Aa
Does calling ourselves ADDICTS magnify the problem?
Im one of you and am wondering if calling ourselves addicts is magifying our problem!. I looked up the definition of addict and is someone who will do what ever it takes to get more pills (whatever). Is there a difference between addicts and someone depentant as i certainly would not sell my soul for more pills. If a person considers themselves an addict then they see themselves in a neverending lifelong battle with recovery but is someone is merely dependant then once over taking them just moves on with their life and looks back as only making a bad decision. Please let me know your thoughts as to consider being one over the other sets ones thinking on 2 different playing fields.
Best Answer
Great post it takes a addict to truly understand it and read it and go god thats me,thats me,cool hu? Keep the faith brother!! :)
Can't Afford To Use Forever... your response might be the best thing I have ever read here.
COMMUNITY LEADER
Had i not been an addict i would of never known the beauty of recovery~~
i wonder who defines an addict as "someone who will do what ever it takes to get more pills (whatever)"?
according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, "Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry . . . [that is] characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response."
NA has a good definition of addict: "Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death."
i am a drug addict, a real drug addict. i'm grateful for the fact of my addiction and i'm sure that it and my recovery are the best things that ever happened to me.
i went from being a father of four / respected professional with a successful practice to doing hard drugs in the projects and bankrupting myself. how could that happen? how could that happen?
it happened, because i sustained a serious injury in 1996 and discovered that i LOVED the way opiates made me feel. over a period of about four years i went from really enjoying pain pills henever the need arose, to taking them on a regular, pretty much constant basis.
by late 2000 i was deciding that i should stop, that it was (perhaps) getting out of hand. i would quit and suffer through what i then thought was just awful withdrawal and i'd be ok. but something would always come up and sooner or later i'd find the reasonable need to take a pill (or three) for just one evening . . . pretty much ithout fail, each such evening lead to me shaking my head a week (or a month) later realizing with dismay and incomprehensible demoralization that i was right back in trouble again (only a little worse)
if i had been merely dependent, i wouldn't have repeated what became a defining cycle of my life. like the person who has a bad experience with food X, i would have avoided pain pills like the plague. but, like a moth to a flame, i was drawn back again and again.
by 2002 i finally realized that i was really in trouble and i joined this forum. i was very serious about stopping for good. i wanted my life back and i was determined that i would do it. i didn't dare tell anyone in "real life" or seek any in-person help, because beyond being certain that i could (and would) do it myself, i was sertain that letting my little secret out would be worse that the problem itself.
i had absolutely no idea as i was writing way back in the early fall of 2002 to the likes of HIPPY, SKIPER, WITCHY WOMAN and even THOMAS (of recipe fame), that my addiction was just getting ready to dig in its claws. but 2 years i was doing 3 times as many pills, i had destroyed my health, i was spending most of my time just working to find and use so i wouldn't get sick . . . and i was about to pick up a crack stem because i had been out of pills for too long and i needed something, anything to help me.
talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire . . .
i haven't lived like that in over 7 years. i was finally able to move into recovery and make it into sustained recovery precisely because i was finally able to admit to my inner-most self that i really, really was a drug addict. the whole time that i thought of my issue as being a series of bad decisions that i simply needed to avoid in the future, i got worse and worse and worse.
a good example of my failure to see what was really happening is found in my screename CATUF. i happen to like that name now, it has been through a lot with me, but the truth is that when i got here in 2002, i really thought that the worst aspect of my little habit was the cost . . . i was doing 10 or 12 10's a day at anywhere from $5 to $8 apiece -- that was just too much, hence the acronym CATUF came from my admission that i Can't Afford To Use Forever.
i also wonder where you got the notion that when "a person considers themselves an addict then they see themselves in a neverending lifelong battle with recovery." that just isn't true. early recovery presented a fierce and seemingly never-ending battle, but end it did. i haven't been in a battle with anyone or anything for a long, long time.
the happiest, most bright-eyed, joyful people i have ever met are people in sustained recovery. i am truly grateful to be one of them and, thus, grateful for having been into the black hole of active addiction.
AA's Big Book has a great passage known as "The Promises," which is read at a lot of meetings. i used to inwardly graon when i heard it read early on, because i KNEW that (at least as far as i was concerned) that it was a load of crap . . . there was just no way. but i was wrong. The Promises came truse for me and they come true for everyone who surrenders to recovery:
The Promises
"if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."
CATUF
2621
according to the American Society of Addiction Medicine, "Addiction is a primary, chronic disease of brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry . . . [that is] characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response."
