment carry weight is decreased, or that you expend energy doing simple tasks much quicker. You might note that general battle performance is lowered, or that your overall health is lower than it should be. Different addictions – whether it's to alcohol, stimulants, or whatever else in the world of Starfield – can have varied and intense effects.

You can prevent the effects of addiction by using an item in the corresponding field as your addicition (drinking wine when you're hooked on alcohol, for example) but the negative status effects will return as soon as the effect of the item wears off. Plus, you don't want to be going into battle drunk all the time; you're going to want to preserve that precious oxygen.

How do I cure addiction in Starfield?

There are a few ways you can cure an addiction in Starfield; Addichrone, Junk Flush or by seeing a doctor.

Option 1: Use an Addichrone

Addicrone (available from many vendors and specialist medical facilities) is the cheapest way of addressing addicition, but it only lasts 10 minutes. Basically, use it like you would a med pack – go into the menus, select it, hit A – and you'll see symptom relief for 10 minutes.

Option 2: See a doctor

Doctors will be able to compeltely remove the addict status from you. There is typically a doctor in most major settlements (we've been using the one in Reliant Medical in New Atlantis, and the one opposit the Trade Authrity on Cydonia, Mars). For my stimulant addiction (don't judge me), I payed 450 at the New Atlantis health concern. From what I've seen so far, that seems to be the standard price for treatment. If you have multiple addictions, expect this price to stack.

Option 3: Use a Junk Flush

These items, similarly to Addichrones, are one-use. The difference here is that this nifty little inhaler will purge you of all your addicitions in one fell swoop – and you can pick them up for about 700 credits a piece before any of your discount skills are applied. Weighing in at only 0.10kg, it's well worth keeping one of these on your person at all times – you never know what the world is going to throw at you.

Need to quickly spawn some meds, check out our Starfield console commands list for all your quick fix needs. Or, if you need a hand with character building, head on over to our pages about the best Starfield armor and best weapons. If you find yourself stuck on a particular quest, we've also got guides for the Ryujin Industries questline and the Crimson Fleet questline.