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Addicts are usually very selfish beings. Not that anyone can hold that against them, really. It is, after all, a byproduct of their condition. Addiction can make anyone suffer from severe tunnel vision and inability to empathize. How to regain the ability to be selfless and caring for someone else but yourself? By slowly chipping away at the self-imposed shackles of selfishness most addicts have chained themselves up with.

But how? How do you get out of the routine of caring only for yourself?

To begin, it is important to remember that addicts generally being selfish do not make them bad people. As a rule of thumb, anyway. There are always exceptions of course, but we are talking about the overwhelming majority here.

Midbrain once again is at the front and center of today’s topic. It dominates so many addiction related issues for a very good reason. Without repeating ourselves too much from our previous article, midbrain governs impulsive satisfaction of urges, desires, and needs. Since addiction and drug use in general hyper-stimulates this particular part of our brain, it has a proverbial monopoly on blood supply. This allows for midbrain and its urge satisfying functions to dominate the addict’s behavior.

Selfishness as a character trait becomes more and more prominent in the addict as the time passes and the disease takes hold. This can cause the addict to distance themselves from people they used to love and care for. It can turn a social and loving person into a social outcast and a pariah.

Service as a tool for recovery

What does one do when a scale is lopsided? You must add to the short side until equilibrium is restored. Sounds simple, and in theory, it really is, however when it comes to applying this idea in real life, various obstacles begin to appear.

Selfless acts, generosity and community service contribute to addicts recovery because it stimulates entirely different part of the brain, specifically, the frontal cortex. This is where the brain considers and processes wisdom, calculated thought, pre-meditated actions, and empathy. Stimulating this area of the brain with acts of kindness and selflessness the addict is able to control his impulsive urges of the midbrain, which would make him act selfishly and without a solid scale of values.

The aforementioned obstacles that make this process so hard are the resilience of our brain. It can be both a blessing and a curse at times. For an addict to become addicted, this resilience is broken down with help of drugs and various addictive substances. Changing the way your brain operates without such “help” is much harder than one might think.

It takes many years of rigorous training by doing community work, helping people move their home and generally helping others out in one way or another, for the brain to accept this kind of behavior as the norm.

Speaking of norms in brain activity in the context of addiction is almost silly. There is no such thing really, knowing how different each and every one of us is. If you present a situation to 100 people, you will witness 100 different ways of dealing with said situation. Sure, there will be similarities, but ultimately for one human being to deal with a challenge or an obstacle in an identical way as someone else is practically impossible. Our individual way of thought is as unique as our DNA sequence or fingerprints.

 

It is highly recommended and encouraged in most self-respecting rehabs to do some kind of selfless act every day, as little and insignificant as it may be. Help someone with carrying something heavy, lend them a needed item for a while. Even just complimenting someone on their appearance or actions goes a long way towards addiction recovery. Every little bit counts.

 

Be selfless. Be kind. Be considerate. Sounds easy enough, but for an addict to reach a point in their lives where this kind of attitude comes naturally is a huge stepping stone towards recovery. One stepping stone of many, but every one of them counts.

Patience is a skill that addicts generally lack. They may have had a firm grasp on the concept of patience at some time in the past, but with addiction, that skill just slowly disappeared. Waiting and giving things time to progress is a concept that is altogether alien to a veteran addict. How can it be any other way, considering that he needs that next bump just to survive, or at least he believes he does. Continue reading “Hardest Skill To Learn — Patience” →

Addiction is not an easy topic to discuss. Especially in a family setting, where everyone cares for each other. There is a little-known paradox when it comes to talking about sensitive topics with your family members. Everyone is so convinced that they all have each other’s best interests in mind, that some families have left an addict among them to continue with his bad habits just because all of them thinking that surely someone else has already spoken to him about it. Surely.

The sad reality is that speaking with a family member about a suspected drug addiction, dependence and even abuse is extremely uncomfortable and often gets put off until it is already too late. Continue reading “Breaking The Ice” →

As a general rule of thumb, addicts or “junkies”, as they are referred to in movies and pop-culture, are usually dirty, messy and generally unpleasant to be in the vicinity of. Surely, that is all just fabricated movie nonsense right?

