Category: LGBTQ

addiction defined

Addiction Defined

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

When most people think of addiction the addiction to drugs and alcohol are the first things that come to mind. In fact for many, addiction is synonymous with drunks sitting in a bar night after night or an addict shooting up in an abandoned building. While this may be highly accurate for some addicts, it could not be further from the truth for many others. Countless people from all walks of life and from numerous different places have addictions to various things. Addictions range from video games and shopping to food and gambling with everything in between. Many of these addictions, though common, are not truly studied or addressed. Fortunately there is help for all types of addiction, though the way that help comes may vary in many cases. Read on to learn a little more about addiction in general.

Addiction Defined

addiction defined Addiction is defined as the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. This is further defined as having a dependency, habit, or problem with the substance, thing, or activity. This means that anyone who has a problem with anything in life in which the excess use or acquiring of that thing has affected life or daily activities in a negative manner is in active addiction. While it may seem that something as simple as shopping could not be an addiction. Those with an addiction to shopping will buy unnecessary and unwanted items with money that is not available to spend. This can quickly and negatively affect their lives. While this type of addiction may not necessarily show on the physical body like the effects of drugs and alcohol, the whole being is affected.

Affects Of Addiction

Addiction also always affects those around the addict. Addictions to food, gambling, and even technology are no exception. Someone who is addicted to gambling may spend money meant for family trips or basic needs. Perhaps they may continually borrow or even steal money from others to pay off debts. Those with a technology addiction may ignore friends and loved ones for an online world that requires little actual interaction. Those with a food addiction may have certain behaviors that alienate others. These could include hoarding food, hiding to eat, overeating, or related behaviors. As a food addiction spirals out of control it may be that the person begins to steal or becomes so overweight that self-care can be an issue. This means that others are affected negatively.

Addiction Help

If you find yourself with an addiction of any kind, know that there is help available. When you are ready for help or if you just want further information reach out to others. Find someone to help you overcome the habit that has been taking over your life. Do not be afraid to admit that something that may have started out as a fun activity has turned into something that is causing real problems. The road may not be easy, but conquering addiction will always be worth it in the long run.

CLICK HERE to get a Free Confidential Addiction Rehabilitation Assessment.

Making Good Health A Priority In Recovery

Making Good Health A Priority In Recovery

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

When You’re Struggling With An Addiction, Your Health Takes a Backseat

Let’s be honest – when you were in your addiction, you probably weren’t too focused on maintaining good health. When you are struggling with a compulsive habit; you simply don’t have the desire, motivation, or focus required to make healthy choices.

When addiction is running the show, nothing else matters. The only thing that is important is feeding your compulsion – whether it’s substance use, gambling, or sex. This is the nature of an addictive habit.

However; when you get into recovery and you stop engaging the destructive cycle that has been driving your life for the last few months or years, you simply MUST make your health a priority. Mental and physical well-being are critical to the recovery process, which reduces the likelihood of a relapse. It’s easy to slip into old patterns if you’re not careful. This is especially true if you aren’t taking care of yourself.  

Poor Health Can Make It Feel Challenging For You To Get Well

By the time you get help for an addiction problem, you can be in pretty bad shape. Your physical, mental and emotional health may have deteriorated significantly. After being unhealthy for so long, there is a lot of work to be done in the area of wellness. This can feel overwhelming.

eating for good health in recovery

Chances are; you have been eating poorly, getting little (if any) exercise, not getting enough restful sleep, not maintaining healthy social relationships, and not pursuing healthy activities that bring you joy. As a result, when you get into recovery, you can be malnourished, have health problems, be exhausted, feel isolated, and experience depression.  

When you feel bad, it can be difficult to muster up the energy or desire to do the things you know you need to do to boost your health. You might feel like you don’t want to do anything but sleep, watch TV, or lay around by yourself. This makes you feel unmotivated to eat right, exercise, or establish a strong social support system. It can be a vicious cycle.

