Recovery Assistance

There are recovery assistance resources seemingly abundant on the internet. As a matter of fact, a simple search for recovery assistance can produce a whole variety of different sources of information as well as widely varying theories or perspectives on recovery assistance itself. Obviously, this can be a point of confusion for someone trying desperately to save the life of a person they love. With so many viewpoints about recovery assistance, a person often needs a navigational guide to wade through the choices and opinions, steering clear of slanted opinions based on financial gain, and directly targeting the sources of information designed to help you get your loved one through addiction recovery completely and successfully. With recovery assistance in mind, let our counselors guide you through the mire of viewpoints to a place of certain decision about how to best save the life of someone you love.

There is a lot of media and press on the subject of substance abuse intervention these days, there are even television shows covering the topic. What happens in most cases of drug and alcohol addiction is the person ceases to track with reality to a greater or lesser degree. They simply don’t see the situations or consequences that are as clear as day to you or I. Their ability to move their attention away from their own drug induced mental and physical pain and out onto their environments is markedly reduced and they are not aware. This can be quite frustrating to loved ones trying to help, as what is obvious to us is simply not real to the addict in many cases. A substance abuse intervention should be designed to give the addict enough assistance with his external observations that the situations and consequences that his or her addiction is creating once again become real to him or her. When the addict feels the threat of pain and loss from his environment is greater than the threat of pain or loss from drugs he or she usually becomes willing to do something, thought this may be reluctantly.

Drug Addiction is a condition characterized by repeated, compulsive seeking and use of drugs, alcohol or other similar substances despite adverse social, mental and physical consequences. It is usually accompanied by psychological and physical dependence on the abused substance and the appearance of withdrawal symptoms when the addictive substance is rapidly decreased or terminated. When addiction exists, the drug use controls the individual rather than the individual controlling the usage. Drug addiction is not a disease as many suppose and can be terminatedly handled.

The cycle of addiction begins with a problem, discomfort, or physical or emotional pain. Drugs or alcohol are used in an effort to find relief. Short term temporary relief is found which give the drug or alcohol value in the eye of the user. When confronted with the problem, pain, etc. again in the future the individual is prone to use the drug or alcohol again. The problem arises when it takes more and more of the drug or alcohol to get the same effect and instead of handling the source of the problem or pain the drugs are continually used to mask the symptoms while the problem itself continues to get worse. The drugs and alcohol themselves create new physical problems, shut of awareness and ability, all of which simply increases the symptoms to the point of the person being obsessed with finding and using the drugs or alcohol to numb himself, despite consequences to self and family.

Opium addiction has a long history. It was a problem in the 1850’s when morphine was developed as a non-addictive substitute. Morphine was soon a bigger addiction problem than opium. The morphine problem was ‘solved’ with another opium derivative – Heroin, which proved to be even more addictive than either morphine or opium. In the middle and latter parts of the 20th century along come methadone as the cure for heroin. You guessed it, methadone is stronger, more addictive, and more life threatening than any of the opium derivatives that came before it. Ask any methadone addict, or addiction professional dealing with methadone addiction and withdrawal. By the 1990’s the mortality rate from opium derivatives was estimated to be 20 times greater than the general population.