NA has a good definition of addict: "Very simply, an addict is a man or woman whose life is controlled by drugs. We are people in the grip of a continuing and progressive illness whose ends are always the same: jails, institutions, and death."
i am a drug addict, a real drug addict. i'm grateful for the fact of my addiction and i'm sure that it and my recovery are the best things that ever happened to me.
i went from being a father of four / respected professional with a successful practice to doing hard drugs in the projects and bankrupting myself. how could that happen? how could that happen?
it happened, because i sustained a serious injury in 1996 and discovered that i LOVED the way opiates made me feel. over a period of about four years i went from really enjoying pain pills henever the need arose, to taking them on a regular, pretty much constant basis.
by late 2000 i was deciding that i should stop, that it was (perhaps) getting out of hand. i would quit and suffer through what i then thought was just awful withdrawal and i'd be ok. but something would always come up and sooner or later i'd find the reasonable need to take a pill (or three) for just one evening . . . pretty much ithout fail, each such evening lead to me shaking my head a week (or a month) later realizing with dismay and incomprehensible demoralization that i was right back in trouble again (only a little worse)
if i had been merely dependent, i wouldn't have repeated what became a defining cycle of my life. like the person who has a bad experience with food X, i would have avoided pain pills like the plague. but, like a moth to a flame, i was drawn back again and again.
by 2002 i finally realized that i was really in trouble and i joined this forum. i was very serious about stopping for good. i wanted my life back and i was determined that i would do it. i didn't dare tell anyone in "real life" or seek any in-person help, because beyond being certain that i could (and would) do it myself, i was sertain that letting my little secret out would be worse that the problem itself.
i had absolutely no idea as i was writing way back in the early fall of 2002 to the likes of HIPPY, SKIPER, WITCHY WOMAN and even THOMAS (of recipe fame), that my addiction was just getting ready to dig in its claws. but 2 years i was doing 3 times as many pills, i had destroyed my health, i was spending most of my time just working to find and use so i wouldn't get sick . . . and i was about to pick up a crack stem because i had been out of pills for too long and i needed something, anything to help me.
talk about jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire . . .
i haven't lived like that in over 7 years. i was finally able to move into recovery and make it into sustained recovery precisely because i was finally able to admit to my inner-most self that i really, really was a drug addict. the whole time that i thought of my issue as being a series of bad decisions that i simply needed to avoid in the future, i got worse and worse and worse.
a good example of my failure to see what was really happening is found in my screename CATUF. i happen to like that name now, it has been through a lot with me, but the truth is that when i got here in 2002, i really thought that the worst aspect of my little habit was the cost . . . i was doing 10 or 12 10's a day at anywhere from $5 to $8 apiece -- that was just too much, hence the acronym CATUF came from my admission that i Can't Afford To Use Forever.
i also wonder where you got the notion that when "a person considers themselves an addict then they see themselves in a neverending lifelong battle with recovery." that just isn't true. early recovery presented a fierce and seemingly never-ending battle, but end it did. i haven't been in a battle with anyone or anything for a long, long time.
the happiest, most bright-eyed, joyful people i have ever met are people in sustained recovery. i am truly grateful to be one of them and, thus, grateful for having been into the black hole of active addiction.
AA's Big Book has a great passage known as "The Promises," which is read at a lot of meetings. i used to inwardly graon when i heard it read early on, because i KNEW that (at least as far as i was concerned) that it was a load of crap . . . there was just no way. but i was wrong. The Promises came truse for me and they come true for everyone who surrenders to recovery:
The Promises
"if we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed before we are half way through. We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness. We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace. No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can benefit others. That feeling of uselessness and selfpity will disappear. We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows. Self-seeking will slip away. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us. We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for ourselves."
CATUF
2621
COMMUNITY LEADER
I am a recovering addict and i tell people so. I am no longer embarrassed or ashamed. I am what i am~~
A person who has a problem and solves it has more self awareness than a person who never had the problem in the first place. If you label yourself and stay away from using you keep strong. You NEVER GO BACK THERE AGAIN.
I refer to myself as an addict, as well. It doesn't feel at all like I have some sort of lifelong weight on my shoulders. I don't believe I'll always struggle. If anything, I feel clearer for knowing this about myself. It will be filed with all of my other strengths and weakness, vices and virtues, to help form the decisions I make as I go through my day, my life. There's power in that. And control. Healthy control.
Did I make a bad decision? Yup. And it's keeping my...hold on, what's 20 x 365 x 2ish?...14,600 other bad decisions company.
Addict. I'm okay with that. Despite the shame I sometimes feel. Despite the stigma attached to it. It's the first step to moving me toward the kind of life I want to live. I'm not only okay with that, I'm grateful.
Did I make a bad decision? Yup. And it's keeping my...hold on, what's 20 x 365 x 2ish?...14,600 other bad decisions company.
