41–50 of 101 posts
Addiction is no joke and anything that can provide relief or help to those who have found themselves caught up in it would be a huge thing. I always think back to a former friend of mine who battled with opiates. She lost her family and children -- well after she had completed a recovery program and been sober for a year. When she started with pills there was a very good reason -- several surgeries and a lot of pain management. When the pain was well and gone, she was left with a strong addiction. The woman she was before she started popping pills regularly and the woman she is now (completely sober) are different people. She told me that long term opiate addiction changes your brain chemistry in such a way that depression becomes a way of life -- I'm not sure if that's true, but it looks like it is with her. The worst part is that her marriage problems started well after she had cleaned up. Her husband, still a friend, said he couldn't stand the woman she'd become and confessed to me that he sometimes wished she'd never stopped. Before the judgement starts, he's a solid guy and I stand by his decision to fight for full custody of his children (you'd have to understand the whole story which I can't do justice to here).
Her description of addiction still haunts me, though. She said "you need it like you need food after having not eaten for a week". She's done a week long fast (as have I). She'd know. That description is the only thing I've heard that adequately explains why addicts will put their children in harms way if it means getting their next fix (ever wonder why cigarette prices can go up 600% in two years and people still smoke?). I watched her become completely broke buying pills from scary people in scary places. I've heard from others some of the things she was willing to do to get enough pills to get her through a day; it's way beyond what you already couldn't imagine a suburban mother of 4 doing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It wasn't a man that wrote the article?
Kera Yonker. Brian Rea did the illustration. I will admit, though, I assumed it was a woman just from the male romantic interest, which is my bad.
What? There's something to be said for not being hostile to those with different proclivities, however, there is certainly no reason to apologize for assuming something that is true in the vast majority of cases.
It's also not at all unlikely that you would consciously or unconsciously pick up on things in writing that would allow you to make a better than random guess about the sex of the author.
On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like it w…
In the hardest periods of my life I managed to guzzle 6 liters of coca-cola every day, plus eating lots of chocolate, and drinking lots of coffee and tea, of course this also ruined my overall health.
I recently managed to "get clean", but I also stopped working, then I gave up, decided to buy 1 liter of red-bull style energy drink (not redbull itself because I can't afford it), drink it all in one go...
then I could work, and I felt MUCH better... but I am also drinking lots of coca-cola and eating lots of chocolate again.
I am seeing a psychiatrist, and seemly I have ADHD, and caffeine (and other stimulants) are a common way to self-medicate, and many ADHD sufferers, specially those not on legal meds, end having some strong vices (not only stopping at caffeine... cocaine, meth, and other strongly stimulant drugs abuse is also common).
I started taking Ritalin (Adderall is illegal here) this week, for now only half a pill per day, because my psychiatrist is inexperienced and probably wants to be safe, let's see if with it (and an increased dosage later) I will be able to stop abusing caffeine, my kidneys (that had stones) and my liver (that is covered in fat to the point of failing to work properly) will thank me. (I am also going to a psychologist...)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I haven't dug up the stats in the while, but last I checked, their success rate was exactly the same as cold-turkey going it alone.
We've had this discussion ad nauseam on other addiction threads here. The TL;DR of the literature is that in the short term, most methods have the same "success rate", where success here is defined as successfully achieving abstinence from the problem substance. Participation in AA or other support groups (eg. SMART/Rational Recovery) is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1,…
It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings.
AA's rules around anonymity and consent make it conveniently impossible to run good studies, so they are able to (rightly, for the most part) write off any study that runs against them, but are also unable to show any positive findings that don't fall prey to very obvious problems.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
We've had this discussion ad nauseam on other addiction threads here. The TL;DR of the literature is that in the short term, most methods have the same "success rate", where success here is defined as successfully achieving abstinence from the problem substance. Participation in AA or other support groups (eg. SMART/Rational Recovery) is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1,…
> Participation in AA is associated with substantially increased rates of continuous abstinence at the 1, 3 and 5 year marks after quitting It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias. People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings. AA's rules around anonymity and consent make it conveniently impossible to run good studies, so they are able to (rightly, for the most part)…
> People rarely fall off the wagon and then keep going to meetings.
I have a significant number of acquaintances who did exactly that, myself included, but I am not going to make the claim that my personal experience means anything statistically.
> It's been shown, as much as is possible, that that's all selection bias.
If that is the case, feel free to provide some sort of citation to back up your claim.
If you've got the bug, that book is not going to help you. It'll just tell you how screwed you are. If you don't have the bug, I think that book might help you understand the problem.
On a similar topic - AA actually isn't that effective: http://www.salon.com/2014/03/23/the_pseudo_science_of_alcoho... I haven't read the book the above article is covering but it seems Dodes argues psychotherapy is a better alternative as 'addiction' is usually just a manifestation of self-destructive/self medication behavior ultimately due to untreated psychological issues. In this OP's case this is looks like it w…
I clearly have some kind of vice related to caffeine... In the hardest periods of my life I managed to guzzle 6 liters of coca-cola every day, plus eating lots of chocolate, and drinking lots of coffee and tea, of course this also ruined my overall health. I recently managed to "get clean", but I also stopped working, then I gave up, decided to buy 1 liter of red-bull style energy drink (not redbull itself because I…
I hope you get past this. it's especially difficult because a lot of people don't realize caffene is a drug. Like watching a couple who drink three bottles of wine a day talk down on someone for drinking a liter of spirits as an alcoholic.
They're one and the same.
I don't know how effective Alcoholics Anonymous really is (not saying one way or the other), but having the accountability placed on you by friends is a helpful thing in many other tough situations in life. You can see it underlying many useful bits of advice ("Have a cofounder" always comes to mind -- someone to motivate you when you're unable to do so yourself, perhaps?) Addiction is no joke and anything that can p…
i wonder if this was a man how the story would go. much worse i'd imagine :/
It sounds like he was an enabler to me, and that she would have done better off without him if he'd cut off contact with her at any point, even after she started AA.