Category: Understanding Addiction

alcohol slippery slope

Drug Abuse – The Slippery Slope

Articles, Education, International, Understanding Addiction

Addiction can happen at any age. However, the slippery slope of drug addiction often begins in youth.

There are many factors that play a part in why people choose to get involved with drugs.

Some begin using drugs because it is a way to fit into a crowd their own age, or even a group of older people. This need to fit in can lead to dangerous consequences. Oftentimes, when drug use begins, it becomes a hard pattern to quit. Sometimes they can be threatened if they try to leave the group, but often, they get in too far and do not see a way out of the situation.

Others view it as a way to get attention. They view themselves as not being the best in other areas, so they consume themselves in using drugs. It can also helps them get attention. Even if it is negative attention, sometimes it is better than no attention at all. At least being noticed by others is better than not being noticed by anyone, despite the reason in obtaining it.

Alternatively, other individuals use out of boredom. Drugs produce a sense of excitement- the feeling, the chase, the thrill of getting caught at any moment. Numerous individuals become bored with the monotony, so they use drugs to escape the boredom they feel.

Other times, individuals adopt drug use as a form of self-medication. They are often trying to escape from the difficulties they face in their life. Sometimes they try a drug one time and realize it allows them an escape from their everyday worries and then continue needing drugs to get the same effects. Other times, their friends tell them the effects they have felt and placed value on how it helped them to escape from the tough circumstances in their life, and they begin and continue using drugs in order to get that effect as well.

Some grew up in a household where drug use was normal. They do not know that it was unusual or bad to use drugs, so it’s just what they do. Maybe their parents or friends introduced them to drugs, and it was never abnormal for them to use drugs.

What components play into drug addiction?

The sooner the onset of drug use, the more likely one will develop an addiction to the drug. The longer the person has accessed the drugs, the greater the risk of developing an addiction. Even if teens do not become addicted to drugs while using in their teenage years, continued use increases the chance of developing a drug abuse disorder in the future.

The type of drug used also plays into the likelihood of addiction. The “harder” the drug, the more dangerous the chance of being addicted develops.

Family history affects the makeup of the body as well. Those with a family members who abused drugs are more likely to become addicts themselves. Once they begin using, it is a slippery slope to drug addiction for themselves.

Body makeup sometimes creates a chemical dependency to drug use after extended usage as well. The pleasure senses in the brain, feelings of happiness and pleasure, are excreted. Then, more and more of the drug are needed in order to feel the same effect of pleasure as before. One’s brain gets used to the feeling and continues to need more in order to feel the same sense of pleasure. Moreover, this change in the makeup of the brain inhibits clear thinking. While using drugs, judgment is damaged, which makes one believe she needs to use more drugs, more often, to feel that same effects like in the past. As her thought process changes, she begins to do anything she can in order to obtain and use the drug.

One’s mental health also plays a role in drug abuse. Mental health disorders, such a depression factors into drug addiction. Prior abuse or traumatic experiences also plays a role in drug addiction. Childhood trauma has been shown to alter the brain makeup in some children. This idea could play a significant role in drug addiction as well. Mental health disorders paired with self-medicating with drugs can also provide a dangerous combination.

Drug usage and even drug experimentation can be a very slippery slope leading to drug addiction.

How can one conquer drug addiction?

First, one must realize that he cannot do it on his own. If one is addicted to drugs, he cannot simply stop using drugs without help from others. He will need help to end this addiction. Someone addicted to drugs is not a helpless bystander, but he will need help outside of himself to combat his drug addiction. Recovery can begin at any point of drug use as long as the person is willing to admit he needs help and seek appropriate help to end the vicious cycle of addiction. Treatment is a process, so do not be discouraged or disheartened if setbacks or relapses happen. It is important to remember to focus on the journey of getting better rather than being afraid of failures that might occur.

If you or another person you know relates to any information discussed here, please speak up, speak out and seek help.

