Tag Archives: drug addiction

How to Tell if Someone Is a Drug Addict or Alcoholic

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How can you tell when someone is a drug addict or alcoholic?

Before we can tackle this question, we need to first differentiate between drug abuse and drug dependency. Abuse is generally considered any time that someone is taking drugs in a manner other than what they were prescribed. For example, if someone is doubling or tripling the dose on their pain medication, that would be considered abuse.

Drug dependency can be built up from legal long term medical use, such as when someone becomes physically addicted to sleeping medication and cannot sleep without it. Dependency is characterized by a few factors, one of which is usually a noticeable and physical withdrawal when the person doesn’t get the drug. Examples of this would be shaking from alcohol withdrawal or agitation and crankiness during nicotine withdrawal.

addicted to drugs
Photo by lanuiop

Full blown drug or alcohol addiction is generally understood to include dependency along with a psychological craving for the substance. There is an element of anticipation and preoccupation with getting and using the drugs or alcohol. Therefore, addiction is more than just a physical dependency. Unfortunately, if you ask someone about possible drug use–even if you ask in a loving and caring manner–is likely to produce either anger or a defensive response.

Determining whether or not someone is addicted, and also what their level of dependency is can be a complicated question. In order to best answer it, we need to break it down by situation:

Situation #1:

Let’s say that you already know that someone is legally using drugs or alcohol (such as with legally prescribed medications). The question is really about their level of dependency, or whether they are really addicted at all. Here’s what you can do to learn more about their condition:

* Being Over-Medicated – Anyone who gets loopy or giddy off of, say, pain medication, is probably abusing the drug. This might not necessarily be drug addiction or dependency. Properly medicated pain should not have a person floating on a cloud. There should be at least some hint of underlying pain remaining.

* A Potential Missed Dose - Watch for someone’s reaction when and if they are going to run out of their medications, or if they have to go without alcohol in a certain situation. If there is a hint of panic, or if the person resents the situation, then those are warning signs that there is either dependency or addiction.

* Signs of Preoccupation – Anyone who is preoccupied with the idea of getting or using more drugs and alcohol is probably leaning towards addiction and dependence and less towards simple drug abuse.

addicted to drugs
Photo by extranoise

Situation #2:

You suspect that someone is using an illegal substance and is trying to keep their habit a secret. You question whether or not they are abusing drugs (perhaps experimenting), or if they possibly have physical dependence and/or a full blown addiction. In this case, you’ll want to look for all of the warning signs already listed above in order to determine their level of dependence, but also consider:

* Evasive Behavior and Isolation – People using illegal substances will probably want to avoid you or others who might confront them about it. This leads to isolation and distancing themselves. Sometimes an addict is torn with the burden of not wanting to hurt their loved ones, but not knowing how to break free from the addiction either. Their avoiding you could be a sign. Also, if they refuse to commit to an extended stay with you, that might be a sign as well (such as a family vacation or a camping trip or something similar).

* Abrupt change in friends or social behavior – This one is especially true for younger people.

Situation #3:

You have no hard evidence that someone is using whatsoever, but you are suspicious that something might be going on. In this case, watch for everything suggested up to this point, and also watch out for:

* Signs of physical dependence – These will vary according to different substances, of course, but symptoms might include: moodiness, forgetfulness, changes in sleep patterns, dilated pupils, and so on.

addicted to drugs
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What to Avoid

Trying to approach someone that you think might be addicted is a delicate task. You might have a tendency to try to be as sneaky as you can in an effort to play detective and find out what is really going on. But try not to be manipulative and sneaky, as this will only drive someone further away from you and put more distance between the two of you.

How to Overcome Addiction Using the Ultimate Replacement Strategy

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Overcoming addiction can be baffling without a replacement strategy.

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Photo by Kyle May

What does this mean? A replacement strategy is actually a creation strategy.

