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View Full Version : Do you believe People recover from addiction



Bushi Jon
25th July 2003, 14:28
Do you believe people when they say they are recovering from a addiction.Have you ever been addicted to a substance?

Shitoryu Dude
25th July 2003, 14:37
Known a few alcoholics and some people who had to have their daily dose of crank or weed. I thought they were idiots as you had to go out of your way and break several laws to get anything other than booze.

The alcoholics I knew that gave up going on benders on a regular basis just decided to quit doing it one day..

:beer:

Chuck Munyon
25th July 2003, 14:45
The data on recovery are pretty clear. It's hard as hell to get there, and people relapse a lot, but recovery does exist in the sense that you can be sober for long periods of time. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the true end of an addiction; the substrates in the brain have as long a lifetime as you do.

Cady Goldfield
25th July 2003, 15:12
I believe that some people have a genetic predeliction or vulnerability to addition -- involving brain chemistry; specifically, the activity of the "pleasure center" of the brain.

Given certain stresses or stimuli in life, the process is started. Such behaviors and tendencies have been found in rats under experimentation, during research on the causes of addiction.

Also, I agree with Chuck that once substrates accumulate in the brain tissues, it can take a long time, perhaps a lifetime, to metabolize them out.

In fact, the metabolic makeup of the body is such that chemicals that have been ingested for a long period of time, may eventually become a integral part of the body chemistry. At that point, it's sudden removal can cause trauma and death.

The organic body of humans and other organisms - including plants - has a tendency to first react to a foreign substance, then to adapt to it, and, ultimately, to become so "one" with it that the survival of the organism is dependent on the presence of that substance (even if it provides no useful function in the organism).

As an aside and nature factoid...
There are many species of plants and animals that have evolved in certain parts of the world where there are certain chemcial compounds in the soil and water. These organisms have developed not only a tolerance to those substances, but now require them in order to survive.

For example, goats have a high requirement for selenium, because they evolved in parts of the world where selenium content is high in the soil, and their bodies have adapted to that to the point that they require high concentrations of selenium for their muscles to function properly. What would be an adequate dietary selenium content for humans and many other animals, proves insufficient for goats.

In a way, you could say that goats are "addicted" to selenium.

larsen_huw
25th July 2003, 15:21
Good topic for discussion, however, the question is very general (possibly deliberately).

What is recovery?

If it means that the subject in question is able to overcome the urges and live their life without resorting to the addictive substance again, then yes, i believe people can recover from addiction.

If however, recovery is not getting the urges to take the addictive substance anymore, then no, i don't believe people can recover from addiction.

On a lighter note, first time i read through my post before clicking submit, i noticed i had written 'people can't recover from addition'! Is that like OD'ing on Mathematics? :D

Bushi Jon
25th July 2003, 16:28
I agree people can and do get better through the process of recovery. I do not think people ever fully recover from their addiction(recovery being on going)My brother has joined a group that is saying that they can teach people to drink again with out becoming addicted. Everything I have read and seen says the oppisite. I thought I was on tract

Shitoryu Dude
25th July 2003, 16:36
From what I have seen of typical 12-step programs I don't think they work very well. Perhaps because so many of the people involved in them are forced into going rather than truly wanting to end their drug/alcohol habits. People just go and go and go, most times never really stopping their habits for very long if at all.

But then, I've seen people build up a resistance to al-abuse (do they still call it that?), so what does that tell you?

If you want to study a group of people who seem to be predisposed to alcoholism just step onto any Indian Reservation. Native Americans, even those who no longer live on the reservations and have integrated into the rest of society, have extremely high rates of alcohol addiction.

:beer:

bruceb
25th July 2003, 18:00
Alcoholism .... a subject that seems to be the common addiction, and something I am all too familiar with in my own family and ancestry. Although none of us live on the Rez, integration into the American melting pot is no less a reason to claim a problem with Alcohol.

Some people are addicted to addiction. Not enough reasons for them to take another way, or to not become addictied are in their minds, so they take the easy way out. Maybe it is genetic, or biological, but then anything worthwhile will take some effort to accomplish, won't it? The efforts of becoming addicted are a myriad of desire, effort, and practice. You have to want to do drugs to come under their power, succumb to the base emotional escapism to withdraw.

No matter what anyone says, it is up to the individual to gain an understanding, put in place protocols to want to be something different than addicted to drugs, and practice that effort every single day of their lives. It might take years to for this practice to become second nature, but that is up to the individual.

Just like martial arts, it doesn't happen overnight, and it only happens if you persist in your mental and physical practice.

I don't think anyone truly recovers from an addiction, but the protocols of thought, of want, of need are rearranged to overcome, or for better words, .... to set up a firewall against the overwhelming urges to give in to drugs.

You might recover the means to live your live without drugs, or the means to live a better life, but recover from having urges that tell you it would be easier to drink alcohol, do drugs?

I don't think so.

There is no such thing as recovery. The person just learns to live without the drugs, somehow.

A. M. Jauregui
25th July 2003, 22:19
Like others have stated I think that one can recover from addiction but they will be forever recovering. Also I do not believe that for most it is possible to be a “functioning” addict - a term I sometimes hear just ihmo is just an oxymoron.

adroitjimon
26th July 2003, 00:04
There is no such thing as recovery only restraint...
That which has been torn assunder shall never be put back again...