Drug addiction

Things to Consider About Drug Addiction

Articles, Education, Treatment, Understanding Addiction

Addiction can cause serious life consequences and affect the lives of those involved tremendously. Here are some questions to consider if you think you may be addicted to drugs:

Do you use drugs for purposes other than for how they were medically prescribed?

If a drug is being used in ways other than the ways it is prescribed, then it is not being used adequately to treat the symptoms and could cause adverse reactions. Furthermore, if you are using drugs outside the realm of it’s recommended methods, you could be at a serious risk for drug dependence.

Do you use more than one drug?

Using more than one drug at once can create a greater nostalgia, but this can also lead to social as well as psychological problems. It can also be very dangerous to use more than one drug at a time to your physical health and your safety. Using more than one drug can also be a sign that you have a serious drug problem and may be harder to stop using drugs in the future.

Can you stop using drugs if you want to?

Most people addicted to drugs try to stop using on their own, but are unable to without seeking additional treatment methods. Many people try multiple times to overcome their drug use before they are successful. Long-term drug usage changes the brain makeup causing it to be tougher to quit despite acknowledging the negative consequences associated with drug use.

Do you feel guilty about using drugs?

The guilt happens after the immense feeling of the drug wears off, but getting high again makes the guilt disappear-until you come back down again. The feeling of guilt is a warning sign for you to seek freedom from your drug use and seek the help you need to stop using drugs.

Have you neglected significant others because of your drug use?

Using drugs can cause an inconsistent pattern of availability, both physically and emotionally, where significant others are concerned. Drug abusers can physically neglect their significant others by not being involved or available when others need them or want them to be involved. Emotional neglect is just as heart breaking to significant others as physical neglect. Often family members become confused on what to expect from the drug abuser because their behavior becomes so erratic and inconsistent.

Does your drug use affect your relationships with significant others?

Drug use and relationships seem to not mix well together. Drug use begins a vast ripple effect throughout the relationships, usually leading to negative outcomes. If your significant others-children, spouse, friends-are unhappy with your drug use, you may have an addiction problem that needs professional help.

Have you ever lost a job because of your drug use?

Lack of productivity, injury on the job, stealing from the company, health issues, legal trouble and calling in sick can all be reasons of job loss due to drug addiction. Drug dependence can cause all of these matters to end in termination of employment. If your drug use is leading to any of these problems and ultimately ended in eliminating you from your job, you drug addiction may be more serious than you previously thought.

Have you ever been involved with illegal activities in order to obtain drugs?

Being involved in any circumstance punishable by law in order to obtain drugs is a serious concern when determining whether or not you have a drug problem. The problems that could ensue as a result of these issues are worth serious consideration when determining if you need to seek treatment for a drug addiction problem.

Do you have medical problems because of your drug use?

There are numerous medical problems that could be experienced due to drug abuse. Brain alteration can occur after prolonged drug use and other medical issues might also be noticeable due to drug abuse, such as heart issues, cancer, or hepatitis. If you are experiencing these topics or other types of medical conditions related to your drug use, professional or medical assistance may be needed in order to help you quit using drugs.

Have you previously sought treatment for drug use?

Relapse is often common among drug abusers. What caused the relapse from prior treatments? Try to figure out what caused you to slip up and how you can get back on the right track. Reach out to others to advise you as well.

If you answered yes to any of the questions above, you should seek professional guidance in order to better assess if your drug use is beyond your control and allow them to help you find the right regimen to best aid you in overcoming your drug addiction.

If you, or someone you know and/or love, is battling an addiction to drugs and need help or wish to learn more, please contact DARA Thailand on +66 87 140 7788 or email [email protected]

Freedom from addiction

What is True Freedom from an Addiction?

Articles, Education, Understanding Addiction

It is a fact of life and human interaction with others that people often indulge in unhealthy, or even destructive behavior. We play games – with others, or with oneself. Those games usually leave us feeling empty, frustrated, unhappy or tormented. But we keep on playing. The reason is simple – we gain something from it. The gains vary from those more superficial (such as being pampered if we get sick), to those far profounder – such as confirming our deepest beliefs about ourselves, our future and the world around us, if the game is played out successfully.