While quite a lot of it is indeed added for dramatic effect, most of these opinions are indeed well founded and do exist for a reason. Let us look at how addiction and dependence influence the addict, making them break social norms and ignoring hygiene rules that everyone understands as given. Continue reading “How Addiction Can Make You Let Yourself Go” →

Chore. A word we describe doing something we don’t particularly enjoy. Taking out the trash, mowing the lawn, washing the dishes. These are things that must be done, but since we don’t enjoy them and do them with clenched teeth and visions of various activities you will do once said chores are done. So how do you describe something, that needs to be done, you don’t really enjoy in any way and it has the potential to destroy your life and even kill you, if not done correctly or in time?

To call an addiction a chore is like referring to a healthy male adult Bengal tiger as “kitty”. How do you call the need to do something so hard and utterly energy draining as battling an addiction?

A duty for those pressured, blackmailed or forced to sign up. When battling an addiction is a duty, it is done for someone else, to have it over and done with so this part of the addict’s life can be put in the rear-view mirror as soon as possible.

A responsibility for others. Mostly parents who understand, that having an addiction and raising a child is something that is very hard to combine. Even if a high-functioning addict is able to maintain this duality, the quality of life and attention the child receives will never be comparable to that of children who grow up in functional and clean families.

There are those who simply look at it as a burden. For them, the battle with their own need to use an addictive substance is something that has to be done sooner or later so they accept it for what it is and simply get on with their lives.

A challenge. Very limited few view it this way, but the ones that do, dive in their fight head on and do not shy away from the mental hardships and the physiological drain. They almost welcome it and plow through the rehab course as if it is nothing. This type of person is very rare and could be called a myth.

So how do you keep people in rehab when they really do not wish to be there?

Engage the addict

There are three main ways to ensure an addict remains in treatment and does not throw in the towel. There are many ways to motivate an addict, everyone is a separate case and there are different things that work for each of them.

Rehab

One of the main reasons why so many addicts choose to leave the course is because they do not feel that they are getting enough help or guidance. While any self-respecting rehab center will help, plan and facilitate growth and healing, sobriety is not something a person can spoon-feed to an addict. Regardless, here are some important facets of rehab support that must be met so the addict remains in the rehab and is motivated to finish his path to sobriety.

• Understandable course expectations
• Positive influence from the rehab staff
• Opportunities to forge bonds with other addicts in group activities
• 24/7 access to support from physiologists, social workers, medical staff, and counselors
• Comfortable, safe and temptation-free environment

Individual focus

While people can be forced to be free of their dependence on drugs, no-one can force sobriety on an addict. It needs to be a goal that is both wanted and believed in. To boost and maintain that belief, the person must be motivated in a variety of ways, that remind him who all this hardship is for. Some of the ways to motivate the addict as an individual are listed below.

• Constant reminders, that this change is for the better of the addict.
• Family and friend support is of paramount importance and one of the main pillars of support in the addict’s fight for sobriety.
• Addicts workplace exerting equal amounts of pressure and support, by giving time for recovery while reminding of the possible outcomes in case of failure.
• A constant reminder of health benefits that come with a life that is dedicated to the purity of both body and mind.

Active intervention

As one of the most drastic ways to support an addict, active intervention is a last resort technique. In a lot of ways, this type of support involves many aspects of both individual focus and rehab engagement. This type of support is usually applied when it is time to make or break the addict. It will either push him further away or snap him out of drug promised illusions.

A rehabilitation institution is unable to detain anyone. By law, the patient has the choice to just walk out at any time. Many are eager to remind the rehab about this fact when they simply announce that they are packing their bags and intend to leave. When reasoning with the patient has failed, active intervention is set in motion. It can vary from case to case greatly. In most of them though, the family and friends of the addict are contacted in hopes that they will be able to talk some sense in the agitated and in many cases even aggressive patient.

 

It is very easy to throw all addicts in the same bag and diagnose them all at once in some obscure blanket statement. It is counter-productive, however, as each addiction is different from the one before and as such, they are treated with a tailored approach.

Do not hesitate to seek help from loved ones and professional rehab counselors. The hardest part is the wish to get clean, to make that first step. It is a fight that will last many years, decades even, but no addict is hopeless. There are prospects, future, and potential in every single one of us.