Addict. I'm okay with that. Despite the shame I sometimes feel. Despite the stigma attached to it. It's the first step to moving me toward the kind of life I want to live. I'm not only okay with that, I'm grateful.
Vicki do you mind if i use that,prescription medication situation i like it,thats got a ring to it!! :)
This addict knows that he's nothing but an addict unless he happens to be an addict not taking pills in which case he has the priviledge to be everything else in life along with being an addict not taking pills. But as an addict taking pills I am nothing but an addict. I could circle that around again but I think I've expressed my opinion as clearly as possible...
i refer to myself as a recovering addict. Recovering, because it reminds me that i am healing, and an addict so i dont fall into that trap of believing that i can control my using of certain drugs. I dont go and tell everyone, but i do at least tell myself. I am not ashamed to be a RECOVERING addict, because i think this is the hardest battle ever.... next to being a recovering enabler....but thats a different forum. :)
I'm an addict. I've done stupid, desperate things to get pills. I've even had two operations, maybe three, that I didn't need just to keep the meds flowing.
I take responsibility for what I am and what I've done.
Bottom line, if you see yourself as an "abuser", the next step is addiction. Look at what you've done to get pills - and be honest with yourself.
And then just stop using and do whatever it takes to stay clean.
I take responsibility for what I am and what I've done.
Bottom line, if you see yourself as an "abuser", the next step is addiction. Look at what you've done to get pills - and be honest with yourself.
And then just stop using and do whatever it takes to stay clean.
I started off dependent. I would stop for a while, feel a little physically sick and be fine. I believe that I developed an allergy of the mind. Then I could not quit with my own will power. I had to reach out for help. That is what makes me define myself as an addict. I have tremendous will power in all other aspects of my life, but if I take 1 I will take 1000. I will go insane and die if I use again. I have proven this to myself many times. I tried many times to use, expecting different results, but by the end of it's progression I was overwhelmingly humbled. I had been defeated by drugs and could not get out of it on my own. I don't care about the title, but am glad to realize the truth of it.
How about: "I had a prescription medication situation". Does that work better for you?
It's all very subjective. You can call yourself whatever you want.
All that's important is that a problem was recognized and dealt with for the better.
I agree with ImDONENoMore. You're over thinking this, I think. You also start quite a few threads. That tells me you're a little obsessed with the subject of addiction. Maybe you need to look at that to resolve these questions that keep coming up.
It's all very subjective. You can call yourself whatever you want.
All that's important is that a problem was recognized and dealt with for the better.
I agree with ImDONENoMore. You're over thinking this, I think. You also start quite a few threads. That tells me you're a little obsessed with the subject of addiction. Maybe you need to look at that to resolve these questions that keep coming up.
Thats a fair question
Whats in a name? An addict by any other name would still abuse the medication. ,,,,,,,,, (ok bad shakespear )....
The short answer is no..same playing field.
If someone was only "physically dependent" or "psychologically dpenedent"... could they safely use again without negative results?
If I ever have to explain myself to family or a close friend,. I say " I had a surgery was prescribed narcotic pain releivers..i got used to them and eventuially became dependent....my life started to suffer,,,,.I got help and now I stay far far away from them,,,," and I leave it at that,,,,
Free~
Whats in a name? An addict by any other name would still abuse the medication. ,,,,,,,,, (ok bad shakespear )....
The short answer is no..same playing field.
If someone was only "physically dependent" or "psychologically dpenedent"... could they safely use again without negative results?
If I ever have to explain myself to family or a close friend,. I say " I had a surgery was prescribed narcotic pain releivers..i got used to them and eventuially became dependent....my life started to suffer,,,,.I got help and now I stay far far away from them,,,," and I leave it at that,,,,
Free~
For me, there's only one thing that separates "dependancy" and "addiction". Shame. Shame we feel over our own actions and shame projected onto us by others. In the dictionary, they're synonyms. But not in real life. The scarlet letter does not stand for "addict", but it might as well.
I agree with the two ladies above me! I do not like labels of any kind! I think it may be because I could never actually fit myself into a particular label! I am a human being who struggles with certain aspects of my life! It serves no purpose for me to stand up and say "I am a drug addict"! If saying that or labeling yourself helps in some way, then good!
Bottom line for me is that for today, I'm not going to abuse anything! You can label it whatever you want! All the best to you!!
Bottom line for me is that for today, I'm not going to abuse anything! You can label it whatever you want! All the best to you!!
COMMUNITY LEADER
I agree with ImDone...The important thing is you are not using~
I think you're overthinking this just a bit. All that matters, to me anyway, is that you quit and move forward without chemical help. I don't care what anyone calls me as long as I feel good and proud about myself from within. Just my two cents.
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