Chemical Dependency General Information

Substance Abuse
What is substance abuse? Substance abuse is losing control over the use of a substance. People with addictions can’t stop using even though it may ruin their health, destroy family relationships, damage friendships, affect their job or causes other serious problems.

Substance Abuse Pattern
Substance abuse usually involves a pattern of activity. You try a substance to discover what it is like because of choice, peer pressure or stress. Then, you begin building a relationship with the substance you are abusing. You justify the usage and the impact it has on your life. You begin to alter your lifestyle to accommodate the substance including changing activities you enjoy and changing friends and people you spend time with.

With early dependence on a substance, you experience a growing anticipation and preoccupation with the chemical. Self-imposed rules are broken and you periodically lose control. You begin to have negative feelings about yourself and develop addictive logic.

Harmful dependency is marked by an increasing tolerance for the substance you are abusing. Your behavior increasingly violates your own personal value system. You experience blackouts - periods of time you can not account for and have no memory of. You become protective of your supply of substance and use it secretly.

Recovery
Each person’s recovery from a substance abuse problem is an individual experience that will require your own personal time period and lifestyle choices that ensure you do not go back to abusing. There are two steps in the recovery process – abstaining and taking a new approach to life. Abstaining means not using alcohol or other drugs. Taking a new approach to life includes new ways of thinking and acting that can help you enjoy your life. Realize that recovery is a lifelong process that is made up of stages. In each stage, you will learn to recognize the things that lead you to use and you will begin to change things about yourself that lead to your addiction.

The first step in the recovery process begins when you accept that your drinking or drug use is a problem. After this admission or understanding, the process of recovery is different for everyone but typically includes three stages:

Early Recovery
In this stage, your whole life may focus on recovery. Your goals in this stage are:

Detox
Learn about your addiction
Build new, healthy habits
Find healthy ways to handle your problems and stress
Avoid making hasty decisions
Examine your good and bad personality characteristics

Middle Recovery
Your goals in this stage are:

Changing your values to reach a better way of living
Making life changes
Making up for your wrongs and the pain that was caused by your addiction
Balancing your life

Late Recovery
This stage of recovery will go on for the rest of your life. Your goals in this stage are:

Experience personal growth
Experience the joy in living

During the recovery process there will be many times when you are tempted to return to abusing a substance, it is important to be aware of the triggers that cause you to crave the substance. Never think that you can have just one more drink or just one more hit. It is the surest way to relapse into your old abusive habits. If you do experience cravings, know what you can do to control the craving including attend a meeting, call your sponsor, see a mental health care provider, talk to a trusted friend or loved one, list reasons why you should not use and/or distract yourself. Recovery is a lifelong process that you can achieve if you make recovery a priority every day and get all the help you need.