What is Addiction? Sunday, Apr 5 2009

Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them.

We have seen something of what the differing types of treatment available are, these were not meant to be an all encompassing declaration of the treatments available, just something to give you an idea of what’s available, hopefully to give you a starting point.

Now let’s look through the eyes of an addict, remember please, addiction takes on many forms, the list would cover a multitude of pages, suffice it to say we speak of a general subject but in particular terms.

It’s 2:00 AM on any given day, you are laying in bed staring at the ceiling, counting the number of holes in the ceiling panels, your stomach is a knot, you feel extremely restless, you want to move but you don’t have anyplace to go. Your mind starts to race with thoughts that are becoming disjointed, you can’t concentrate on anything very long. Your legs and arms begin to tingle, you feel the hair on the back of your neck stand up. Your breathing becomes rapid and shallow, your vision begins to pinpoint, you can hear the sweat run down your forehead towards your ears.

It has been 6 long hours since your last smoke; drink; fix; boost; meal; etc. etc. etc. There is a feeling coming up inside you that you cannot control, it gets stronger by the second, you feel yourself slipping out of this reality into another type of reality. In this altered state there is but one truth, you got to have it, nothing less will suffice. The thing inside is driving you to get the stuff, your whole being becomes focused on getting the stuff, no matter what the cost.

You make a call, you connect. The deal is half way done, out the door, in the car, or down the street. Walking in the shadows so as not to be seen, heading for the connection. You arrive, you make the deal, you head back, stay in the dark, don’t get caught. You get to your room. You do what you have to, the job is done. You feel the surge of the stuff, you lay back and let the feeling take you to where you can’t go yourself. Time becomes a blur, separate noises combine into a cacophony of sound you can’t distinguish. Lights passes rapidly, it is fleeting, here and gone.

Another trip, then coming down. You lay on the bed trying to recall the effect, but it’s gone, then the crash.

“God don’t let me do it again, please!”

Then it starts again, the “Repeatable Cycle” it doesn’t change, it just continues, and each time it takes a little more to get off.

To be continued:

http://www.prlog.org/10211487-launch-of-new-website-in-the-area-of-addiction-as-seen-by-someone-in-recovery.html

Leave a Response »

 

What is addiction Tuesday, Mar 31 2009

Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them.

What are the alternatives we alluded to in the last communique? There are a plethora of programs that run the gamut from the Original Alcoholics Anonymous (12 Step Program) to the Guru Programs( You don’t need AA or NA, come here and get cured in 30 days!). In all fairness I cannot qualify any program as better than any other one, being as I have not personally been to them, all I can vouch for are the ones I have tried while practicing my addiction. AA, NA, GA, PA, Over Eaters Anonymous or any other of the multitude of these programs are all based on the 12 Steps principal and have worked extremely well for the people they serve.

But there are always folks with a newer and better way of doing it, take for example a heroin addict going to methadone maintenance treatment, exactly what has that person accomplished, in my estimation, nothing. That person just traded one drug for another, but in a program, it’s legal, ethical you decide, switch one substance for another, get habituated on the substitute drug, and still continue using the original drug, don’t sound right to me.

The high end programs, are just that, high end. Not discounting their services, the prices they charge are to say the least outrageous. Middle end programs run on the average about $6,000 – $7,000 for a thirty day stay, high end $9,000 and up depending on the accommodations. On the other end of the scale is the indigent programs. There is no charge for these programs, the services are equal to the high end programs without all the fancy trim.

The effectiveness of thee programs is not dependent on the location, or the accommodations, but rather on the staff working there. A PhD in Psychology as opposed to a street smart LCDC does not improve your chances of success any more than a fancy Brandy snifter makes you any less of an alcoholic then a guy that guzzles right from the bottle. What I am trying to say is the program does not guarantee success, the people in it and their commitment to the success of the client does.

There is another alternative, usually found in your own neighborhood, Churches are now getting far more visible as a source of help for addiction of all types. The people of the local church body have developed a program called Celebrate Recovery, it is open to anyone, it does not just focus on chemical dependence, but rather a very broad spectrum of addiction related problems. This focus is primarily a God centered recovery program, which by the way is the basis for all the 12 Step Programs in existence.

No matter which type of program you choose, choose carefully, you are betting your life on it. Find out all you can before you commit, it will make a world of difference. See you next week.
Something new check it out at www.addictsr.com, it’s finally live.

2 Responses »

 

What is Addiction Sunday, Mar 8 2009

Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them.

Does an opportunity have to present itself in order for a person to become an addict? In a word, YES. The reason I say this is, each and everyone of us has the ability to become whatever we choose, often times, this choice is for the better. But, there are times when we manufacture opportunities in order to get what we want.

It is during these times of self manufactured opportunities that far reaching mistakes are made, and these mistakes will not be realized until latter in our lives. When we give in to the ease of doing things from home, IE, shopping, communicating, running a business, on line dating, we have a tendency to more and more seclude ourselves and interacting with others less and less. The more we do this, the more we are apt to develop methods of entertaining ourselves by ourselves.

When we run out of ways to do it on our own, we begin to seek methods of doing it by introducing either substance or situations as the opportunity arises, more often than not we manipulate our environs so these situations do arise.

The question then becomes, What is the goal of this manipulation, the answer is not pleasure, although that is part of the matter. The answer lies somewhere between realization and actualization. We realize that for some reason that we don’t know, something in our lives is missing, but trying to find out what that is is a problem of immense proportion, far to great for us to fathom. So the answer then becomes “Replace the missing with something I have enjoyed before, nothing wrong with that.”

