Addiction and Recovery
"I was broken”, “I felt so alone”, “I just wanted to die”.
By Gareth J Morris
These are but a few of the statements that can be heard echoing around the rooms of the Anonymous fellowships on a daily basis. These people have lived in their own hell for many years but have now found that fabled light at the end of the tunnel. No more do we have to live under the control of addiction. Today, we have a way out, a solution.
So what is addiction? Addiction is a disease, just as fatal as Cancer or HIV; it affects millions worldwide and, it has no cure. However, it can be arrested.
Society, for many years due to poor media coverage and misconception has viewed addicts and alcoholics with distain, people to be stepped over and avoided. Many view them as thugs, junkie and bums; where this conception has an element of blurred truth to it, the fact of the matter is that not only do we have a substance misuse problem; we have a ‘me’ problem.
The drugs are only a symptom of this disease, a side effect. As people with the disease of addiction we suffer with a mental deficiency. You could say we are two people in one mind; there is our core personality and there is the ’addict’. Addiction is a global epidemic, which over recent years has begun to spiral out of control. It is estimated that 208 million are affected by substance misuse internationally, with only a fraction living in abstinent recovery.
The National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS), who monitor alcohol and substance abuse, latest UK figures for England 2012/13 show that there were 193,575 clients aged 18+ admitted to treatment for substance abuse and 109,683 clients aged 18+ in contact with structured treatment cited alcohol as their primary substance. However, this leaves a massive number of individuals unaccounted for.
For many of us, recovery doesn't seem to be an option, we can’t see a way out; be it due to personal circumstances including family and work or that we feel that this was the life we were handed and this is how we will die. For most of us, admitting to someone and even to ourselves that we have a problem is terrifying. Fears of rejection and exile keep us in the dark, suffering quietly without hope, yet this admission is the key to overcoming our problem.
So what can be done, what can we do to help ourselves? Over the years, the view on addiction has changed, it has evolved and so have the methods used to deal with it; whereas 15-20 years ago, in a time where it was seen as a choice and not a disease, jail time or mental institutions were seen as the answer. Today, there is a wide and varied range of services available who deal with arresting this disease.
