The Rehab Blog

Five Signs Your Friends Are Making Your Addiction Worse

Studies have shown that if you were to gather the salaries of the five friends you are closest to, the average of those salaries would amount to your own (or at least, extremely close to it). It’s the same with anything else, including lifestyle (such as identifying as a “partier” or a sober person), values, and hobbies. If the friends that you surround yourself with are not on a progressive life path, you are bound to be unable to push past the boundaries all of them have set for themselves. Because we are human, we tend to reflect who we choose to let closest to us. Friends that are a terrible influence on your life and sobriety goals can drag you down, and keep you there, and it’s not coldhearted for you to admit it.

Your company is essential. If you want to change yourself, part of doing so is being sure that the people surrounding you are going in the same direction you are aiming to head in – that they reflect the values most important to you, lift you higher, and support your dreams. If you want to get sober, but you find yourself pulled into the same situation again and again by your friends, you may need to take a cold, hard look at the group of people surrounding you. A hindrance group can easily be disguised as a support group of people who claim to care about you and yet do not act in your best interest.

Friends do have substantial influence over us because humans are social creatures with the need for companionship, connection, understanding, and close emotional bonds. Without these things, depression can present itself. For example, when we are lonely, or our lives are void of authentic connection, we tend to get sick more easily, We’ve prepared five warning signs that your friends may be making your addiction worse or preventing you from moving forward on your sober journey.

1. They (overtly or covertly) make you feel bad for wanting to make a change

If your friends treat you differently – event subtly – when you mention wanting to make a change in your life, such as getting sober or drinking less, then they probably aren’t your real friends. It is a sad truth, but if your friends don’t support you in something you believe is going to lead you to more fulfilment and better health, then they aren’t looking out for you or your happiness. Part of loving a friend is wanting their happiness almost as much, if not as much, as your own, no matter what that takes.

Why Is Addiction Considered A Disease?

Some people may view addiction as a personal choice that an individual makes or as a behaviour that could be stopped willingly at any given time. But, over several years, vast amounts of research have changed the medical community’s understanding of addiction. Many medical professionals now see addictions of all kinds not only as just an addiction, but a complex psychological and physiological problem that demands careful treatment. Addiction has three main characteristics that cause it to be considered a disease.

1. It has a lifelong course characterised by frequent relapses, cross addiction and a standard set of behavioural changes
2. Like other chronic medical disorders, genetics plays a vital role in determining who is at risk to become addicted.
3. There are effective medications that treat drug addiction by blocking the rewarding effects of drugs and decreasing drug cravings.

Society’s Opinion

In the 20th century, the narrative was often about how drug addicts and alcoholics are flawed people who are basically criminals. Although some of those opinions may seem outdated, there are some elements of that overall perception that still exist today. As recently as 2014, studies from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that the general public still holds very negative views of those people who are suffering from addiction. The findings show that the general public feels that these patients should not be granted insurance, housing and employment policies when trying to seek help for themselves by attempting to check into a rehabilitation centre. On the other hand, the same people who feel that way hold more positive impressions of those who have a general mental illness.
Another reason for this is that the public is exposed to outdated images of addicts and the addiction scene in general. Imagery usually presents poor, homeless people who are more often than not from an ethnic minority group, living in the stereotypical neighbourhood areas. Researchers say that more and more drug abusers are your typical day to day white Americans living in the suburbs. They become addicted to their prescription medication, and then make the transition to harder, more dangerous drugs that work in similar ways.

Is drug and alcohol rehab necessary or can I use self-treatment?

One of the most significant steps in recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Many family members and friends of addicts are keen to get their loved ones into drug and alcohol rehab. But, unless the person understands that they have a problem, there can be issues getting them into treatment.

When someone admits that they have a problem, that is not the end of the story either. Just because you acknowledge that you have a problem doesn’t mean that you automatically check yourself into rehab. Checking into rehab implies responsibility. It means that you have to follow through on your promises to your loved ones. It means that there will be a lot of barriers to using. Hence, many addicts – after admitting they have an issue, still decide to go it alone.

Going it alone means that you don’t have to face the embarrassment of your addiction. It means that you have the freedom to relapse at any time, and you don’t have to explain yourself to anyone. Often going it alone for an addict means that they are not ready to quit. They understand that they have a problem, but they are not prepared to close the door just yet.

So, even though the first step on the road to recovery is admitting you have a problem – it doesn’t automatically flow on from there. Deciding to enter drug and alcohol rehab is a courageous step since it limits your options. It means that to some degree, you are no longer identifying with your addiction as part of yourself – You are beginning to see it as an obstacle to life.

Many people relapse after going through treatment. Statistically, the longer one spends in treatment, the more likely one is to remain in recovery— but even long term participants relapse. Still, for someone with a problematic addiction, self-treating is much more likely to result in a relapse. In other words, self-treatment doesn’t tend to work.

Many things could lead a person to relapse. There is a strong connection between dependent alcohol or other drug use and personal challenges, problems at work, ongoing emotional and psychological issues, and social or economic problems such as financial hardship, rejection by social support networks and challenges in personal relationships.