For example, consider a list of common goals that people might strive for in their lives:

Lose Weight

Get out of debt

Quit smoking

Notice that all of these are negatives. People are trying to take something away from their lives. They are trying to create a negative. Now this might be a little nit-picky here, perhaps we are just playing with words a bit, but it probably makes a big difference–especially when it comes to your attitude.

Here is the big revelation: it is impossible to quit anything. Instead, you must replace it. With what? With some sort of creative energy.

For example, people don’t actually lose weight. Instead, they might change their eating habits, and start exercising on a regular basis, and weight does disappear eventually. But to say that they lost the weight is inaccurate, and also not very useful. Instead, they created positive replacement habits. They started living healthier.

Replacement strategies (or creation strategies) are powerful things. This is because they can have a multiplying effect on your progress. Let’s look deeper:

Say you want to lose weight. So, using traditional thinking, you might “eliminate 300 calories per day,” or do the same thing with a certain number of fat grams. You might also mandate a certain number of exercise sessions each week. This strategy will probably make for a long, slow road. Why? Because progress will be incremental at best.

How would a replacement strategy work in this case? The idea is to replace your bad habits with good ones, not just to simply eliminate the bad. So you would replace your least healthiest snacks each week with food that is actually good for you. You could do the same with exercise, and find your least active days, and push yourself to exercise the heaviest on those days that used to be the slowest for you.

Not only are you replacing the bad habits with good ones, you are doing so by applying the 80/20 rule. Target the absolute worst parts of your routine and completely flip them into a positive. Don’t get overwhelmed by trying to change every little thing that is bad in your life–start with the really bad stuff that needs changing and apply overwhelming force to turn it into a positive. That’s using the power of the 80/20 rule! It gets results fast while multiplying your efforts.

How does this apply to recovery?

When it comes to overcoming drug and alcohol addiction, simply abstaining is probably not going to work out for most people in the long run. Doing so creates a miserable life, unless you can incorporate some sort of recovery program.

Now consider the fact that most recovery programs are actually creation and replacement strategies. The question you need to ask yourself is this: how entangled has my life become with drugs and alcohol? Does every waking moment revolve around drinking and/or using drugs, thinking about using and drinking, figuring out ways to get the money so that I can continue to use more, and so on? The extent to which you are obsessed with drugs and alcohol is the extent to which you need a replacement strategy.

My whole life revolved around staying drunk and high on drugs. That was all I cared about. Therefore, consider the replacement strategy that finally worked for me: living for 20 months in long term treatment. Daily meeting attendance. Completely severing all ties with old drinking buddies and associating daily with new and sober friends in recovery. That was my replacement strategy.

Notice that all of those things are an act of creation. They are all positive things that required action on my part, instead of inaction (such as not drinking, or not going to the bars, etc.)

Does this mean that every addict needs long term treatment to overcome addiction? Not necessarily. But you should consider your plan for recovery as a plan of creation. You are not simply “quitting drugs.” What are you going to create in your life, and build up in your life that is positive? This is one reason that 12 step meetings are so powerful. Involving yourself in them every day becomes a powerful creation strategy.

What is your plan for recovery? What positive changes are going to become the centerpiece of your life? Are these changes enough to replace your obsession with drugs and alcohol?

Check back next week for a deeper analysis of what role spirituality plays in your replacement strategy for recovery.

How to Prioritize as you Progress through Recovery

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Beating Addiction – How can we best prioritize in recovery?

priorities in recovery
Photo by John Edwards 2008

This the fifth part in a series about beating addiction. The first 4 parts were:

1. The secret of overcoming addiction and alcoholism

2. Transforming your life with a spiritual experience

3. Staying plugged in to recovery

4. Common stumbling blocks that might lead to relapse

The newcomer can become absolutely overwhelmed in early recovery. Getting clean and sober is a monumental task. They say that the only thing you have to change in early sobriety is “everything.”

If your recovery solution is the twelve step fellowship of AA or NA, then you are going to experience information overload when you first get clean and sober. There are so many suggestions, so many different things to do, and so many important things to focus on in early recovery. The people at the meetings will tell you that “it’s simple.”

