The life cycle of addiction can begin with a problem, discomfort, or some form of emotional or physical pain a person is experiencing. They find this very difficult to deal with.
We start off with an individual who, like most people in our society, is basically good. This person encounters a problem or discomfort that they do not know how to resolve or cannot confront. This could include problems such as difficulty “fitting in” as a child or teenager, anxiety due to peer pressure or work expectations, identity problems, or divorce as an adult. It can also include physical discomfort, such as an injury or chronic pain. The person experiencing the discomfort has a real problem. He feels his present situation is unendurable, yet sees no good solution to the problem.
Everyone has experienced this in life to a greater or lesser degree. The difference between an addict and the non-addict is that the addict turns to drugs or alcohol as a solution to the unwanted problem or discomfort.
This person tries drugs or alcohol. The drugs APPEAR to solve his problem. He feels better. Because he now SEEMS better able to deal with life, the drugs become valuable to him. The person looks on drugs or alcohol as a cure for unwanted feelings. The pain-killing effects of drugs or alcohol become a solution to their discomfort.
Inadvertently the drug or alcohol now becomes valuable because it helped them feel better. This release is the main reason a person uses drugs or drinks a second or third time.
It is just a matter of time before he becomes fully addicted and loses the ability to control his drug use. Drug addiction, then, results from excessive or continued use of physiologically habit-forming drugs in an attempt to resolve the underlying symptoms of discomfort or unhappiness
How Drugs Affect Behavior
The addict will now attempt to withhold the fact of his drug use from friends and family members. He will begin to suffer the effects of his own dishonesty and guilt. He may become withdrawn and difficult to reason with. He may behave strangely.
The more he uses drugs and alcohol, the guiltier he will feel, and the more depressed he will become. He will sacrifice his personal integrity, his relationships with friends and family, his job, his savings, and anything else he may have in an attempt to get more drugs.
The drugs are now the most important things in his life. His relationships and job performance will go drastically downhill.
Alcohol And Drug Tolerance
In addition to the mental stress created by his unethical behavior, the addict’s body has also adapted to the presence of the drugs. He will experience an overwhelming obsession with getting and using his drugs, and will do anything to avoid the pain of withdrawing from them.
This is when the newly created addict begins to experience drug cravings. He now seeks drugs both for the reward of the “pleasure” they give him, and also to avoid the mental and physical horrors of withdrawal. Ironically, the addict’s ability to get “high” from the alcohol or drug gradually decreases as his body adapts to the presence of foreign chemicals. He must take more and more, not just to get an effect but often just to function at all. At this point, the addict is stuck in a vicious dwindling spiral. The drugs he abuses have changed him both physically and mentally. He has crossed an invisible and intangible line. He is now a drug addict or alcoholic.
Drugs and Personality Change
There is such a thing as a “drug personality”. It is artificial and is created by drugs. Drugs can change the attitude of a person from his original personality to one secretly harboring hostilities and hatreds he/she does not permit to show on the surface. This establishes a link between drugs and increasing difficulties with crime, production, and the modern breakdown of social and industrial culture.
The drug personality includes such characteristics as:
•Mood swings
•Becomes unreliable.
•Withdraws from those they love.
•Unable to finish projects.
•Unexpressed resentment and secret hatreds
•Dishonesty. Lies to family, friends, and employers.
•Isolates self.
•May appear chronically depressed.
•May begin stealing from family and friends.
Biologically, women react differently to alcohol ingestion than do men. Women reach higher blood alcohol/drug levels and sustain more somatic and cognitive damage than men when consuming equivalent amounts of alcohol. Psychosocially, women alcoholics/addict face societal rebuke and chastisement of a greater magnitude than do men. Finally, barriers to treatment faced by women such as the need for child care, cost of treatment, familial opposition, denial of alcoholism, and inadequate diagnostic training of physicians, must be overcome to create successful treatment approaches for the female alcoholic and drug addict.
Used with permission from the Association for Better Living and Education International located in Montreal Canada
For further reading and understanding read
Understanding Drug Addiction
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Building Lives From the Inside Out
Understanding the Cause and Effects of Drug Addiction
Drug rehabilitation to be effective must deal with the causes of addiction
What Is A Drug?
In medical terms, a drug is any substance that when taken into a living organism may modify one or more of its functions. Drugs can provide temporary relief from unhealthy symptoms and/or permanently supply the body with a necessary substance the body can no longer make. Some drugs produce unwanted side affects. Some drugs lead to an unhealthy dependency that has both physiological and behavioral roots.
What Is Addiction?
