The recent media circus surrounding Lamar Odom’s drug overdose drew more attention to his celebrity than to the tragedy behind the story. The fact is that Lamar Odom is one of millions of people who inexplicably have everything to live for but instead turn to drugs for comfort and recreation. The media has always had a fascination with addiction, but it doesn’t portray addiction as the medical issue that it is. Instead it’s portrayed as an issue of will power, excess, or lack of morality. This outlook on addiction is incredibly harmful to the evidence-based facts on addiction that clearly point to a medical and mental health problem and not a morality problem. Thanks to a Drug Detox in Fresno CA, evidence-based recovery programs are erasing the myths surrounding addiction and using facts to help people genuinely recover from a nightmare.
Sites like Mom Blog Society have long been focused on more fact-based portrayals of addiction. The reason for this is clear. Moms have a good reason to be concerned about addiction, too. Teenagers and young adults are often pulled into the media-based version of drug addiction and don’t understand that there’s an underlying medical issue at hand. Parents often don’t understand this either. With the help of substance abuse treatment centers, thousands of people are now getting short-term, long-term, and intensive outpatient treatment and leaving drug addiction behind for a steady, lasting recovery.
What is addiction?
Addiction is a complex issue that can’t be narrowed down into a single definition. There are many factors that might contribute to a developing addiction. Usually it’s based on both biological, environmental, and psychological factors far too complex for even experts to understand fully yet. The person suffering from an addiction behaves in inexplicable ways. They might have success, money, and a caring support group, yet they continue to use drugs that might end their life at any moment. Parents and friends don’t understand why. The truth is the person using drugs doesn’t understand why either. The good news is that you don’t have to understand why you’re suffering from addiction to recover from it.
Motivation to recover
It’s a simple step to take and yet it’s the hardest in the world for anyone who is in the grips of addiction to perform. To recover, you must first stop using and then you must follow a treatment plan or develop a change in outlook that results in sustained abstinence from drugs. In full blown addiction, the dependence on drugs is so strong that a person is rendered helpless to even deal with the things that so-called “normal” people deal with on a daily basis. A fight might become a relapse. A simple thing not going your way might lead you back to use. It takes a lot of motivation to recover. It’s not about will power, but it is about a commitment to recover. To do this, help is needed.
Seeking professional help
If you or a loved one suffers from substance abuse problems, it’s never to late to pick up a phone and call someone who knows how to help. Despite addiction still being a perplexing problem to medical professionals, more and more evidence points to what works and what doesn’t. Residential treatment programs are usually best for patients who have developed physical dependence on a drug. These centers can help you comfortably make it through the first few weeks or even years of drug addiction recovery. They provide a stable routine and help sufferers safely detox from drugs and alcohol. Detoxing outside of a center is impossible for someone who has developed an addiction so strong it might be dangerous to detox without any kind of medical supervision. Centers like those found at http://www.ohioarc.com are a Godsend to sufferers who have lost hope and truly want to break their addiction.
Evidence-based treatments are extremely important. They don’t rely on gossip or experiment with the lives of patients. They are based on facts that have been gathered from decades of work with addiction problems. Good treatment centers gather evidence-based research and evaluate the evidence to develop a strong plan for recovery. What they’re using has worked in the past for other people suffering from addiction and the idea is that if it worked in the past and often, it has the best chance of being most successful for a new batch of recovering people. Social support groups are an extremely important part of recovery and residential programs with evidence-based treatments provide a strong starting point for lasting recovery.
