Everyone comes to addiction a different way. Some come to experiment with drugs and alcohol out of curiosity, some out of rebellion. Others come to drugs and alcohol because they are forced to by others. Common factors can include: peer pressure, relationship pressure, abuse by parents, or as a coping mechanism. What is otherwise an innocent interest in trying drugs and alcohol quickly turns into an affliction, masked as an affection for mind altering substances.
For those who become addicted, the process of addiction happens quite suddenly. Each story of addiction is unique from the other because every individual’s conditions for addiction are different. Different drug types have different interactions with different body types. Some may get addicted quite quickly whereas others may take time to become fully chemically dependent. However, the journey is mostly the same. Between an individual’s first use of drugs and alcohol and their last use of drugs and alcohol they become addicted and travel the road of addiction. Often, the journey of addiction is traumatic.
Trauma can be defined as any single or series of life events that change the way we feel about ourselves and our place in the world. Though, temporarily, drugs and alcohol can make us feel invincible, in place, a part of, secure, confident, and much more, they ultimately leave us feeling weak. Drugs, alcohol, and addiction are highly stigmatized and deeply associated with shame. The more we become addicted, the more shame we experience, feeling worse about ourselves. Shunned by society, disrupting our lives, and disconnecting ourselves from critical intimate relationships, we are increasingly isolated. To outsiders, this process seems unnecessary because addiction should be under one’s control. A direct experience of addiction proves otherwise. Addiction feels out of control. Chemical dependency takes over the brain and the body. Emotional attachments create a deep need to stay intoxicated. Reprogramming of the brain confuses the production of pleasure and the affiliation of reward. Decision making is lost. Cognitive function is lost. The ability to think about anything other than drugs and alcohol is lost as the brain becomes addicted to obsession. Feeling a daily, desperate need to abuse the brain, abuse the body, and cause danger to one’s own life is torturous. Each day dignity disappears a little more. Life as it was once known slips further away. Addiction can be, and often is, traumatizing.
Recovering from addiction is about recovering from the many components of one’s life that leads to addiction in addition to recovering from the addiction itself. In the span of life during addiction, many individual traumatizing events can also take place. What is perhaps the most bewildering are the first moments of clarity in which we can begin to realize, we’ve been addicted, and we have the ability to take control of our lives again.
You can recover from the trauma of addiction and the trauma of your life that inspired addiction to continue to take hold. The Guest House Ocala is a private residential treatment program offering the luxury of long term treatment for trauma, addictions, and other related issues.
Call us today for information: 1-855-483-7800