Putting Good Health At Top Of Your List

When you first get into recovery, remaining abstinent from your addictive behaviors should be your number one priority. It requires incredible discipline, commitment, and a whole lot of energy to endure the first few months of withdrawal and reorient yourself to a place of stability.

Nevertheless, after you overcome those first challenging months of your new life, you have to step up your efforts to get better and be well. Recovery is not just about maintaining abstinence from substances and unhealthy behaviors. It’s about finding a new way to live and establishing new habits – healthy, positive habits.

When you feel ready, make the decision to start working on putting good health at the top of your priority list. Once you do this, you will automatically start to gravitate toward healthy behaviors and habits. Start slow so you don’t feel overwhelmed. Maybe start by getting on a sleep schedule where you go to bed at a reasonable hour and get 8-10 hours of restful sleep. Then, cut out the sodas and drink more water. Then, start walking 20 minutes a day. Slowly, with time, you will restore your good health and feel physically, mentally, and emotionally energized.

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When The Party Becomes a Drug Habit

When The Party Becomes a Drug Habit

Articles, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

No One Wants To Get Addicted

People start using drugs for different reasons. People end up with a Drug Habit for no good reason.

Some choose to try them because they are curious about the way they will make them feel. They have seen other people taking drugs like heroin, cocaine, or ice and they feel left out. People want to feel what their friends are feeling. They want to know what it’s like to be a part of what they think is the “in crowd.” Or, maybe they are at a club or party and someone asks them if they want to get high. They say, “sure – why not!?”

Others start using drugs because they are in pain. It could be physical or emotional pain. Many people become hooked on prescription opioids, for example, because they have sustained an injury or undergone surgery. They are prescribed narcotic pain medication from a doctor and they take it for legitimate reasons. After awhile, though, they may become physically addicted. Others take drugs because they are hurting inside, depressed, or feel lonely and they want to change the way they feel.

Whatever someone’s reasons might be for taking drugs in the first place, no one chooses to get hooked. No one sets out to become to have a drug habit or become and addict. Not one single person in the history of the world said to themselves when they were little, “When I grow up, I want to be an addict!” Not one.

Addiction Has a Way of Creeping Up On You

The thing about drug addiction is that it’s tricky. It kind of just happens when you aren’t looking. First, it’s fun to use drugs. You like the way they make you feel and you think life is one big party. Laughing and hanging out with your friends and you have a good time. You do them every once and awhile and it’s all good.

dance party and drug habit

Soon, you start doing drugs on the weekdays. It starts to take more of your time and money to sustain the supposed good time that you are having. You find that you think about drugs a lot when you’re not doing them. You want to do more and more – so you start doing more and more. Maybe you really don’t notice that anything is wrong, though you still convince yourself that everything is okay.

Before long, you are doing the stuff every single day. If you don’t do it, you feel irritable and discontent. Angry and hostile. You have to do drugs when you wake up and you need them to fall asleep. Sometimes you go on binges that last days at a time. You spend all of your money on it. Now, you are hooked. And you have no idea how it happened.  

If The Party Has Ended & You Have A Drug Habit, You Need Help

When addiction finally takes complete control, there is nothing fun about using drugs. The party is over. Your drug use has spiraled out of control and your life is going downhill – FAST! You are alone and isolated and you no longer feel you can function with or without drugs. You have a drug habit.

If you’re not having a good time anymore and you think you might need help for your drug habit, contact us. We can get you into treatment right away so you can get your life back and start having fun again. Sober fun.

Passion In Recovery

Finding a Passion in Recovery

Articles, Alternative Treatment, Australia, Education, International, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Treatment, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom

Recovery programs will generally fill your days with activities and programs. From individual counseling, to group counseling and support groups, we are by and large pretty busy. There will, however, be time to think and time to be idle. I found that idle time was the worst time. The more time I spent thinking about things, especially in early recovery, the less happy I was. One thing that helped me in the beginning and helps me to this day was finding something I am passionate about. For me it was creative writing. I knew others who became deeply involved in specific kinds of meditation. Still others used their new-found good health to take up physical activities they could never do while they were drinking and using.