Striking Hand
26th July 2003, 01:50
Personally, I think "recovery" is the wrong word.

People learn to deal with it on a daily basis and also learn not to give into the temptation.

Chance of falling back into old habits are still there, the real fight comes during times of stress and similar.

Cheers.

Joseph Svinth
26th July 2003, 02:13
There is also a tendency to exchange one addiction for another. Thus, people give up drugs for Jesus, or booze for computer games, or political aspirations for blow jobs.

Needful Things, Stephen King called addictions ranging from baseball cards to violence, and long before King, Homer wrote of the destructiveness of the Sirens' songs.

Senjojutsu
26th July 2003, 04:06
This is very painful, but I must publicly admit my addiction to all today.
For I, just like Wade Boggs the former baseball player, have the same weakness and addiction.

We are both addicted to sex.

After years of useless therapy, I have finally found a cure for my problem.
I actually watched an entire hour of ABC's daytime show "The View" - and it's a miracle, I was cured.

See an interesting contrarian article on addiction:

http://www.peele.net/lib/misbehavin.html

Note: In explaining the liaison, the married Boggs confessed that he was "addicted to sex" — to which his former mistress responded, "I guess what I thought was love was just a disease."
:o

shadow42
26th July 2003, 05:04
If you were at one point an alcoholic, even if you stop drinking when your 30 and never drink again for as long as you live, you will always be a 'recovering alcoholic', cause after all, you're just one step away from being an alcoholic again.

I've seen a lot of addicts in my day, in one way or another. Most of them weren't what I would call physically addicted though, it seems more of a mental thing. Because as was said, they just change addictions. Ever go to an NA or AA meeting, 99.9% of the people in attendance are smoking cigs and drinking coffee nonstop. And while that isnt good for you, its better than shooting junk into your forehead every fifteen minutes, so its ok.

I think the answer to this depends on the person more than anything. I've seen some folks who were real bad into whatever it was they liked to get up on, and I've seen them come out of it, make a life for themselves somewhere. Now I dunno if they'll ever go back, but they've come far from where they were. Friend of mine was a heroin addict by age 18, I remember the first time i had seen him in a year was in the back of my friends van, and he looked like he was dying. he kept saying that too ( he hadn't had junk since yesterday) which kinda reinforced that image, but it was scary. Maybe it scared him too, and he started thinkin about his girlfriend and his kid, so he cleaned up his act, joined the Navy to keep himself out of that life.

But thats what I guess you could call a success story. I've seen a lot more go wrong. People who go for help but can't even help themselves. A fella I know (who probably only weighed about 145lbs to begin with) losing 15 pounds while taking a whole bunch of triple c's and not eating. Looked like a corpse. Messed up stuff really.

It's a whole nother world out there sometimes.

n2shotokai
26th July 2003, 07:01
Opinions are great, but if you truly want to know about recovery from addictions, talk to somebody who has been there.

Every person I have heard of who has tried an-abuse to stop drinking had to stop taking the medication because it got in the way of their drinking. Seriously!

I have heard of that group that promotes controlled drinking. Find one person who drank like an alcoholic or was addicted and now has long term sobriety who has tried this group.

AA, NA, CA etc. etc. is an antiquated program of recovery. That is the text is so old it is laughable. But AA does have a new Edition text with a few new stories, almost all the old stories and the program is the same.

Here is the bottom line(s).

The drinking and addiction is but a symptom of a persons problems. For many people, depression and assorted mental illnesses (chemical unbalance) are what the true problem is. You can take away the substance and a person can become physically sober but the mental instability remains which will lead to repeated relapses.

Probably less than 20% of people who try to get sober will make it one year. Way less than 10% make it 5 years. 12 step programs do work for the people who want it, not people who need it. Many alcholics who do recover do so after hitting bottom ..... losing jobs, spouses, family, houses, cars, relationships etc. etc.

Most alcoholics die drunks. My old boss (Bill) is a great example for me. After years of warnings from his doctor, he was hospitalized after a bender. The doctor told him his liver was shot and if he drank again it would kill him. The following month was Bill's birthday so he went out and "celebrated" on Friday night. By Sunday Bill was in the hospital and he died the following Tuesday from liver failure. Bill was about 50, very inteligent and had a great personality. Rest in peace Bill. I know of about 6 people in my life who died from alcoholism or drugs.

Here is the best advice anyone will give you here. If you are concerned for a loved one, go to al-anon or find a friend who is a recovering alcoholic with several years sober. If you understand the disease you will be better equiped to assist if the person decides to get sober and you will be in a better place to understand the insanity and damage inflicted by the alcoholic.

Good luck!
Steve Beale

adroitjimon
26th July 2003, 07:37
I was once addicted to sex,now I'm addicted to not having it...
Pimp to Monk in 45 seconds ...you know how they say" one bad apple
spoils the whole bunch."

seskoad
26th July 2003, 14:10
recovery is giving people a second chance. Especially with someone who addicted to drugs and alcohol (tobacco not included :D). But I don't believe people who recovered can be considered 100% healthy or back to normal. Indeed that they won't touch bad things they consumed before. But then "something" already missing in their body.