It is not simple. Do not believe them. “Simple” would be a one step program that states not to pick up a drink or a drug each day–period. That would be simple. But the program consists of 12 steps, abstinence from drugs and alcohol is implied, and there are also a ton of other suggestions being thrown at you as well. “90 meetings in 90 days.” “Get a sponsor.” “Get phone numbers.” I went through this initiation phase myself, and I can assure you, it is overwhelming. There’s no doubt about it. This is not to say, however, that 12 step programs are bad and that you should avoid them–that’s not the case at all. They do offer a tremendous amount of concentrated support. But there is a real need to prioritize in early recovery, because without doing so, the monumental task ahead of you becomes overwhelming.

How to Prioritize:

1) The first 2 weeks clean:

Any addict who has been through early recovery knows that the very beginning can be excruciatingly difficult. Therefore, your only priority at this point should be physical abstinence from the drug. This implies a huge amount of things in your life that will not be a priority for a while–things like work, school, family, and so on. Ideally, spending this time in a controlled facility, such as a drug or alcohol treatment center, would be the best route for most addicts to follow. For the first 2 weeks, the focus should be solely on not using chemicals and the formation of a basic recovery plan. The benefit of rehab is that it can help you with both of these things. Look for a controlled environment to help you in the beginning.

Spiritual priority: Stay open minded and willing. If you are inclined to, start with the prayer and meditation. But the critical thing is to stay open to new ideas that might help you in recovery at this point.

2) Up to 90 days clean:

This is the initial phase of recovery, when you want to fully immerse yourself in some type of support system. For most people, that will probably mean attending lots of 12 step meetings, such as AA or NA meetings. For others, long term treatment might be appropriate. The key to success in this early stage is overwhelming force. Completely immerse yourself in whatever recovery program you choose. The raw statistics do not look pretty for this range of clean time (zero to 90 days), so you really need to put some effort in here.

Spiritual priority: Open up to the possibility that a spiritual experience can happen for you and change your life. Focus on turning your will over to a higher power, and letting things go that are beyond your control. Start appreciating the serenity you get when you stop trying to control everything.


Photo by Redvers

3) 6 months to 1 year clean:

This should be a huge growth period for anyone in recovery. You should be transitioning from “staying clean each day” to “living a full life of recovery.” Instead of focusing on the negative (don’t drink or do drugs), you should have replaced that mantra with positive activities, such as chairing AA meetings, socializing with others in recovery, sponsorship, spending quality time with sober friends and family, and so on. In other words, this is a return to real life. At some point, it has to stop being just about not doing drugs and alcohol and you have to start living again!

Spiritual priority: Gratitude is powerful stuff–it is the Kryptonite that can protect you from getting a case of that one-year-anniversary-relapse syndrome. If you are truly grateful for your recovery, then it is a good chance you will hang on to it. There is a ton of information out there for helping you to cultivate gratitude.

4) One year clean and beyond:

This is when “real life” became a priority for me again: pursuing a relationship, going back to college, finding a better job, and so on. The idea was that once I gained a firm grip on recovery, it was time to start focusing on personal growth in other areas as well. Remember, everything is spiritual, from jogging to playing with your niece in the park to taking a college entrance exam.

Spiritual priority: Help others. Period. If you can help other recovering addicts, that is even better. Nothing works more effectively than working with others for helping (me) to stay clean and sober.

Just for today, what is your priority for recovery? What are you focusing on in order to gain a better life?

Ask yourself: “Am I progressing?”

Diagnosing Drug Dependence and Full Blown Addiction

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Believe it or not, it’s not always clear how to tell if what you’re experiencing is drug dependence or full blown addiction. Sometimes addiction can creep up on us, especially when we least suspect it. Keep in mind that virtually any person has the potential to develop an addiction. No one is immune to potentially becoming an addict–it happens to the young, the old, the sick, the healthy, and so on.