It is likely in early recovery that down-time can be dangerous. Many of us come into recovery with a lot of emotional baggage. Time spent thinking about the ways we went wrong, the difficulties ahead, damage to our families, etc. is simply not helpful and can lead to relapse. We need something that motivates us and gets our creative juices flowing.

Finding Your Passion In Recovery

In my earliest days in recovery I started keeping a journal. This is something I used to do religiously, but I fell away from it as I became increasingly embroiled in my addiction. Once I had my senses back even if provisionally, I began writing again. Little by little, I started focusing my writing projects. At the same time, I started reading things again since I could now think clearly and retain what I read. All of this led to me getting involved in local spoken word projects and publishing projects.

The writing is a passion and it became critically important to my recovery. First of all, I knew I had to be sober to do these things. I knew that the main reason I had never gotten involved in these kinds of things before was because I was under the influence of substances. I also knew that the more I accomplished, the more I needed to remain sober.

Finding Your Passion In Recovery

The passion for writing took on a two-fold benefit. It was a way to occupy myself during the early dark days. Writing also served as a reward for my progress in recovery. It was a way of escaping my dark feelings about my situation and it eventually became a major reason to be a sober and recovering person.

The people I knew who took on something they were passionate about seemed to be the people who stuck with recovery. They came to embrace recovery early on because they saw sobriety as the means to continue doing something they loved.

Making Changes In Recovery

We always need to make changes in recovery. We need to address our attitudes and ways of seeing the world. These changes can feel impossible at times, but they come much easier and much more naturally when they are a part of something we just like doing. I had to develop specific habits that made me a writer. Some of those habits were exactly the same things necessary for recovery, for example, not thinking about myself so much. Since I was preoccupied with writing about the things going on in the world around me, I could not allow myself to become preoccupied with myself.
The simple lesson is that finding a passion in recovery can make recovery just happen. 

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Do drugs cause mental illness

Do drugs cause mental illness?

Articles, Education, LGBTQ, Malaysia, Understanding Addiction, United Kingdom, United States

Can drugs cause mental illness?

Let us find out. According to the English dictionary drugs can be defined as a substance used to treat an illness, relieve a symptom or modify a chemical process in the body for a specific purpose”. Drugs can have side effects even when not misused and when misused the side effects can be vast, especially for those with mental illness.   

Do drug problems cause mental illness or does mental illness cause drug problems?

It can be hard to tell which problem came first, the drugs or the mental illness. Having a mental illness can make a person more likely to abuse drugs which in turn makes their symptoms feel better in the short-term. Other people have drug problems that may trigger the first symptoms of mental illness. Some drugs can cause a condition called drug-induced Psychosis which is simply any psychotic episode that is related to the abuse of an intoxicant. However, if someone has a predisposition to a psychotic illness such as Schizophrenia, these drugs may trigger the first episode in what can be a lifelong mental illness. Using drugs can also make the symptoms of mental illnesses worse and make treatment less effective

Those who are mentally ill can be more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol. The two issues often go hand in hand because according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, 8.4 million adults in the US have both a mental and substance use disorder. Studies exploring the link between substance use disorders and other mental illnesses have typically not included people with severe psychotic illnesses. When these individuals abuse drugs, they may feel less anxiety, depression or neuroses, albeit temporarily. When the individual is not high, the symptoms of their mental health issues return. Often times stronger than they were.

drug induced psychosis

Abused drugs can lead to a condition that affects the persons thinking, feeling and mood. Such conditions may affect a person’s ability to relate to others and function each day. Each person may have different experiences even with the same diagnosis.

What are signs that you might have a drug problem?

There are signs of the health impact in using recreational drugs. Be it nicotine, alcohol or a street drug, drugs and alcohol can change the way you act, relate to others and your affect your appearance. You can become less motivated, irritable, anxious and aggressive. It can change the way you live your life. You may not get on with people like you used to. Maybe you won’t have enough money. Find it hard to keep living in the same house with loved ones. You may get in trouble with the law. It can even change the way you look. Loosing or gaining weight, skin conditions and teeth issues.

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