Drug addiction
What is addiction?
Addiction to drugs or alcohol has a really specific pattern in order to become an addiction.
You ask yourself. Is the person I am seeking help addicted?
There is different factors to determine the difference between "addiction" or "Social users".
Addiction is a substitution for an inability for the person to deal with different aspects of life.
Someone that needs alcohol or drugs to have fun. Someone that would a substance to be able to communicate. Someone that would need a pill to sleep. Someone that would needs is two beers to relax at night.
The above is just a few example of addiction. Now where is the line between someone that needs treatment or not.
The person has a problem. He is confronted to a situation in life that he has a hard time to deal with. It can be a problem in school, with his parents, his girl friend, his wife, his job etc. Also it can be a physical pain. The important thing here, is the person has no solution for those problems. The person becomes overwhelm by some aspect of life. The substance becomes a solution.
Drugs and alcohol is introduced to the person. He feels to a certain degree a release from that overwhelm. This is when the person becomes trapped in to it. Drugs or alcohol will become a solution to counter that overwhelm. Let's take a really common example of it. You have someone that is a young adult. This person has a communication problem. He is shy. He wants to have a girl friend. There is this problem that prevent him to start a conversation, to just go ahead and ask someone to dance etc. For sure you have seen an example of this in your life. Then this person has a few drinks and suddenly he can talk, ask someone to dance and so on. He just got a solution for his problem. So every time he'll go out. This will be his solution to "have fun", to meet with girls. This person goes in life and gets married. Then a problem comes up with his wife. He still cannot handle this problem with communication. Then he gets overwhelm with it. Then he has a drink and suddenly he can confront his wife. He just found a solution for his overwhelm. Every time in any aspect of life, he will have to confront a situation. Alcohol will be his solution. Any substance will bring the judgment of the person down. So this solution will bring more problem. Then the person will be more overwhelm. You end up with a person that has to use a substance to communicate, to have fun, to sleep, etc. This a really common example of how addiction works. For sure you have seen an example like this in your life. This applies to any substance.
Traditional drug treatment program modalities advocate that alcoholism and drug addiction are diseases. This is untrue. Drug and alcohol use is a choice, not unlike any other bad decisions we make in life. This fact of course becomes blurred over time as drugs and alcohol completely take priority over all other matters. Attending a long term drug treatment center helps drug addicted individuals by removing them from their environment for a period of time with less distractions. This provides the person a safe place that is far removed from drug connections and places. It is extremely difficult to help a person with a full blown drug or alcohol addiction without removing him or her from their environment. There is no quick fix for drug addiction and alcoholism. Recovery is often a long process, there should be little focus on time in the early stages of treatment. The skills one learns during intensive drug treatment must be integrated into everyday life, and this takes time.
Why do people--even smart
people--try drugs?
One reason frequently heard from individuals using drugs is that they do them to feel good. This can be seen as recreational use. Certain might light up a cigarette at a party. They might not consider themselves a "smoker," but they do it to feel good. An individual might smoke pot at his friend's house because he thinks it could be fun. But in reality, drugs don't care what the reason is. Similar effects can occur whether you're drinking to have fun or drinking to forget an issue, whether you're doing drugs to see how they feel or doing them to fit in.
Individuals frequently want to change their situation. If they're depressed, they want to be happy. If they are stressed or nervous, they want to relax, and so on. By taking drugs, individuals frequently think they can be the person they want to be. But, it isn't real. The person has not changed the situation; he/she only distorted it for a little while.
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Drug treatment by states 
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