Chapter 1 who is an addict

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We bring you the best Premium WordPress Themes that perfect for news, magazine, personal blog, etc. Check our landing page for details. About Contact Privacy Policy. Home News All Business. All Apps. All Gaming Sports. Home Uncategorized. Basic Text ch 1 by Granthamandira. January 17, Share on Facebook Share on Twitter. Yung Joc Official Music Video. Next Post. Those of us who have found the program of Narcotics Anonymous do not have to think twice about the question: Who is an addict?

We know! The following is our experience. As addicts, we are people whose use of any mind-altering, mood-changing substance causes a problem in any area of life. Addiction is a disease which involves more than simple drug use.

Some of us believe that our disease was present long before the first time we used. Most of us did not consider ourselves addicted before coming to the Narcotics Anonymous program. The information available to us came from misinformed people. As long as we could stop using for a while, we thought we were all right.

We looked at the stopping, not the using. As our addiction progressed, we thought of stopping less and less. Only in desperation did we ask ourselves, "Could it be the drugs"? We did not choose to become addicts. We suffer from a disease which expresses itself in ways that are anti-social and make detection, diagnosis and treatment difficult. Our disease isolated us from people except for the getting, using and finding ways and means to get more.

Hostile, resentful, self-centered and self-seeking, we cut ourselves off from the outside world. Anything not completely familiar became alien and dangerous. Our world shrank and isolation became our life.

We used in order to survive. It was the only way of life we knew. Some of us used, misused and abused drugs and still never considered ourselves addicts. Through all of this, we kept telling ourselves, "I can handle it". Our misconceptions about the nature of addiction conjured up visions of violence, street crime, dirty needles and jail.

When our addiction was treated as a crime or moral deficiency, we became rebellious and were driven deeper into isolation. Some of the highs felt great, but eventually the things we had to do in order to support our using reflected desperation. We were caught in the grip of our disease. We were forced to survive any way we could. We manipulated people and tried to control everything around us. We lied, stole, cheated and sold ourselves. We had to have drugs, regardless of the cost.

Failure and fear began to invade our lives. One aspect of our addiction was our inability to deal with life on its terms. We tried drugs and combinations of drugs in an effort to cope with a seemingly hostile world. We dreamed of finding a magic formula that would solve our ultimate problem - ourselves. The fact was that we could not successfully use any mind-altering or mood-changing substance, including marijuana and alcohol. Drugs ceased to make us feel good.

At times, we were defensive about our addiction and justified our right to use, especially when we had "legal prescriptions". We were proud of the sometimes illegal and often bizarre behavior that typified our using. We "forgot" the times we sat alone consumed by fear and self-pity. We fell into a pattern of selective thinking.

We only remembered the "good" drug experiences. We justified and rationalized the things we had to do to keep from being sick or going crazy. We ignored the times when life seemed to be a nightmare. We avoided the reality of our addiction.

Higher mental and emotional functions, such as conscience and the ability to love, were sharply affected by our use of drugs. Living skills were reduced to the animal level.

Our spirit was broken. The capacity to feel human was lost. This seems extreme, but many of us have been in this state. We were constantly searching for "the answer" -that person, place or thing that would make everything all right.

We lacked the ability to cope with daily living. As our addiction caught up with us, many of us found ourselves in and out of institutions. These experiences indicated there was something wrong with our lives. We wanted an easy way out and some of us thought of suicide.

Our attempts were usually feeble, and only helped to contribute to our feelings of worthlessness. We were trapped in the illusion of "what if", "if only" and "just one more time". When we did seek help, we were really only looking for the absence of pain. We have regained good physical health many times, only to lose it by using again. Our track record shows that it is impossible for us to use successfully. No matter how well we may appear to be in control, using drugs always brings us to our knees.

Like other incurable diseases, addiction can be arrested. We agree that there is nothing shameful about being an addict, provided we accept our dilemma honestly and take positive action. We are willing to admit without reservation that we are allergic to drugs. Common sense tells us that it would be insane to go back to the source of our allergy. Our experience indicates that medicine cannot "cure" our illness. Although physical and mental tolerance play a role, many drugs require no extended period of use to trigger allergic reactions.

Our reaction is what makes us addicts, not how much we use. Many of us did not think we had a problem until the drugs ran out. Even when others told us we had a problem, we were convinced that we were right and the world was wrong. We used this belief to justify our self-destructive behavior.