When this action is employed, it eventually leads to tolerance which then leads to the deterioration of functions. This deterioration of function then leads to the loss of identity/relevance, which leads to depression, which leads to increased usage or increased instances of participation in situations we have chosen to engage in. Also known as the “Addiction Cycle”.

Leave a Response »

 

What is addiction Monday, Feb 23 2009

Starting a new subject, it is not unknown to me, I worked in the field of addiction services for quite a while.
What is Drug Addiction?

Addiction is a chronic, often relapsing brain disease that causes compulsive drug seeking and use despite harmful consequences to the individual who is addicted and to those around them.
There now that we know how the experts define addiction, lets undertake to find out what the people afflicted with this malady have to say.

According to some with whom I have dealt over the past 14 years + the descriptions run the gamut from escape, to self realization/actualization. Aside from the obvious side effects which are inherent with addiction, and the propensity of the addict to engage in activities which are bound to effect a loss of freedom, what really happens to keep the addict addicted to his/her substance of choice?

On many occasions, I have had the opportunity to sit and just talk with a multitude of addicts and really tried to listen to what they had to say in describing themselves and their habits. Accordingly these people’s addiction were classified differently, some were sex addicts, some were addicted to substance, some were addicted to gambling, etc, etc, etc.

The list of addictions would take up about a ream of paper, the point of interest to at least me anyway was that every time I had the opportunity to speak to a person that was addicted, aside from the terminology used, and the explicative being deleted, the substance of the conversation was always the same.

The basic make up of an addict is:
1.The person is male/female or whatever.
2.The person is white, black, brown, yellow, red, blue, pink or whatever.
3.The person is between the ages of 1 month to 100 years.
4.The economic status is poor low, poor middle, poor upper, middle low, middle middle, middle upper, rich low, rich middle, rich upper.
5.The person’s educational level is drop out, high school graduate, associate/bachelor/ masters degree, post graduate, doctoral degree.
6.The person’s religious ideology is Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Islam, etc, etc, etc.

In basic language, there is no predisposing sexual, racial, age specific, economic oriented, educational level determining factor that leads someone to becoming an addict. The addiction started when the person was first offered a substance, or situation that lent itself to transporting that person to a place of self identified safety or power. Within this sphere of safety or power, the person was beyond the harmful reach of today. This feeling has been described as Nirvana, Shangri-La, return to the womb, getting into, dropping out, getting wasted, getting high, etc, etc, etc. Once this alteration in reality is experienced, the desire to return to that same feeling is overwhelming to say the least. This is the “Virgin High”, reached only once and never again. The pursuit of this “Virgin High” starts the pathological behaviors that we recognize as part of the “Addictive Behavior”

6 Responses »

 

Still at it Tuesday, Feb 17 2009

Putting the final touches on site, getting things in order, testing and tweaking here and there but should be running soon, very soon. By next week should be posting blogs with a bit more meat and taters, hope you will be there. Until then, keep the faith

Leave a Response »

 

Still at It Wednesday, Feb 11 2009

Things are progressing along, had to stop for a short due to medical reasons, but back at it now.

The site is finally starting to come together, the content is put in place, just waiting on the results of the proof reader checking my grammar and flow.

Now that the launch is within eyesight, starting to get wired again, little things are starting to take on more importance, not quite at the nail biting stage yet, but getting there.

I find myself second guessing what I could have done differently, but everybody I talk to says leave it as is and see how it is received, little more anxiety added to the mixture.

Finding it hard to be patient, want to get to launch stage like yesterday, but I have to maintain, it’s got to be done right, or all the effort is worth nil.

Well back to waiting on the proof reader results, I hate to wait…

Leave a Response »

 

Still at it Monday, Feb 2 2009

Made a lot of headway over the past couple of weeks, I have the content ready to go. Now I just have to set up the site and launch. For me this has been an experience, I know things now that I never knew before. Setting up the following sites should be a piece of cake. Of course there is still testing and changing to be done but all in all I feel pretty good about what will be seen.

This experience has reacquainted me with a few things that I had forgotten about and some things I have been taken for granted. I’m glad that they were brought back, because they are important. It is for this reason that they are included in the site.

Once it’s ready to go, I will post again, go check it out and tell me what you think.

Until next time

Keep the Faith

Dman

Leave a Response »

 

Help when Help is needed. Thursday, Jan 8 2009

A part of life that has been around as long as man has been around.

Not to often discussed in open conversation due to the very personal nature of the problem, yet is at the forefront of man’s inhumanity to himself.

This is a new posting for me, it will be part of a website I am presently building that deals with the problem of addiction as experienced by one who is himself in recovery. There will be referrals back to my experience with recovery in both the  persona of the person in recovery and  of a provider of the services of recovery. The focal point of the posting is to maybe help someone who is currently under duress due to the problems of addiction and the problems associated with addiction.

There will also be postings as to the different types of treatment for the problems of addiction, support and follow-up for families of addicts, and educational materials about addiction in it’s various forms. There will be links to the website being built that will have much more information.

This communique will be a portal to reports, eBooks, articles and anecdotal information. I will  attempt to keep it as lighthearted as possible, but be forewarned, there will be times when lightheartedness is forgone due to the nature of what is being discussed. Please remember that addiction in any form is extremely serious and can be life threatening.

As this is a public posting, I invite your comments and concerns. I feel that through discussion and learning we grow in maturity and understanding. I will be posting to this site as often as possible while I am still building the website, and then more regularly after the site is up and running

One Response »

 

Came to Believe Friday, Dec 7 2007

I apologize for missing one week of publication, I experienced some technical difficulties, my router took an unauthorized trip and left me somewhere in limbo, it took a couple of days to track it down, but since being replaced, I can now continue on course, thank you for your patients.

2 Responses »