Chronic???

I thought I'd post a blog on the topic covered in an earlier blog by David Clark - 'The nature of addiction:chronic or not?'

In my opinion, addiction can seem like a chronic problem to overcome, especially when you're in the middle of it. There is not only the physical addiction to overcome, with all it can bring along - withdrawals, poor health etc: there is also the mental addiction, and the consequences of this can be far more reaching - lack of confidence, poor self-esteem etc, which can last a lifetime, whether or not that person stops using/drinking or not.

For those addicted to mind altering substances (and by that I mean alcoholics and drug users), understanding mental addiction can be a lot harder than understanding physical addiction. Physical addiction stops from between 1-5 days (depending on which drug or whether it's alcohol) after the last dose has been taken, those days characterised by physical withdrawals. Mental addiction doesn't stop there, it's far more complicated than that, it goes on and on whether or not you're actually physically using. Add to that equation the fact that not many addicts have even heard of something called 'mental addiction', let alone know how to combat and overcome it and you have a set of circumstances that are very, very hard to recover from.

I myself, in the earlier years of my addiction, couldn't understand why after a period of physical abstinence (not using) I would at some point, go back to using drugs addictively. My family figured that as I'd gone back to it, of my own free will, it must have been because I didn't really want to stop. I must admit, with what I understood about addiction at the time, that was the only conclusion I could come up with as well! But the fact was, I didn't want to be an addict.

It was years later that I realised, through contact with an inspirational man who ran the rehab I went to - LivingStones, that whenever I had managed, by a huge act of will, to stop using for any length of time (sometimes a week, sometimes a year), I was still mentally addicted, that was why I'd eventually go back to using. I needed to break my mental addiction to secure any kind of meaningful recovery. 

Breaking my mental addiction was a long process and involved such things as support from those who understand addiction and recovery, a change of the setting I was in, building up a new set of friends, belief that I could achieve my goals ( from myself and those supporting me), having structure in my day and getting involved in voluntary work that boosted my confidence.

So personally, I don't think of the word 'chronic' in a negative sense. To me it portrays the long-term nature of recover from serious substance use problems. Recovery is not something that comes over night - it takes a lot of hard work over a period of time and that is why it is so important to have long-term help and support available. At the moment many treatment services think that putting people, for instance, on a methadone script, is classed as successful treatment - but it's not as simple as this, as I have said above - people need help dealing with all of the other issues in their lives (i.e. the reasons they began using and the problems that have occurred as a result of their using). I think if workers understand the chronic and long term nature of addiction, then the ways that they try to address the problems will be far more effective and longer lasting.

The most important thing is, that if addiction is labelled as a chronic disease then people MUST be made aware that RECOVERY IS POSSIBLE. Calling addiction a chronic disorder and not telling and showing people that addiction can be overcome would be very detrimental to the addict.

All in all I'd say yes, addiction is chronic and yes, it can be overcome.