Much like dependent drug behaviours themselves, the process of recovery – and the reasons for relapse – can be highly personal. A relapse is not a sign that the person is ‘weak’ or a ‘failure’ – it is merely a continuation of old coping patterns that need to be replaced with new ones. (adf.org)

Addiction is a pattern, not a drug

To the outside eye, the process of drug and alcohol addiction treatment is to starve you of the substance until your body is free from it and then like magic you are cured. If only it were that simple.

It is complicated because the drug is merely the vehicle on which the underlying pattern of addiction travels. While the addiction pattern is still there, even if the addict doesn’t relapse into their particular drug, they will always manifest the pattern in other ways.

Russell Brand often talks about his approach to yoga which he later realised to be extreme. This is an example of transferring one’s addictive behaviour to another vehicle. You might think it is a good thing, but even too much yoga, when feeding an addictive habit, is not necessarily good.

Such behaviour continues to deepen the underlying pattern. The result is that, although you spend longer and longer away from alcohol or drugs, your desire to use doesn’t ever seem to leave you.

This is often the case with addicts. Even addicts who have been in recovery for a long time, if you look carefully at their lives, they are manifesting their addictions in other ways. Typical vehicles include obsessions with particular people or subjects; other substances such as cigarettes or coffee; excessive emotions such as pride or anger; food addiction; sex addiction or, extreme engagement in activities such as exercise or sports.

While the underlying pattern is still there, it will always need a vehicle to play itself out. Someone could be in recovery for fifty years and, although they have never touched the substance, they still might not be free of the addiction.

Trauma and abuse. Early exposure to significant adverse experience can contribute to the development of substance use disorders by overwhelming an individual’s coping ability, perhaps by sensitizing brain pathways of alarm/distress, or by adding to the burden of stress. – Psychology Today

How to Talk to an Addict about Addiction

Realizing someone you care about has a problem with addiction is no fun. Once you get over your denial and recognize there is a real problem, you need to take action. But what can you do? Addicts are often in denial too. The first step is to talk to the person and help them recognize that they have a severe problem. Then you need to help them understand that they can overcome this problem, one day at a time if they take the right steps. Let’s discuss important things to consider as we explore how to talk to an addict about addiction.

Talk when they are Straight

You probably won’t make much progress if you try to convince a person that they have a problem while they are suffering under the influence of the very problem you want to talk about. Occasionally you might get a response, but any revelations made under the influence tend to be short-lived. Try to predict when the person you need to help will be sober and catch up with them then.

Listen Carefully

Everyone wants to be understood. Everyone wants to be heard. A lot of what addicts will say when you talk to them about addiction will be evasion, denial, or rationalization. It is all-important. It would help if you let them discover and express all the ways they want to duck out of realizing they have a real problem. Only by doing so can you address these dodges. If you don’t listen, they can keep their excuses hidden. And if their excuses are hidden, you can’t explain why they are not good reasons for being an active addict.

Four Myths about Addiction

Addiction is a complicated affliction. In the last five decades, researchers have made a lot of progress in understanding addiction. They have sought, with some success, to discover how and why people become addicted by observing the real world. Earlier notions of addiction, seemingly based on presupposition and wild guessing with a heaped serving of moralizing, remain widespread. We now know, among other things, that some people have genetic conditions that probably increase their risk of becoming addicted. Clinical workers dedicated to helping people overcome addiction and researchers have noticed that shame is not helping. The modern understanding of addiction replaces condemnation with compassion. That does not mean enabling; it just means we can help more when we refrain from judging. Let’s look at four myths about why people get addicted and straighten out those misconceptions.

Myth One: Addiction is a Moral Failing

Some people think all addicts are just irresponsible hedonists who don’t care about anything except for having a good time. That is not so. Indeed, some irresponsible hedonists become addicted, but that does not mean that all addicts are irresponsible hedonists. Some people wind up addicted as a result of desperately trying to self-medicate to deal with horrific trauma, for instance. That is not a simple case of irresponsible pleasure-seeking. People with strong morals can become addicted too.

How Addiction Changes the Brain

When people began to study addiction in the early 20th century, they reached a consensus that it was a form of moral failing and lack of willpower. Continuing research has revealed that these initial ideas were pretty far off the mark. 

In the 1950s, we came to recognise alcoholism as a form of chronic disease. We now know that genetic factors, family history of addiction, and other personal trauma contribute significantly to addiction risk. We also know that addiction creates significant changes in the brain that make it impossible to beat addiction by merely asserting willpower. The current view is that all forms of addiction are most accurately viewed as a disease that affects “brain reward, motivation, memory, and related circuitry” in the words of the American Society of Addiction Medicine.

To succeed in getting free from addiction, a real addict needs a solid understanding of their condition and its causes and effects and a good set of tools and techniques for getting clean and staying clean. Let’s take a closer look at how addiction changes the brain.

Different Types of Addiction Produce Different Changes

Every substance or addictive habit produces different physiological results, and each affects the brain differently. For instance, chronic “Ecstasy” or MDMA use severely impairs memory, as does constant heavy alcohol use. Heavy marijuana smokers have a smaller orbitofrontal cortex, a part of the brain that is active during decision making and emotional processing. These changes that are particular to specific substances or habits are harmful, but they do not appear to contribute to the addictive power of a drug or habit. Indeed, recognizing these undesirable changes can help provide an addict with the motivation that they need to support a successful recovery effort.