The truly cunning thing about addiction is that we can become physically and psychologically dependent on a substance, and then use our own mind and logic to convince ourselves that we are choosing to use the substance, instead of being controlled by it. This is called denial, of course, and through this mechanism we can fool ourselves into thinking that we are actually in control.

drug dependence
Photo by nexthttp and hshap

The fact of the matter is that most addicts suspect that they are truly hooked long before they will openly admitted it to themselves and others. Fear holds us back from making the diagnosis and proceeding towards a healthy change. Fear is what holds us back from facing our addiction.

Dependence Versus Addiction

Let’s clarify the difference between dependence and addiction. For a little background, you might first want to check this out about whether alcoholism and addiction is a disease or not.

Physical dependence refers to the state of your body when it becomes physically dependent on a substance. This is characterized mostly by withdrawal symptoms when the substance is taken away. For example, someone who is using Valium as a sleeping pill every single night for several years may find it very difficult to sleep without the medication (by the way, Valium is a terrible sleep aid, as it does not produce deeply restorative sleep). In the same way, someone using strong pain medications on a regular basis over a period of time may experience withdrawal symptoms when abruptly stopping the medication.

This is physical dependence. It is not the same as full blown addiction. Anyone engaging in a pattern that produces dependence must also have other environmental and genetic factors involved that will lead them into full blown addiction.

At this point in time, all our medical knowledge does not have predictive power when judging personality and guessing who will become drug addicts and alcoholics and who will not. It’s not practical to look at a person and warn them that they might become an addict someday, or that they are predisposed to addictive tendencies, because we have proven to ourselves that we do not have the ability to accurately make these predictions.

Perhaps you or someone you know is hovering on the line between physical dependence and drug addiction. For example, maybe you are taking pain medications, and you are taking greater and greater amounts each day, buying it from multiple sources (perhaps illegally), and you can’t really see yourself stopping the medication without some serious help. Does this qualify as physical dependence or full blown drug addiction? Where is the line between the two, and when has a person crossed it?

drug dependence
Photo by falsalama and aaronescobar

Getting Past the Stereotypes

Some of us have a preconceived notion of what a typical drug addict is like. Most of us probably think that such an individual is beneath us, and that this stereotype could not possibly apply to our situation. We might picture someone who is truly out of control, dangerous, living in the gutters, and going to certain extremes with drug use that we ourselves have not yet experienced.

Stereotyping addicts can be a large factor in our own denial. We might justify our own drug use because “it’s not that bad,” as we compare ourselves to this idea of a hopeless junkie living in the streets.

The truth of the matter is that there are all sorts of modern day drug addicts, many of whom are still working and holding things together by the skin of their teeth. These are the people who have become physically dependent on either drugs or alcohol, and are slowly making the transition into full blown addiction. Their lives may not yet be in shambles, but chances are good that they have started to experience some consequences. However, consequences don’t always tell the whole story.

Using Consequences to Measure Addiction Isn’t Accurate

It’s easy to look at a person’s life and judge them by the consequences that they have brought upon themselves. For example, people who have racked up several drunk drivings and lost their license. There are also people who have lost their jobs or gotten into all sorts of trouble because of alcohol or drug use. But these consequences are actually a poor measure of a person’s level of addiction. The problem is that many people merely abuse drugs and alcohol, find themselves getting into trouble, and promptly make a change in their life–consequently “straightening out.”

On the other hand, there are serious drug addicts and alcoholics who remain fairly “lucky” for several years, experiencing very little in the way of consequences. My personal story reflects this exactly, as I had very few legal consequences and basically managed to hold a job through most of it.

