Does Drug Abuse Treatment Work: Does Drug Abuse Have a Road Out?

Money goes missing; she’s lying and can’t be trusted; he has another excuse for not coming home; DUI; you pick her up in emergency – again; he’s going to kill himself if he doesn’t quit.

You’ve discovered a loved one is abusing drugs – it’s ruining your lives. It’s killing them. But they keep going back. The family is in turmoil, you can’t sleep, you pick up the phone wondering if this next call is the call you dread.

What do you do? Continue praying or hoping your loved one will change their minds and decide to quit drugs. What if they can’t or don’t stop using drugs?

Should You Help Them Stop Using Drugs?

What do you do?

His wife is filing for divorce, he got fired and looking at 5 years in jail – and he goes out on another drug and alcohol bender BUT you’ve heard you have to wait until they reach for help.

If you keep waiting, help may come too late.

What do you do?

Tough questions.

Do you send them to any detox and rehab when the national average success rate for rehab is 10% to 22%?

Should they just go to meetings? Will meetings be enough to turn their lives around after they’ve been practically stoned to death by drugs?

What’s the next step YOU need to take to SAVE your loved one?

Let’s get underneath or inside the minds of people abusing drugs and alcohol and find out what they think. What are they trying to do?

What Are Drugs Anyway? Drugs are best defined by the ancient Greeks – they said: “Drugs are like a coin, drugs have two sides. On one side is the potion and on the other is the poison. You can’t take one without the other.”

Illicit and mind altering drugs are basically pain killers. These drugs hide mental, emotional or spiritual pain. Uncomfortable conditions in life are perceived less and life is made tolerable for a short time while drugged. Yes, being drugged is an escape from difficulties in living.

Why Do Addicts Keep Abusing Drugs?

Addicts say they keep using because they can’t stop or they are out of control. Every addict I know says they are out of control or can’t stop.

Before they got hooked, did they ever tell you, they ‘like’ doing drugs or drinking? Remember when they seemed happier on drugs or alcohol?

Hint: When everything was fine, they didn’t need any help and everything was OK, they were probably using. That let’s the cat out of the bag.

They chose to use drugs / alcohol, didn’t they?

What Attracts Drug / Alcohol Abusers To Use, Even After It Is Destroying Their Life?

Did they or do they want to destroy themselves?

To fully appreciate the challenges faced by someone who is trying to return to normal life after choosing drugs / alcohol you need to find out the different ways they become addicted. Drugs and alcohol become addictive when a person compulsively or obsessively tries to fix their feelings, attitudes or condition with drugs.

Drug / Alcohol Abusers Are Trying To Re-Capture Feelings / States

A drug addict is simply trying to chase an experience they can’t even hope to keep while using drugs. On drugs the person feels kind of ‘right’ or at least they usually don’t feel the way they were. When the drug feeling wears off, the poison part of the drug affects the person more directly – as the potion feeling has worn off.

When drugged, people temporarily forget about their difficulties. Drugs reduce a person’s ability to perceive and their personal realities get confused..

If Drugs Are ‘Solving’ The Addict’s Difficulties, How Do They Recover?

A sensible solution to drug / alcohol abuse is getting the addict to feel and function better without drugs / alcohol than with them. Easily said, but how does one get the addiction out of the addict?

The answer is obvious: change their internal environment for a long enough time so they can change themselves. Breaking their habit of using drugs and experiencing a different way of life can take some time. If drug & alcohol abuse is a way of life; that habit has to be changed before returning to everyday life.

Is Getting Away Enough?

If you’ve tried the ‘get away’ method, you already know that doesn’t always work, at least not for very long.

What Are You Trying To Get Them Away From?

Some would answer: people or places or things that trigger their use. That would and is true except for one MAJOR unknown factor that few rehab programs properly addresses.

What if the people, places and things weren’t outside of the person?

Are you trying to get the person away from . . . themselves? If so, how do you remove the person from inside them? Sounds schizophrenic, doesn’t it? But I’m not being Freud here, so keep reading because here is the point I’m driving at:

Where Is The Addiction Living?

Handling all the factors outside of a person so they don’t abuse drugs / alcohol could prevent the person from acting out their compulsion or obsession to abuse. But is the environment or outside determining the addicts actions, or is the person themselves determining their actions?

Sure, the people, places and things can trigger drug use, but what are these triggers triggering?

It appears that the problems are outside of the person, true enough. But what if the addiction wasn’t living outside the person?

How would a program remove the addiction from inside the person?

Good question, right. Let’s find out. I’ll answer all these questions and tell you in simple language How Rehab Works and give directions to end addiction for life, and maybe save a loved one to.

Why does NIDA support research into drug abuse treatment as HIV prevention? – This video can also be viewed at: www.drugabuse.gov Comments on this video are allowed in accordance with our comment policy: newmedia.hhs.gov

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