Finger-Pointing Doesn’t Help

“Whose fault is it that I’m an addict?” Depends who’s doing the asking… Many people with the disease of addiction or alcoholism believe they are born that way. Please note, this blogger does not intend to go into any kind of deep psychological essay about the nature of addiction or physiological aspects of the disease. I am here to share to my experience and strength and hope; that an addict, any addict can stop using, lose the desire to use and find a new way to live. That’s it. I, personally, do believe that I was born with this disease.

When I first came to the program of Narcotics Anonymous in the spring of 1995, I had no idea I was an addict or that I even had a disease. I learned in Step One that I’m powerless and that my life is unmanageable. Come to find out, I have a disease, not a moral deficiency. The disease model, in the NA definition, works for me (and countless others) in that we can see ourselves more humanly. We were slaves to the drugs. Rather than me being a bad person, I was a sick person that made bad choices. I have a disease that tells me that I don’t have disease. It is also the only disease which I can self-diagnose. The First Step frees me: Every day, I admit I’m powerless over my disease.

Non-stop Addiction Spanned for Decades

It was the first time in years that we had hope. It had been a rocky four weeks since my brother-in-law got out of jail on drug-related theft charges. And, for the first time, it was him who suggested that he needed help to combat a non-stop addiction that has now spanned decades.

He checked himself into a highly respected recovery center in New York. Cautiously, we were feeling optimistic; he seemingly was embracing the program and following a few weeks of treatment, they set him up in halfway house. It had strict rules, oversight, mandatory drug testing and of course, a zero tolerance policy regarding drug use. In addition to a warm bed and a safe room over his head, counselors worked with him to help find a skill he could apply to a steady job, or even better, a career.

How to Plan a Successful Intervention

What can you do when someone you love is abusing alcohol or drugs? At first, you may just want to wish the problem away. But addiction is a chronic and progressive disease, and doing nothing can be a dangerous decision. For many, confronting the problem means confronting an addicted loved one – and an intervention is a way to show just how devastating their problem is to family and friends.

An intervention is a professionally directed process resulting in a face to face meeting of family members and friends of someone who abusing alcohol or drugs. Intervention helps the person make the connection between his/her substance abuse and the problems he/she are having in life. The goal of intervention is for him/her to accept help -- and begin the road to recovery.

We Only Have to Change One Thing

When we come to recovery for the first time, we're told we only have to change one thing: Everything! But just like it says in the Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text, How It Works, "This sounds like a big order and we can't do it all at once, we didn't become addicted in one day, so remember, easy does it." And we say, “But do it!” We’re told, the person we are today will use again, so change must happen in order for us to stay clean and sober.

Look where we’ve ended up! We are at meeting instead of a bar on a Friday night. Whoever would have thought this would happen? It is time to put away our old ways of thinking and doing and try something different, otherwise we are guaranteed more pain, suffering and misery. So where do we start?

Pushing against an immovable object is an exercise in frustration, and a big waste of time and energy. Yet for many of us, we do just that when we refuse to fully accept ourselves as we are, warts and all. There are just some things that have to be accepted for what they are. For example, a person may be born with a set of genes that could make them prone to certain diseases. There is nothing an individual can do about their genetic inheritance; all they can do is try to work with what they have. This is acceptance – the ability to effectively “be okay” with things beyond your control.

Self-acceptance can be defined as an unconditional affirmation or acceptance of self, in spite of weaknesses or deficiencies. True self-acceptance is attained when an individual is able to accept those realities, and does not feel the need to protest or change it. Self-acceptance is also liberating, since the individual who has truly accepted themselves has nothing to hide. At 12 Palms Recovery Center, we believe that In order to find happiness in recovery, it is important that an individual develops at least a certain degree of self-acceptance, because living a successful life is as much about recognizing individual limitations as it is about taking positive action. This philosophy allows individuals to focus on those areas where their efforts will be most fruitful.

What happens if it happens?

While rehab can lead to recovery, it is certainly not without struggle. Many recovered users experience a relapse during or after the addiction recovery process. That’s why it is important to understand that relapse is a process, not an event. In order to understand relapse prevention, you have to understand the stages of relapse. Relapse starts weeks or even months before the event of physical relapse.

Generally speaking, there are three stages of relapse:

Breaking the Cycle

Shame is a deeply personal and very painful emotion. If you’re struggling with an addiction, you likely have been feeling the shame of addiction for quite some time. Perhaps you’ve been trying to overcome it for years. That’s because shame and addiction go hand in hand. One of the most unfortunate aspects of shame is that it’s one of the primary contributors to your addiction. Most addicts who are feeling shame do everything they can to escape it, even if only temporarily. But this is what actually triggers the shame-addiction cycle: the shame of addiction makes you feel awful, so you self-medicate it with a drug, which gives you temporary relief from the shame; in turn, this reinforces the addictive behavior, but you also feel bad that you “gave in” and the shame quickly returns, driving you to self-medicate once again…it’s like a dog chasing its tail.

With each repetition of this cycle, your self-esteem takes a blow; you may feel out of control, powerless, hopeless, disgusted, angry, or disappointed with yourself. You mentally beat yourself up for not being strong enough to not give in to the urge to use. You feel guilty and worthless. And as your addiction negatively impacts your relationships, your finances, or your work, the shame takes a firmer hold on your psyche. Each time your make a promise to quit and don’t, or each time you tried to stay clean and sober only to relapse, the shame gets reinforced.

Are you struggling with drug and/or alcohol addiction? Do you suspect a loved one might be? Drug and alcohol addiction is a pervasive issue in this country that affects the lives of countless millions. In fact, more than 8 percent of the U.S. population is reportedly dependent on drugs and/or alcohol, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). And sadly, more than 94 percent of these individuals claim to not need treatment.

There are many steps to addiction recovery and the first step is to admit there is a problem. Knowing the symptoms of addiction can help you or a loved one break through the denial that is common in addiction. The next step is to seek addiction treatment. It cannot be stressed enough that addiction is a complicated disease that requires professional treatment.

Why do some people become addicted, while others do not? Studies of identical twins indicate that as much as half of an individual's risk of becoming addicted to alcohol, or other drugs depends on his or her genes. Pinning down the biological basis for this risk is an important avenue of research for scientists trying to solve the problem of drug abuse.

Genes – functional units that make up our DNA – provide the information that directs our bodies' basic cellular activities. Research on the human genome has shown that the DNA sequences of any two individuals are 99.9% identical. However, that 0.1% variation is profoundly important, contributing to visible differences, like height and hair color, and to invisible differences, such as increased risk for heart disease, stroke, diabetes…and addiction.

August 18, 2011  - In that capacity, she will be assuming responsibility for day to day clinical operations of the center, a rehabilitation facility that maintains a census of approximately 20 clients and specializes in attention to the alcoholic addict in a private, comfortable setting.