Addiction is never an easy way to cope up. It heavily impacts individuals thinking, feeling, and actions. Many people with addictive disorders are aware of their problem but they have trouble stopping on their own.
Anyone who is struggling with addiction and will experience unique unhappiness, since a person addicted to something may endure deep personal misery. Although experts managing patients with addiction and drug rehab philippines are aware that no one has the same experiences, the sequence of addiction often follows a similar linear progression which starts with initial exposure to a substance or behavior.
Early Stages
A lot of experts mentioned the early stages of addiction as the “use” and “misuse” periods. This time includes an individual’s first experience with a substance or continued involvement.
Dr. Julian I. Taber, a retired clinical psychologist, has described the beginning of an addiction as the “delight and discovery” stage. He has written that individuals often recall experiencing euphoric emotions when they describe their initial encounters with the substances or behaviors to which they eventually become addicted.
One example of this stage is a person who has prescribed a painkiller after an accident. This individual may be justifiably thrilled at the resultant improvement to her quality of life. But if she continues to pursue this positive reaction by taking the medication after the condition from rehab center philippines
for which she was being treated has been resolved, then she has moved into the “misuse” phase – and taken a step toward addiction.
Middle Stages
The middle stages of addiction occur when an individual moves beyond the misuse of a substance or behavior and begins abusing the object of his addiction. For example, an individual who is developing an alcohol addiction may progress from drinking (use) to drinking and driving (misuse) to drinking and driving multiple times, often after being convicted of a DUI offense (abuse).
Taking a drink or even being arrested for drinking and driving does not necessarily mean that an individual is an alcoholic. But an inability to curtail a behavior with negative consequences (for example, continuing to drink and drive after getting a DUI conviction) is evidence that the behavior has advanced from misuse to abuse.
Individuals in the middle stages of the addiction process may not yet be physically or psychologically dependent upon the substance or behavior, but their continued abuse – especially in the face of negative consequences to themselves and the negative effects their behavior is having on their close friends and family members – indicates that dependence and full-blown addiction may not be far away.
Final Stages
To individuals who are in the final stages of addiction, the substance or behavior to which they are addicted becomes all-encompassing. And neither the destruction they wreak on the addict’s own life nor the pleas of friends and family members are enough to convince them to stop.
The Road To Recovery
Though some individuals find themselves unable or unwilling to overcome their addictions, the good news is that recovery is possible according to rehabilitation center philippines. And like the descent into addiction, the journey back to healthy living is a phased and well-documented process.
The addiction recovery experts who contribute to have identified the following four stages as the critical steps in an addicted individual’s return to sobriety:
Recognition
– Recovery begins when an addicted individual recognizes that he has an addiction, or is willing to admit that there is a problem with his behavior. In many cases, recognition occurs after “hitting bottom” – that is, a situation in which the addicted person is hurt badly enough (or threatened or scared so severely) that he realizes he has no other choice but to get help.
Cessation
– After admitting that she has a problem, the next step a recovering individual needs to take is stopping the unhealthy action. Depending upon the object of one’s addiction, the cessation stage may be accompanied by withdrawal symptoms that require medical attention. Detoxifying one’s body, especially in the cases of severe alcoholism or certain types of drug addiction, can be a painful process, but it is an essential phase in the recovery experience.
Find A Way To Recovery
Though Tolstoy implied that sadness and dysfunction are the more complex (and perhaps more interesting) experiences, countless recovering individuals and experts would likely beg to disagree. While the stages of addiction are, by their nature, encroaching, divisive, and destructive, the promise of recovery is an achievable state that offers limitless opportunity for personal growth and development.
