Alcohol addiction and drug addiction are the compulsive and repeated use of a substance, despite the consequences of using. One can be addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex, food, gambling, the internet, or anything else that can have a negative consequence due to over-indulgence and abuse. Addiction is also classified as a progressive disease. This means that the habit will only intensify as time goes on if nothing or nobody intervenes with the addiction.
For someone to be addicted to substances, there must be three components present:
- Biological or chemical issues stemming from addiction or inherited through genetics
- Spiritual wounds, and
- Emotional scarring due to past experiences or situations
When your loved one has experienced all three components, they begin to go through four stages of addiction.
Four stages of addiction
Addiction does not happen overnight. The addict typically goes through the following four stages of addiction:
- Learned Mood Swing: The individual understands that by using substances they will experience a feeling of euphoria.
- Seeking of the Mood Swing: The individual now has developed a relationship with addiction beyond just recreational.
- Harmful Dependency: This is the turning point when the individual begins to display erratic and or bizarre behavior. This behavior causes the individual to feel guilt, shame, and depression which fuels the need to use.
- Abuses to Feel Normal: The individual is now in a downward spiral due to being bound between stages two and three. Addicts try to control their use, they fail to control their use and develop emotional pain and spiritual scarring from failing, which in turn causes them to use again and again. This pattern and perpetual feeling of pain reinforces the behavior and the addiction repeated.
When someone experiments with substances, they do not consciously decide that they are going to be an addict and live a miserable life. As their addiction escalates, the guilt, shame, and depression worsens with time known as signs and symptoms of addiction. At this point an effort may be made to control their use. This does not always work! When an addict fails to control their use, they develop emotional pain within because they have failed which, in turn, causes them to self-medicate. It is at this point that the user becomes trapped and thus begins the spiraling downward further in to the disease.
This detailed and powerful cycle entirely consumes the individual. Their psyche, core authentic self, and spirit are unable to escape the grasps of the disease. When you know of someone who is in this cycle, it is time to intervene between the individual and their substance of choice. If nothing is done to intervene with this terrifying process, it is inevitable that the user may end up doing time in jail, living in a psychiatric institution, or ultimately, dying.
My name is Jacob Rothwell and I am an addict.. I use heroin on a daily basis; up to two grams a day if possible. Im twenty four years old and have been doing this since iv been eighteen. My story to why I do this is too long to type, but I’m here and seeking help if someone can give me this I will succeed; just not on my own. I need to be away from my home area to make this happen. Iv tried on my own but the pain kicks in and the withdraws then I just go right back to were I began. I would be willing to do intervention and even be aired doing so. Just to help me help my family and three children. I only hope me reaching out allows me to get the help I need.. Thank you.
My name is Vanessa and I need your help desperately. My mothers name is Erin and she is addicted to crack cocain. I’m 17 years old and I’m from Boston. My mothers a bar tender and my fathers in jail. Currently me my brother and my mother all live together. My mom has been addicted and doing this drug since she was 16 years old. She has three kids my brother brenden and my sister Jackie who are older. Living with my mom is like a nightmare we have money issues because she spends all her money on drugs constantly. Growing up I raised myself my sister raised her self she left when she was 15 put her self through school and got out as quickly as possible. My brother unfortunately also has a drug problem to and also sells the drugs to my mother. I need help I’m afraid to stay at home she leaves at hours of the night to get drugs, sleeps till 3 in the afternoon and goes to bed. Lately her problem has gotten worse due to my father going to prison. I need help she needs help and our family needs help. I’m 17 years old I shouldn’t have to go in my mothers room every morning to see if she’s still alive please help me it’s killing me and my whole family I just want this to end before she kills herself .
