There Is No Cure For Addiction, There Is Treatment

There is a very big difference between cure and treatment.  Anyone who tells you they have been cured of their addiction is either lying to you or to themselves.  Addiction is a deep complex disease.  It goes deeper then the symptoms of alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, sex and other addictive behaviors.  This disease affects more then just the addicted person.  It affects the person’s family, loved ones, friends, co-workers and society.

The symptoms of addiction varies with each individual.  Behaviors and distorted views of reality, and a twisted sense of morality, I think, are the core problems of addiction.  The behaviors are compulsive and obsessive, which we are taught in the 12 step programs.  To change a behavior takes time and practice.  That is why I feel that treating the disease of addiction is so complicated.  Each person, each addiction, is complex and goes deeper then the surface of abusing drugs, alcohol, gambling, etc.

Another problem is many rehabilitation centers seem to use the same techniques with each person.  I have never been to an impatient facility, I was turned away.  My insurance would not pay for it until I “failed” out of outpatient treatment.  That seems a bit backwards to me but I am also not a rocket scientist which is how they made me feel when I questioned their reasoning for the denial.  The woman told me on the phone, and I am paraphrasing this was years ago, that they need to save the beds for people who really need them. Well, I felt that injecting heroin into myself ten to twelve times a day constituted an emergency situation.  I felt there was an immediate need for detox and impatient of at least ninety days.  I was wrong, that is not how the system views it.

I was able to get clean but it was not for almost two years later when I entered methadone outpatient treatment.  It took five months to get completely clean.  I stayed there for another two years and was a member of Narcotics Anonymous.  I burned myself out with groups and sponsees, doing things and taking on responsibilities I had no business doing.  I was avoiding the work that needed to be done on myself and I eventually relapsed.

When I went back to methadone in September, I was ready.  I quit heroin a week and a half after I was admitted.  I have maintained my sobriety ever since.  It has not been without pain and agony.  My relapse cost me almost my entire family and all of my supports.  I was stripped done to nothing, evicted, no car and three kids.

I had to work from scratch, again.  This time I had my kids to worry about.  My sister had custody of my kids when I entered treatment for the first time. a few months later she gave them back to me.  I also had a strong support network of family and friends.  When I relapsed I lost all of that except my kids, I held onto them for dear life which was selfish.  My kids had to endure the rath of my relapse with me for the summer months last year.  They are teenagers and had the run of the house as I fell deeper into my addiction, locked away in my bedroom for months.  It was not fair to them because when I came back from the dead they were not happy to have me “in their face” again.  Things are better today but it is not perfect nor would I ever want it to be, I don’t think there is such a thing anyway.

I spent many more months isolated in recovery until I finally sought help in the form of therapy for the trauma I have been through since I was young.  I began to rejoin the 12 step world, attending meetings, talking with recovering addicts daily and reuniting with my sponsor.  I felt a spiritual pull and began to attend church and read up on Buddhism.  I feel that I would not be where I am today if I had not reached out to different places for treatment of my addiction.

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