Addiction

        *Excerpted from HEROIN HELL  

Wives, husbands, children, parents, friends, and sometimes Judges wonder why a person will continue to drink or drug after he experiences a consequence as serious as an arrest for DWI or possession of illicit drugs.  Why does a person continue to drink or use drugs even after a husband or wife leaves or a he loses his job?  Doesn’t the individual see the obvious solution?  If he stops drinking or drugging he won’t have a similar catastrophe in the future.  So why doesn’t he stop?  The answer of course, is addiction.

Addiction to a substance is, by definition, continued use of alcohol or other drugs despite repeated negative consequences.  The Circle of Active Addiction demonstrates the stages that every addict experiences.

 When addicts begin compulsively using alcohol or drugs they first experience a phenomenon called denial.  The meaning of denial is quite simple.  The addict denies that he or she is addicted to the drug in question.  In the face of all evidence; relationship problems, financial difficulty, possible legal trouble, health concerns, work or school dilemmas and loss of respect and responsibility, the addict continues the alcohol or other drug use.  Everyone around the alcoholic/addict knows what the problem is.  Everyone that is, except the addict.

If an alcoholic or addict does finally attempt to stop using the drug, he is likely to experience withdrawal symptoms.  In the case of alcohol, withdrawal without medical supervision can be debilitating, and in some cases, fatal.  With other drugs the symptoms of withdrawal can be so painful and devastating that the addict quickly returns to the drug.  Addicts are well aware that using the drug will stop the mental and emotional pain.

 Addicts and alcoholics soon reach the point of maintenance drinking/drugging.  At this part of the circle the addict needs the drug constantly in his system to feel normal.  At any given time of the day or night, the addict has a certain level of the drug in his body.  He literally cannot function without it.  Scientists call this positive cellular dependency.  The addict may not appear “high”, but if the alcohol or drug level falls, withdrawal will begin.

 Families and friends are almost always aware of the addict’s problem by this time.  Arguments may be often and loud.  The addict will make statements like “I can stop anytime I want to”, but, of course, he never does.  The addict begins to close off family and old friends and associates ore and more with his new “friends”.  Of course the new “friends” drink or drug as much as the addict does.

 It’s very hard for the addict to maintain any semblance of a normal life when he’s reached this point.  Problems at work or school start to intensify and legal problems become more common.  Faced with these consequences, the addict/alcoholic makes promises to stop drinking or drugging.  The promise may be sincere.  Perhaps the addict has come to accept that he truly does have a problem and has a desire to stop.  Unfortunately, the addict goes into withdrawal soon after the last drink or drug and unable to withstand the pain, starts to use again.

 After the broken promises the addict once again retreats into denial.  He will drink or drug less, he says, but he doesn’t have to stop because he doesn’t really have a problem.  The circle continues.

 Obviously a circle has no beginning or end.  With effective treatment, however, the circle of active addiction can be opened at any point and remade into an upward curve of recovery.  The process is simple but the work is hard.