Understanding Addiction

What a lot of people who have never experience drug usage don’t understand about drugs is that when you are under the influence of a controlled substance, your perception is altered and in some cases falsely enhanced. When you are high, you feel like you are on top of the world and can do or accomplish anything. Your cares and worries are out the door. There is a fabrication of reality that exists in your mind and the way that you view the world around you, including yourself, is highly contaminated.

What people don’t understand who have never used before about the user is that his logical thinking mind is affected tremendously, and the decisions that are being made by him are by far without any logical reasoning. We wonder why people do such crazy and horrible things, well the truth is, is that the people who are using probably wouldn’t be doing such crazy and insane things if they weren’t under the influence of these substances.

Coming from someone like I myself for instance who has experienced what it feels like to be addicted to drugs can understand why the addict feels the way that they feel. Thankfully, I never allowed it to get to the point to where I was in need of help from a drug rehab center. There was about a three year period when I was using. Using monthly turned in to using weekly, then every other day to using daily. I always knew deep down that I didn’t want this for the rest of my life because I just figured that I would have fun for a little while and then quit cold turkey. It wasn’t as easy as I thought.

But after a while, I was watching my body deteriorate and feeling horrible all of the time, feeling dumber and having trouble holding a conversation. I really didn’t want to continue feeling this way but it was so difficult for me to just go all out and stop. I did however consider receiving some addiction treatment at the time, but I could never muster up the confidence to enroll.

Something inside of me was telling me that everything was going to be okay as long as I was the one to take control of my life. So what did I do?  I started slowly making steps towards improvement and began substituting bad habits for good ones, like working out, reading, writing, singing, anything that would take my mind off of being in that phony state of mind. I guess you could say that I performed my own form of drug treatment.
I am so very grateful today that I do not have this issue in my life.

My perception has changed and I see myself in a whole new light. The fact of the matter is that drug addiction is not that easy to overcome. There needs to be an intervention from peers, friends, family or anyone who is in the user’s immediate circle. Or at least point him or her in the direction of a good drug treatment center.

A new life is waiting for the ones who persevere and don’t give up. If I can do it, so can you. The next time you come across someone who is dealing with an addiction problem, try and have a little compassion for them and instead of judging and criticizing them, remember that this person is a human being just like you and me, and is probably just living without any hope and/or love.