So while consequences might be a strong indicator, they are not the final authority on diagnosing addiction, because there are so many exceptions. So how can we accurately diagnosis addiction?

drug dependence
Photo by Franco Folini and kr4gin

Self Diagnosis is Always Accurate

We might look at an individual who appears to be out of control and facing major life consequences because of their drinking or drug use, yet continues to abuse drugs. Surely this person is a drug addict, we think. But this might not be the case. Many people go through stages of heavy drinking or drug use in their lives without becoming full-blown addicts. It can therefore be tricky to know for sure who is merely abusing drugs and who needs real addiction help.

Therefore, the only truly accurate method is through self-diagnosis. For physical dependence:

* Increase in tolerance – when it takes more and more of the drug to produce the same effect
* Withdrawal symptoms – when you stop taking the drug abruptly

And to diagnose the psychological element found with full-blown addiction:

* Preoccupied with the substance – thinking about it all the time, planning future uses, etc.
* Loss of choice – using drugs or alcohol when you had previously decided you would not
* Loss of control – using more than you had planned on
* Loss of time – using so much or so often that you sacrifice all of your extra time to the drug.

The line between physical dependence and full blown addiction is not always clear. Another experiment you might want to try is controlled using, as outlined in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Set a limit for yourself that is very low and stick with it for six months, taking only one drink per day, for example. It should quickly become clear to you if you are truly an addict or not. If you resent the fact that you have to control your chemical use, and if it proves to be difficult and uncomfortable, then that is a pretty good indication. If the only way you can have fun is to cut loose and remove all limits, then that is a pretty good indicator as well.

Remember that denial will always scoff at these experiments as being unnecessary.

Your peace of mind and contentedness should not rest on drugs or alcohol. That is a sign of preoccupation and obsession. If you feel relief when you obtain your drug of choice, that is another strong indicator.

If you are reading this because you think someone you know might be addicted, be sure to read this about how to help an addict.

Stop Feeling Sorry For Yourself and Overcome Self Pity – A Step By Step Guide

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This is a complete guide to help you stop feeling sorry for yourself and overcome self pity.

Self Pity: Defining the Problem

Before we can develop a plan to overcome self-pity, we need to take a quick moment and gain a thorough understanding of it.

Almost any person is capable of occasionally feeling sorry for themselves from time to time. This is not normally a problem. It becomes a problem when an individual starts feeling sorry for themselves on a regular basis. Some people will even go out of there way in order to play the victim role in order to be able to feel sorry for themselves. Continue reading →

A Million Little Pieces

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A Million Little Pieces

Title: A Million Little Pieces

Author: James Frey

Overall Rating: A very, very good book. Potentially life changing in the right hands.

What are some things you really liked about the book?

Frey has a unique, gripping style of writing. The story is well paced and emotionally charged. You will not become bored with the story.

Anything that wasn’t so great about it?

Just all the hype, controversy, and media coverage involved with the book and the author.

What this Book is all about:

This book is about a struggling drug addict/alcoholic and his journey in early recovery. At times it is violent and explicit, but even the squeamish folks will overlook this because the story is so engaging. It is not necessarily an accurate portrayal of a treatment center, but that is beside the point. This is a stirring, emotionally gripping roller coaster of a story that will seriously engage you and leave you wanting more. Frey exaggerates, embellishes, and flat out lies in parts of this book. It doesn’t matter. Even if the book is nothing but lies and falsehood, the story is so emotionally engaging and the writing is so well done that you can’t help but be completely taken away by the story.

Who should read this book:

People in recovery, or anyone with an interest in addiction and/or alcoholism. Or, simply anyone who wants to read a gripping story.

Who might want to skip it:

Anyone who can’t get over the fact that much of the story is actually a falsified memoir is going to skip this book. But I am urging you to throw that all aside and just read the thing. The story is so moving and the writing is so raw and perfectly executed that it just doesn’t matter. Read the story and digest it and take it for what it is worth. To me, the story was worth a great deal. I happen to be in recovery, but this book truly made me think; made me reflect on things. And it gave me gratitude. Don’t let the negative hype take that experience away from you. It is worth a read.

Final word:

Forget all the hype and buy it now. You will not regret it.