Alcoholism as a Script

One of such games is the life game of an “Alcoholic”. Going away from it may be extremely difficult, because being healed from an addiction sabotages a person’s unconscious decision about how their life is going to develop (and end). Such decision, called script in transactional analysis, is often made very early in childhood. The problem with it is that a child, with its limited cognitive, emotional and intellectual capacities, is not always the best judge and decision-maker. This is the reason why an adult who is caught-up in a game of alcoholism should be invited into reevaluating his or her concepts and views formed a long time ago.

If we think about alcohol addiction as a script, it becomes easy to understand why an addict is usually fully taken over by the habit. Script is rigid; it dictates the behavior with not much room for improvisation or any activity unrelated to the script. Therefore, if a person has a script that demands him or her to spend the life as being an alcoholic, all of the actions will be tied to this typical scenario. This is true even in the days (or months, years) when he or she doesn’t drink. If analyzed carefully, it often becomes apparent that this person is still dancing around the addiction and all the associated issues, never losing sight of their “illness”. The days of being sober are carefully counted. The time is measured by episodes of relapse and the periods in between. In social gatherings, the “ex-alcoholic” usually finds a way to focus the attention to liquor – by categorically and often rather expressively denying the offered drink, by eliciting conversations about alcohol in very creative ways, etc. Don’t get us wrong – if a person with the addiction manages to fight it and not succumb to the urge, that is wonderful! However, here is our point…

A True Freedom

An addict who does not consume liquor at all (or the substance of his/her choice) should be praised. It is the first step towards a true liberation. Nevertheless, the work on one’s healing is far from over at this stage! This individual is usually still under the full control of alcohol.

In a psychological sense, a complete abstinence is not much different from the period of excessive drinking. Here is how – cognitive, emotional and behavioral areas of one’s psyche are still completely conducted by the addiction. In other words, a person still thinks like an (ex) addict, focusing attention to alcohol whenever the occasion arises (although concentrating on not-drinking this time). Alcohol still evokes strong emotional reactions (although negative, or ambiguous). And finally, the actions are directed away from alcohol, avoiding it completely (as opposed to investing all efforts into acquiring and consuming liquor in the stage of an active addiction).

A true freedom from alcohol would mean that a healed addict can indulge in an occasional drink here and there, without putting his recovery into jeopardy. Only then alcohol does not control his life, his thoughts, and his actions.

How to Help an Alcoholic to Abandon the Game?

An addict cannot ever be fully free of the addiction unless they abandon their script. This worldview demands them to define themselves as addicts, as being determined by their addiction, as being forced to “throw it all away”. And this is why an alcoholic will collect sober days, gather successes in abstinence, build hope in his recovery among his loved-ones – to be able to play a disappointing fall back into an addiction over and over again, increasing the stakes each time.

That is why we said an alcoholic in abstinence is still an alcoholic, controlled by the script. If we wish for someone to be truly liberated and healed, we should stop playing the game of Alcoholic with them. Not being their Rescuers, their Persecutors, or playing any other role in this destructive life game. This may be difficult, as a drinker is recognized as a desirable object of caring and helping, and we all get drawn into the game easily. However, give an alcoholic a fair chance to reassess their self-image. The greatest help we can offer to an addict lays in rejecting the game, and treating them as capable and responsible adults with many other possibilities other than being addicts or recovering addicts.