Whether a person is genetically or biochemically predisposed to addiction is a controversy that has been debated for years within the scientific community. One school of thought advocates the “disease concept”, embracing the notion that addiction is an inherited disease, and that the individual is permanently ill at a genetic level, even for those experiencing long periods of sobriety.
The Dwindling Spiral
The first thing you must understand about addiction is that alcohol and addictive drugs are basically painkillers. They chemically kill physical or emotional pain and alter the mind’s perception of reality. They make people numb.
Biochemical Aspects Of Drug Addiction
When a person drinks or uses drugs over a period of time, the body becomes unable to completely eliminate them all. Drugs and alcohol are broken down in the liver. These metabolites, (the substances the body converts the drugs or alcohol into) although removed rapidly from the blood stream, become trapped in the fatty tissues. There are various types of tissues that are high in fat content, the one thing in common – and the problem that needs to be addressed – is that these drug residues remain for years. Tissues in our bodies that are high in fats are turned over very slowly.
When they are turned over, the stored drug metabolites are released into the blood stream and reactivate the same brain centers as if the person actually took the drug. The former addict now experiences a drug restimulation (or “flashback”) and drug craving. This is common in the months after an addict quits and can continue to occur for years, even decades.
The Cycle Of Quitting, Withdrawal, Craving, And Relapse
When the addict initially tries to quit, cells in the brain that have become used to large amounts of these metabolites are now forced to deal with much decreased amounts. Even as the withdrawal symptoms subside, the brain “demands” that the addict give it more of the drug. This is called drug craving. Craving is an extremely powerful urge and can cause a person to create all kinds of “reasons” they should begin using drugs or drinking again. He is now trapped in an endless cycle of trying to quit, craving, relapse, and fear of withdrawal.
Eventually, the brain cells will again become used to having lowered drug metabolites. But, because deposits of drug or alcohol metabolites release back into the bloodstream from fatty tissues for years, craving and relapse remain a cause for concern. Left unaddressed, the presence of metabolites even in microscopic amounts cause the brain to react as if the addict had again actually taken the drug and can set up craving and relapse even after years of sobriety
Addicts Cannot Just Stop Using Drugs For Two Reasons.
These Are:
1.Mental and physical cravings caused by drug residues, which remain in the body.
2.The Biochemical Personality caused by drugs and the lifestyle the person adopts to get them. Left unaddressed, these manifestations will haunt a person for years even if they have sobered up.
Left untreated, this will trigger a relapse. These unresolved symptoms, whether physical or mental in origin, create an underlying low-level type of stress, which cannot be completely ignored by the addict. The addict can “just say no” a thousand times, but it only takes one “yes” to start the cycle of addiction again.
Used with permission from the Association for Better Living and Education International located in Montreal Canada
For further reading and understanding read
The Cycle of Addiction
Need help
For information or assistance call our office at 443-4393-2109
We are here because we care.
Building Lives From the Inside Out
December 8, 2011
Choosing Not to Look Away
Helping the Homeless
Most of us know in our hearts that the homeless
and the poor are not so very different from us.
Homeless people in our communities are a fact of life, especially in big cities. Many of us don't know how to interpret this situation or what we can do to help. We may vacillate between feeling guilty, as if we are personally responsible, and feeling angry, as if it is entirely on their own shoulders. The situation is, of course, far more complex than either scenario. Still, not knowing how to respond, we may fall into the habit of not responding at all. We may look over their heads not making eye contact, or down at the ground as we pass, falling into a habit of ignoring them. Each time we do this, we disconnect ourselves from a large portion of the human family, and it doesn't feel right.
Most of us know in our hearts that the homeless and the poor are not so very different from us. They may be the victims of poor planning or an unavoidable crisis. Some of them are mentally ill, some are addicted to drugs or alcohol, and some are choosing to be homeless for reasons we may never understand. We can imagine that, given their lives, we would likely have ended up in the same place. This does not mean that we are meant to rescue them, as they are on their own learning path, but it does remind us that we can treat them as equals, because that is what they are. Even if we aren't able to offer food, shelter, or money, we can offer a blessing as we pass. We can look them in the eye and acknowledge our shared humanness, even if we don't know just how to help them. This simple act of kindness and silent or spoken blessings can be so helpful to those living on the street.
If you want to help with information, you can learn about the services in your area and share the locations of food banks, shelters, and other resources. Perhaps your family would like to have a plan ahead of time, talking with your children about how as a family you would like to handle these situations. Whatever you decide to do, you will feel much better when you make a conscious choice not to simply look away.
Mood swings 
