Imagine that you are addicted to something. Heroin, painkillers, alcohol, diet pills, it does not matter. The important thing for this example is that you have a vice that is causing you physical symptoms that make it difficult to function. Days are getting longer and harder.
Where do you go for help? Well, nine times out of ten you do not go to your boss. Some bosses will be sympathetic to your plight. But most are only keeping you around for the labor they can extract from you. And that means they will treat addiction as a personal problem.
You can expect to face the same scrutiny from casual acquaintances. On average, people generally view drug addiction as the result of poor life choices. Which is strange, is it not?
There are a few things that people have to learn about what drug addiction is, how it works in the human body, and how recovery from drug and alcohol addiction works.
So, let’s get started. You can head to the Ocean Recovery site for more info.
Addiction is Not a Choice
Nobody willingly gets addicted to drugs or alcohol. The problem is that many people think that it is a choice. They make the observation: “They did drugs too much and got addicted. They might not have chosen to get addicted, but they made the choice that got them addicted.”
This rhetoric is highly academic. It is the worst kind of observation, that is the kind that uses the truth to say something false. Because yes, people who are addicted to drugs and alcohol almost always used these things. But that does not necessarily mean they made a choice to do so.
There are three ways that a person gets addicted to drugs and alcohol.
Unknowingly
This is more common than you might think. People are prescribed painkillers that they do not need all the time, thanks to the United States’ horribly corrupt pharmaceutical industry.
Socially
When someone gets addicted due to social pressure it is usually the result of fraternizing with people where the illicit substance is a normal part of the social interaction. They do not need to have substances pushed on them. The substances are just part of the normal environment.
This is one of the most common ways people get addicted to things. Using cocaine too much at parties, drinking too much socially, and then eventually not being able to function.
Neglectfully
Anyone who recreationally uses drugs or alcohol can fall into this, and we mean anyone. This pathway to addiction is the most similar to the “used too much, got addicted” line of thinking.
But what people do not tell you is that it can happen so easily. You can develop dependencies on alcohol much more quickly than you’d think. With opioids it is even worse, where one powerful dose can make your immune system crave it desperately.
So, what do all of these things have in common? A few things. To begin with, they can happen without a person realizing. A person usually becomes an addict as a consequence of their environment, whether that is due to being handed pills, or taught that drinking is normal.
Addiction is a Disease
This is the most important thing to understand about addiction. Similar to depression and anxiety, addiction is a problem that emerges from the nervous system. It is an elevated want or craving for something that debilitates part of the body to make life easier for the mind.
This has more in common with a mental illness than a physical illness. And most importantly, it is more similar to an illness in every way rather than some degraded sense of being. But people are so scared of addiction that they see an addict and reflexively explain it away.
“I can’t be like them. I make good choices.” People will say that, but if your doctor betrays your trust and takes a kickback from a painkiller manufacturer to prescribe you an addictive medication, did you really make any choice at all? No, your justifiable trust was betrayed.
Addiction is Cured Through Treatment
It is important to frame addiction as a disease and not a choice because the only way—not the best way, not the worst way, but the only way—to deal with addiction is through treatment.
How does one treat the disease of addiction? Let’s talk about some ways.
Weaning
This is the first step than many addicts have to take, especially alcoholics. The body’s chemistry is so accustomed to the substance that it is no longer producing chemicals it needs to stay healthy. Going “cold turkey” and taking away the substance entirely can be damaging.
Instead, addicts should carefully come down off of their vice. That means taking less and less of it over time. And yes, that even means relapsing. No one who has an addiction has ever kicked it perfectly, and relapsing is an expected part of the process.
Medication
Due to the chemical nature of addiction, supplements will frequently be required to help stabilize the addict’s body. These can include melatonin, iron, and other crucial vitamins and minerals.
Therapy
It is important for the addict to know what choices brought them to their addiction. No addict chooses to be addicted, but their choices can have an influence on whether their addiction stops or keeps going. Accountability is important, but do not take it too far.
Always remember that the point is to help them, not to condemn them.
Conclusion
There are so many more layers to addiction than even all we presented here. The physiology of addiction in particular is incredibly deep, as the way the body craves things is different from most other emotional experiences. But the point here is not to talk about that.
The point is that the key to understanding drug and alcohol addiction and recovery is that addiction is a disease, and recovery is the treatment. And like all treatments, it takes time and consistent application for it to see results.
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