For assistance with alcohol addiction, or to learn more about DARA Thailand, head to https://www.dararehab.com/or contact a DARA therapist today, 24/7, for a free, confidential assessment via the following numbers:

Direct to Thailand +66-87-140-7788
Toll-free from United States 1-888-774-8459
Toll-free from United Kingdom 0333-122-9728
Toll-free from Australia 1-800-990-523

Alcoholics a Life Game

Alcoholism as a Life Game

Articles, Understanding Addiction

Let us begin this article by stressing that we do not underestimate the severity of alcoholism and its consequences. The fact that we will talk about games here, and assume a rather humorous tone at times, it doesn’t mean that it is a joking matter. As Eric Berne (1964) notices, alcoholism (similar to drug addiction) may be portrayed as a lifelong pattern of maladaptive social transactions. A life game, in his terminology. And, as psychological practice shows, this pattern could be broken off if an honest and conscious attitude is assumed. This may mean that an alcoholic will have to deny himself the joy of calling his game ‘an illness’ and forego the role of a helpless victim of such disease.

Transactional Analysis of Alcoholism

But, let’s embark on analyzing alcoholism as a life game by explaining some basic terms of transactional analysis (a psychological theory and a school of thought in psychotherapy) first. Transactional analysis focuses on hidden transactions among individuals, on almost predictable actions most people (if not all of us) are inclined to. These sorts of transactions are called games – behavioral patterns in which different roles are played, and the outcomes are always exciting and dramatic, yet in accordance with the game’s rules.

This means that it is not the person’s authentic Self that is involved in a game. And it is precisely here where the potential for an alcoholic’s healing lies.

The possible biological and physiological causes or contributors to alcoholism are not to be taken nonchalantly. However, this article will not focus on these factors. What we want to bring to light is the other possible perspective on alcoholism; the one that may empower the alcoholic to take the matter into his own hands and abandon the powerlessness in front of liquor.

The Roles in the “Alcoholic” Game

As we already mentioned, alcoholism may be viewed as a life game, a game that could consume a person’s focus and energy entirely, throughout his or her whole life. In addition, the person’s social surrounding also gets drawn into the game (or steps in willingly). Let’s see what the lead roles in this game are.

The central role is, of course, the Alcoholic, followed by the main supporting role – the Persecutor. The Persecutor is usually played by a person of the opposite sex, and most often by the wife of the Alcoholic. Her assignment is to judge and criticize the Alcoholic and his drinking habit. She also needs to know all the consequences of the Alcoholic’s behavior by heart, and list them if the occasion arises. The game also demands that there is a Rescuer, commonly played by a person of the same sex. The Rescuer should have the interest in both the Alcoholic himself, and the variety of consequences of his drinking. This is usually the Alcoholic’s doctor, or even his psychotherapist. As described by Berne (1964), a typical situation is the one when the doctor and the patient congratulate each other on keeping the Alcoholic sober for six months; the next morning, the Alcoholic wakes up in a gutter. Then there is the Patsy, frequently played by the Alcoholic’s mother; it is a person who sympathizes with him, provides him with either money (always needed for yet another project that will take him away from drinking) or alcohol (“just one drink, where’s the harm”), and often blames the Persecutor for not having enough understanding for the Alcoholic’s ordeal. Finally, the Connection is a professional (who knows when to stop playing, unlike previously described players) who understands the language of alcoholics and supplies them with liquor – a bartender, for example.

There are many variations within these general rules of play. For example, the Alcoholic’s wife may play Patsy, Persecutor and Rescuer. Or, in the group psychotherapy, the Alcoholic may try to lure the group into condemning his actions. Alcoholics Anonymous attempt to transform Alcoholics into Rescuers. Whatever the alternatives may be, the game remains the same, and its underlying thesis is – “I was so bad; try and stop me”.

The Healing Perspective

Transactional analysis doesn’t deal with alcoholism – it only recognizes the life game called “Alcoholic”. We believe there is a great healing perspective in this kind of approach. Modern Western society has a tendency of over-pathologization. This, however, can be highly counterproductive for a person who is labeled as alcoholic. Declaring alcoholism an illness leads an “alcoholic” into a game of “What could you expect of an ill person?”. Not much, right?

Nevertheless, we believe alcohol addicts have much more strength and an enormous potential to cease the inadequate and harmful interactions of such life game, and choose healthy relationships and prosperous life path instead.

