Is it possible to rehabilitate a drug addict (or alcoholic)?
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M$4 Answers
For one single day, today, addicts can be rehabilitated.
Addicts can be rehabilitated but it takes work, daily attention, constant vigilance, and the help of other addicts. We need to both help ourselves and help others in order to remain sober of our addiction. I am an addict and a huge part of my recovery is working with other addicts, I like to work with the "first day of recovery" addicts because that was a very difficult time for me and getting through it took me over a full year... one day of recovery took me one day but putting two days together took me over a year. I found a good niche to give back in helping folks on that first day.. to get another the day after.
I want to also stress I am not a recovered addict .. I am a recovering addict. My addiction never goes away, clears up, gets better, goes into remission, takes a day off, and I cannot ever for a second think that I am cured. I have to deal with addiction first every day and this will be the case for the rest of my days.
So it is an absolute 100% yes addicts can be rehabilitated but not cured, I am living proof as I am 3 hours and 10 minutes away form putting another day of sobriety together and I have the same plan for tomorrow but that plan is no guarantee of success. Only putting in the daily work will get the job done. Success is measured in day.. not days. You could say I have one day of sobriety with 1073 days of experience.
I am recovering, not recovered.
personal experience
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M$
quote
# Jeff VanVonderen: A former pastor and alcoholic who became a full-time interventionist to help families through their moral and social issues involved with addiction.
# Candy Finnigan: A former addict who became an interventionist to help families work through their issues and problems.
# Ken Seeley: A former meth addict who founded Intervention-911, a service specializing not just in interventions but also in finding appropriate treatment centers for each kind of addict.
end quote
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M$
1. Addict must stop using, this sounds obvious be can often be a huge obstacle to rehabilitation.
2. The addict must detox with the help of a doctor, getting the chemical out of the system of the addict has to happen otherwise no treatment in the world will work for rehab.
3. The addict must have a medical and mental health check out to find any other medical or emotional problems that need treatment.
4. The addict has to go to daily meetings with AA or NA to begin a 12 Step program that will help the addict to make the changes necessary to move beyond their chemical addiction. The longer they go without using the more likly rehab will occur.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
You're welcome, I have some answers for you on those questions.
-> "If someone is out of drugs and/or alcohol for years why can't we say that he has recovered?"
Recovery from addiction is a daily process and at the end of each day we addicts, if we have remained sober, can say we were recovered for that day and that day alone, the next day we must do it all over again.
Our disease does not go away and in fact it gets worse over time, addiction is a progressive disease so even after long periods of sobriety the disease has not gone anywhere, relapse is always at the door, and to allow oneself the thought of being "recovered" is to invite relapse as that thought would allow our diseased minds to consider the thought "Well maybe I can go back out, maybe I can use again, maybe I was not sick at all"..in our efforts to recover we must know that we have a disease that does not go away...it in fact gets worse although we remain sober.
I as an addict go to "work" every day and by work I mean I go though the process of recovery each day because if I do not it is only a matter of time before I relapse.
-> "Of course he could go back to drugs and/or alcohol again but so is anyone else that has never tried them can start doing so at any day. So what is the difference?"
There is a difference between a drug user and a drug addict. A drug user might or might not be an addict. A drug addict might not be a drug user if he/she is in recovery. All drug users are potential addicts, one can only diagnose addiction by watching behavior and there is no hard and fast "over the counter" test for addiction. Some people can use drugs/alcohol and not develop addiction, other realize addiction after a single experience.. the progression of the disease is different in each of us.
-> "Is there a point when you would call someone recovered, after 10 years for example, or not? If not why not? If yes, when?"
When?..If an addict dies sober then one could say they have recovered. The reason that we cannot say after 10 years or more or any amount of time that a addict has "recovered" is that to say recovered and not _recovering_ is to invite disaster by not giving the disease of addiction enough respect. Addiction never goes away and without a daily effort to keep physically, mentally, and spiritually fit the addict will go back out. They will.. not might.. will.. go back out. We as addicts must know that our disease is never going away .. that knowledge is one of the best tools in our box for fighting the disease.
