The Cycle of Addiction  

When a family is looking at the terrible manifestations of addiction, it is completely baffling. They can’t understand why their loved ones are acting so cruelly. Wives don’t understand why their husbands lose jobs, get secretive and won’t help the family any more. Mothers can’t grasp why their bright, loving children with so much potential are just gone. They beg the drug users to please stop, please get clean. And then they don’t understand when they won’t stop.

This pattern of addiction is very similar from one individual to the next. Occasional drug abuse gradually becomes constant, and then the cravings overwhelm any other interests the person had. He (or she) is driven to get more drugs. Nothing else is as important. Stealing from friends and family seems reasonable. Helping someone else shoot up heroin is acceptable. There seems to be no end to the dwindling spiral headed straight down.

When you understand the cycle of addiction, all these changes begin to make more sense.

Guilt is Like a Lock

Each time a person abuses a drug or alcohol, he creates a little bit of harm even if it is only toward himself. If the abuse continues, he will neglect some of his other responsibilities. Maybe he will get home late or miss his children’s events. He may begin to miss deadlines at work, which threatens his job.

Each of these smaller incidents creates a little guilt. Gradually a person is building up a toxic load of guilt. Each time he adds to the pile, he makes it a little harder to leave drug abuse alone and go back to being sober.

Certainly, people do look at their lives and decide to get things straight. It happens every day. But more often, people who are abusing drugs make the guilt go away by reaching for a joint, a pill, a drink or a bag of drugs. Guilt is like a lock that chains a person to the drug or drink.

Depression is Natural Result

When a person commits harmful acts more and more frequently, he loses the bright things in life that he enjoys. He may commit enough harm to lose his wife. Or a young woman abusing drugs may lose a fiancé or husband. A person may ruin a career after showing up drunk too many times. A young person may derail his education with his drug abuse and feel like he now has no future.

Becoming depressed is understandable when the best dreams in your life have been destroyed by your drug abuse. Compounding this reason for depression is the loss of health an addicted person experiences. Not only do very few addicts take care of their health, but the body is becoming more and more toxic with drug and alcohol residues left in the body, locked in the fatty tissues. The loss of health and energy plus the residual toxicity of the body contribute to the depression.

Overcoming Cravings

The final factor that traps an addicted person is the incessant cravings. Even if a person makes a strong, definite decision to get clean, the cravings and withdrawal sickness may overwhelm his decision. He needs some relief from the cravings that help continue the cycle of addiction.

The Narconon drug rehab program is constructed to break these exact factors that lock a person in his addiction. In most cases, a person has been a heavy drug user or addict for several years before he finally gets help. There has been a long period of accumulating guilt, of living with the depression resulting from all that has been lost, and of being driven relentlessly by one’s cravings. That is why the Narconon drug recovery program is long-term. It takes time to repair each of these factors and build the life skills that will protect a person in the future.

There must be relief from the guilt. A person must learn how personal integrity is lost and how it can be recovered. Without this, a person will live all his days with that burden.

A person must again see the brightness of life and know he can achieve goals of his own choice. This takes understanding how to work with others, how to tackle problems and win and perhaps most importantly, how to stay sober even if life gets stressful.

And if a rehab program can also provide a reduction in the cravings, giving a person back his control of his own actions, that is a big step forward toward lasting sobriety.

These are the wins and gains those on the Narconon program describe. They talk about the weight being lifted from their shoulders at one point; how a deep detoxification phase of the program reduces or even eliminates physical cravings; and how their futures finally look bright.

The Narconon program is designed to break the cycle of addiction. That’s why it works so well for so many people who graduate from this program. Find out how it can help someone you love. Call Us today +45 7060 6003