For assistance with alcohol addiction, or to learn more about DARA Thailand, head to https://www.dararehab.com/or contact a DARA therapist today, 24/7, for a free, confidential assessment via the following numbers:

Direct to Thailand +66-87-140-7788
Toll-free from United States 1-888-774-8459
Toll-free from United Kingdom 0333-122-9728
Toll-free from Australia 1-800-990-523

How alcohol affects children

Children of alcoholics – How are They Affected

Articles, Understanding Addiction

Many alcoholics and drug addicts believe that their drinking or drug problem does not affect anyone else. They believe they are not hurting anyone, but themselves. However, the harsh reality is, they are hurting many people around them, and if they have children, they are especially being effected.

If this information pertains to you, whether you are an addict or recovering from addiction, do not be disheartened or feel guilty by the things listed below. Know that there are alternatives and help for children as well as older children experiencing these types of situations.

Many kids who have a parent who uses drugs or alcohol experience issues related to their mom or dad’s overuse far into adulthood. Here are some ways children of alcoholics and addicts are affected:

They often do not have a genuine concept of what is normal. When a child’s father or mother is an alcoholic or addict, he typically does not interact in relationships as those who have parents that are not addicts. Children of a parent or guardian who uses often experience relationships that are usually strained within their families. Tensions are often high within their family unit. Therefore, a child of an addict may not know how to interact in relationships with others in a “normal” way. They feel like they are different than others because of this thought process as well. They can become depressed and feel isolated because they have poor relationship skills and not know how to normally interact with others. Children of an addict also typically develop a pattern of blaming their using parent for their behavior and sometimes their feelings, so oftentimes these patterns continue into future relationships as well.

Generally they are very serious. They may have been criticized in the past when loosening up, so they are usually unsure of how to have fun. Maybe they do not know how to have fun because so many times in the past when something good was supposed to happen it always turned out in disappointment because their alcoholic or addicted parent sabotaged that time in their life.

They might fear confrontation as caused by the fear of others being angry with them. They may be afraid that any conflict might turn violent or emotionally abusive, so they avoid it at all costs.

They may be constantly seeking approval from others. Regardless of whether or not the action is healthy, they may be searching for approval from wherever they can get it. They can even go out of their way to please others because they cannot handle anyone being unhappy with them due to the fear of bringing up feelings related to the past. They may even become perfectionists, so that others will never be disappointed in them.

They often have difficulties with romantic relationships. It is oftentimes hard to trust someone and rely on someone when they were not able to trust and rely on their parent. Growing up where many things were covered up by lies and deceit, it may be a challenge to know who one can trust. They can have so much mistrust of others, they find it nearly impossible to be in a relationship.

They are oftentimes afraid of being abandoned. Sometimes a parent physically leaves the family, and the child does not want others to leave for fear of having to feel those feelings all over again. This fear can be dangerous because they frequently hold onto unhealthy relationships simply because they fear being alone.

However, it is important for children of an alcoholic or addict to seek professional help as well to aid them in overcoming the obstacles they face in life today. Children of an addict should remember their parent’s issue is not their own, and they did not cause any of the problems their parent is dealing with. They must also learn they had no control over their parent’s behavior in the past and learn to let go of control in their own life will benefit them currently. They cannot control other people, and realizing this fact is such a freeing experience when accomplished. Furthermore, they must remember that they cannot change their parent’s behavior-not in the past, present or future.

Children of addicts must also recognize that they can only control themselves. As much as they want their parent to change, they cannot, without being willing, change themselves. Another effective strategy for a child of an addict, is to remind themselves to communicate their feelings with others. Often not feeling normal and not knowing how to care for oneself, can lead to a helpless state, but if one grasps how to communicate their feelings with others, they can begin to move out of a state of depression and into a healthier lifestyle.  It is also important for children of addicts to realize that they can choose to make healthy choices now despite the way they grew up.

So, Children of an Addict should take a step back from the situation for a moment, breathe, and take the steps to get the help they need for themselves too.