However we cannot look at addiction as a lifelong fight.. if we do the job seems impossible.. we must view the fight against addiction as a single day event. We only have to recover today. Who knows what will happen tomorrow.
@goatead1
The first days of recovery from heroin detoxification are some of the most difficult days any person will ever have to live. Physically detoxifying from the drug will take about 7 to 10 days and it is easy to the addict to think that the best way to alleviate the physical symptoms of detoxification would simply to use heroin again. Once the physical part of detox has been overcome and the addicts life is no longer in danger the rest is mental and spiritual.
I liken days 11 to whatever to jumping into an emotional diesel powered woodchipper. The addict jumps into it each morning and hopes something resembling self comes out at the end of the day. Life begins to happen and life is hard. Normal people know life has difficulties and normal people have developed coping mechanisms for these difficulties, the addict has no comping mechanisms, the smallest event becomes a crisis quickly.
Stressing the toxicity of the disease will sometimes work but sometimes backfire as the addict sees a "no hope" outlook and goes back out due to the toxic nature of his/her disease. I call it a "passive suicide", where the addict feels they cannot stop and there is no use trying. They know they are going to die and just do not care.
To avoid this a freshly recovering person must surround themselves with other people in recovery. To step outside of this circle of relative safety is to not just invite disaster but to welcome it with open arms. Our minds are diseased and the mind of an addict will lie to the addict in their own voice, telling him/her that heroin is better than this.
If you think your brother is lying to you he is. We addicts are all liars and manipulators. He might need constant supervision from family and other recovering addicts.. a lot of them. 12 step programs are filled with these people and are successful if the addict wants to go and *actively* participate in the program.
I had to go to 3+ meetings a day for the first 5 months.. there has to be _no higher priority_ (seriously no higher priority) over recovery because there is nothing more important. All addicts WILL stop using either by death, jail, institution, or recovery. Recovery is the easier softer way but is not easy or soft at all.
The hardest part about treating the addict is the addict themselves, they must want to recover. Sometimes a life must be completely destroyed before an addict sees that they have a problem, this includes the addicts family, friends, employment.. everything.
We cannot force recovery on someone..is sounds cliche but if they do not want to recover they will not recover.. they will die, go to jail, land in an institution, or if they are lucky enough to have a family and recovering friend network helping them.. they will enter the daily struggle of recovery.
Addictive behavior must be substituted with positive behavior, and if an addict is to have a chance they also must be ready to remove ALL of their old friends.. every last one of them. There is no chance of recovery by holding on to these people, they are the killers of addicts attempting to enter and maintain recovery. I would suggest for your brother to do this social housecleaning and make the virtually instant new friends he will make by going to a 12 step program and talking to people .. every day.. several times a day.. whatever it takes... and it will take a lot.
A good daily plan for the new person?
1. Do not use
2. Go to meetings
3. Ask for help.
Really those three steps, if committed to, will save his life.
I truly wish you and your family well, it will not be easy but it can be done.
My family has a long history with addiction, I'm glad to see you have a positive attitude about it. Uncles, aunts, parents, and siblings. I feel terrible for not knowing what to do but at the same time i feel i could fall into some sort of addiction myself, so i don't know where to start with helping others.
The worst is my brother has been addicted to heroin for quite some time now, i wish he had the same attitude as you. He is in treatment right now, but the way he makes everyday life seem like the most annoying thing possible leads me to think he will not stick with it long. I don't think he views this as a long term plan, just a substitute until he has money again. His morning methadone dosing is the only thing he's ever been constantly on time for and not given up on. The rest of the day he sweats and lashes out at people. When you see heroin addicts in movies they seem like slobbering monsters but this isn't true, he can work, and has worked to support his addiction. We all want him to get money for himself, but i feel like when he does, it will just lead to relapse. Do you have any experience with this type of addiction through helping others or even yourself?