Drug and Alcohol Addiction ruins your life and your families lives. While your addiction may start casual and harmless, you may just want to relax or fit in the crowd. If your dependency is left untreated, it will become the master of destruction.
It is essential to identify drug addiction from its beginning. The beginning is the best place to take measures to stop the drug habit. Drug addiction can be broken down into five stages. Let us see what the stages are to understand the progression of the addiction.
1. Pre-Drug and Alcohol Phase
In the pre-drug phase, you may decide to participate in recreational drugs. You have friends and associates that use recreational drugs. You start to associate the drugs and alcohol with benefits such as feeling less stressed or less tension. You may need to relax, and you think drugs or alcohol make you feel relaxed.
This phase is when you may start to develop a tolerance for your choice drug. Maybe you started out needing only a little bit to get you relaxed, and now a little bit is just not doing the job it did in the past. So you increase the amount you use and maybe even start using drugs or alcohol more often. If you are suffering from addiction, do yourself a great favour. There are various options available, for instance, you can call Orange County Drug Treatment centre and ask for help. Similarly, you can opt for healthy food intake and likewise.
2. Pre- Addiction or Abuse Phase
This stage is just the pre-drug phase intensified. The use of drugs to cope with life’s ups and downs is another identifier. In this phase, you use the drugs during the good times to celebrate and the bad times to relax. The bottom line is no matter what happens in life; you need alcohol or drugs to feel good.
The increase in drug usage makes you start having blackouts, start crashing and having rebounds more often. You find yourself from one extreme to another, either extremely tired or agitated. To make up for the physical feelings, you crave the drug more.
Emotionally you are addicted hook line and sinker. If anyone mentions the word addiction in your presence, you immediately dismiss the person speaking to you. Physically your body is on a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Your performance at work and in the family is starting to suffer, but you are convinced it is not your fault. You are sure that nobody understands you and the pressure you have to deal with on a daily basis.
3. Drug and Alcohol Addiction Dependency Phase
When you start losing control and cannot stop yourself from drinking or using drugs. That is a game changer; you just crossed the addiction line. Here are some of the signs to show you, you have crossed the addiction line:
- No longer has control over the drugs or alcohol.
- You cannot or do not feel the need to set limits.
- Make excuses for drinking or using “recreational” drugs
- You try to prove to your family or others that you can control your habit, but the attempt only lasts a short time.
- You start having health problems, having memory loss or other mental issues.
- Sometimes to the point of being taken to the hospital.
Do you need alcohol or drugs to get through the day? You may start with a drink in the morning before or during work. Then at different times during the day, you take a drink or use a little bit so that you can make it through the day.
4. Drug and Alcohol Addiction Phase
You are full-blown addicted to drugs, alcohol or both at this phase. You no longer have any control over your use of drugs or alcohol. It controls you. The drugs and alcohol tell you: when to take them, how much to take and not to worry about anyone else.
If you choose not to listen to the drugs or the alcohol and miss one of their demands, then you may start having physical problems. Some of the physical issues you may experience are tremors, withdrawal symptoms, hallucinations, and confusion. The addiction controls you, and you keep the drugs or alcohol close to you at all times.
This phase is one of the most self- destructive stages of addiction. Phases one to three destroy you a little, but those phases ruin your family and real friends.
5. Recovery from Addiction
The more time you spend in addicted to drugs and alcohol, the harder it is for you to climb out of the hole. While recovery from addiction is possible, you need professional help to recover from addiction!
Really those are some of the essential steps to recovery:
- Recognizing you have a problem
- Recognizing you are not in control of your life
- Recognizing you need professional help to gain control of your life
Recognizing leads to recovery and means not only admitting you issues of addiction but taking steps to get professional help all by yourself. Do not wait! The longer you wait to get professional help, the deeper and darker the hole you are digging for yourself to climb out. Your life is worth saving from your addiction!
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