My sons girlfriend is living with us and has a big problem with Xanax and synthetic marijuana. she has been rushed to hospital many times, almost dead. Cannot wake up, low heart rate, drug induced seizures. I cannot handles her any more and she is a big cause of my sons health being so bad. and she doesn’t care, I don’t think. I have prayed for patience, but hasn’t come yet. I want to just shake her and yell at her, but I haven’t. My husband and I have taken care of her roof over her head, and meals in her stomach and don’t get nothing in return. She doesn’t seem to care about getting into treatment like she is suppose to do. uses every excuse. About ready to throw her a– out on the streets
how do you get ahold of intervention tv to see about help? please help right away
There’s more to my story about my sister and she needs help desperately abusive baby daddy drug addiction and I don’t know what’s going to happen to her she’s died once because of heroinandyeah just need some help OKC area
Hi. My name is amber. I have a sister that is addicted to heroin, it started with just pain pills and has progressed. She was pregnant with her
second child and got addicted to opana. A lot of the girls she worked with we’re using these $80/ pill. She stole money from our new deceased grandmother to purchase these pills, all the while she was pregnant well we found out when she was about to have this baby that she was using. She had benn in rehab when she was about 14 for pill addiction she got out and we thought we were in the clear. Well we were wrong. After the opana addiction and the birth of her second child she was seeing a psychiatrists who then prescribed her subutex(misspelled) or suboxtone(ms) I can’t remember which one. Well she was doing good on those then her and baby daddy #2 started having issues, physical fights everything you could think of it was happening around 2 little girls, so they were splitting up constantly and she was meeting new “friends”,who all turned out to be heroin addicts. Well she manipulated us all and we thought she quit using and went back to her “script”. Well long behold she was still using, my mother and I went snooping and found dirty residue spoons along with needles. We confronted her and o course being an addict she denied, disappeared for a lil while didn’t care about her 2 girls. Then baby daddy #2 and her got better. Well then drama started again so they split mad he took the baby and what not and she was living with me. Well she decided to go to rehab which was another manipulation because she told our mother the place told her to do enough to keeper high so when she checked in 5/22/2013 she had drug system, well she overdosed had to be rushed to the hospital luckily the druggie she was using with called 911. After that things somewhat changed for a short while then back to the same thing. Got back with baby daddy #2 for a bit then split up, but all the while I had baby #1 who will be 4 in August, next thing ya know she’s pregnant again! This time she’s using heroin selling her
When I was 16 I gave birth to one beautiful little girl! She changed my life forever. 3 years later I lost someone who was my world, my dad. He passed away on May 4, 2009. My life again, had changed forever! I had two months to grieve over my father, my best friend, my role model, my daddy! On July 16, 2009 my boyfriends mother committed suicide. My daughter lost two grand parents within a two month period! He is now my ex due to his excessive drinking. He has been in a few rehab centers but after so many hours has been able to sign himself out. He wants/needs the help more than anything! I’m raising a little girl without her daddy. He is here physically but mentally and emotionally he’s gone! Their has to be a way I can get him help!!! Someone, if theirs anyone out their, please please help me!! Not just me or our daughter please help HiM!!
Did they contact you at all? If so answers please..
how do I cll them anyone know how to get in touch with them
My boyfriend is in the same state, he used to have periods of months between and now lately its down to days…..he’s been to the ER I don’t know how many times, each time promising its his last, he hates being this way, says he can beat it on his own, he tries then ends up in the ER, he has no insurance and so the bills are pilling up. We moved to Louisiana from TX 2 years ago, there are no free clinics or places for him to go for rehab when he has no insurance. I can’t even get him a good individual policy because of this darned Obama care crap…..he needs an intervention desperately! I’ve been watching all the episodes of the show I can find to figure out how can I do this myself and it seems impossible. He is soooo mean when he drinks says and does the most despicable things! Afterwards he apologizes and says he didn’t mean any of it. He now has taken to running off without notice to a seedy hotel to binge because I said NO MORE in my/our house. I have a GPS tracker on his phone so I know he’s safe.
When he’s drinking its hell! When he’s not he’s the sweetest best possible boyfriend ever……Help I don’t know what to do! Is there a place out there that will help someone with no insurance? No options? I don’t want him to die….please someone help us!!! Please GOD send us some help!
Ok my dad has been drinking since I can remember and its been hard for me because he now has poor living conditions he should be on his way to rerirement and living in a house or a apartment instead he lives in a one room shack on my grandparents land. he has gotten voilent physical and emotional my mom left him because she could not handle him being this way anymore. I can’t handle it anymore. I want to be able to visit him but not when he has been drinking. he has said a lot of hurtful stuff too me and my mother. He just needs to stop acting this way. He still acts like he is 25 and he is 50. I do not want to to die like this. If he keeps this up I do not know how much time he will have left. He will start to drink early in the morning around 6 and by noon he is trashed. He needs help