Can you get over an addiction

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/o...addiction.html

Pre-warning: long read. For mobile.

Interesting read. That is a topic that has been debated for as long as I can remember. I have had people tell me that I will be an alcoholic for the rest of my life even if I never drink again. Most of these people go to AA frequently, even if they haven't had a drink in a long time. It is true that the only way to be sure you have beat an addiction is to die without doing whatever you were addicted to again. But if that happens when you haven't had a drink for 20 years, i would say you didn't have an addiction for the last 20 years; others feel differently. My answer is yes, you can get over it.

Oh, something interesting to me though I am not going down this path - from everything I have read, moderation has a higher success rate than abstinence as far as drinking is concerned. In other words, a higher percentage of people who quit drinking completely will end up having a drinking problem again compared to those who go through a program that teaches them to drink more responsibly. I don't think that would work for me because I have quit for months at a time to prove to myself I could, then started drinking responsibly and it always got out of hand again. but the data indicates that people can beat it.

I am an alcoholic. My father and his father were alcoholics. As far as I know, every male in my family on that side was an alcoholic (I'm the last male in that line). I thought I was different, for nearly 3 decades, I was sure I could drink in moderation. I never stood a chance.

From everything I've experienced and personally witnessed in my 44 years, I firmly believe there are three types of drinkers in this world: problem drinkers, non-problem drinkers, and problem drinkers that are lying to themselves. I've known all three. Today, being a recovering alcoholic, I'm limited to knowing just alcoholics and non-problem drinkers. I don't associate with heavy drinkers who are really alcoholics but still in denial. This group is where the assholes who push drinks on their recovering alcoholic friends are. Misery loves company.

Alcoholism is progressive and always leads to the bottom. We alcoholics just all get there at different speeds. But we all get there eventually and that's when we can't deny it anymore. Then we have 2 choices - change or let it kill us.

I am not sure it is so much that misery loves company as trying to talk you out of believing you are a problem drinker because they know they are every bit as bad. My brother is that way. He says I over reacted to say it is severe enough that I had to make sobriety a priority and let people know I have a problem. I think it bothers him that I told our siblings because they know he drinks more than I did.

my father was an alcoholic. by 11 i was drinking to quiet the pain and my mind. i was forced to stop when i was put in a group home.

additionally, started smoking at 5, and would smoke until i was 28 and had a heart attack.

and finally, i was on opiates for 15yrs and recently quit.

drinking: i love the taste and feel too much. I have craving despite avoiding it. each time i participate in a dram or have a beer i can see myself lost in it. it scares me. so despite not really drinking, i know i could. there's a longing for it. prolly the only thing really stopping me are all the other drugs i am on and my father's hopelessness and his life lost to the illness.

opiates: felt like i was dying for a year. constant flu and other things best not mentioned. it took a long time. i miss them. sometimes i want to pop a few and have a drink. what's stopping me is the desire.

smoking: scares the living hell of out me. it's been almost 2 decades. i still smoke in all my dreams. i still wake up and sometimes reach for my smokes. i am still confused at times whether i started smoking again or was that a dream.

i see people saying you can be addicted and get over it. but not be an addict? i don't think it's possible. i think some things are easier to put down, but lets be honest, it's a freaking dice game each time.

@theKow, I get your point. There is an addictive component ingrained in me that I really can't rid myself of completely. I can manage it, fight it and win but it is still there and if I make a misstep it could win the next battle. So we just have be careful and not make missteps...

This is exactly what I was trying to say by "misery loves company" actually. You just put it so much better than I did.


I think what I was really trying to say was there are only three types of people: non-drinkers, non-problem drinkers, and problem drinkers. Most people who think they are NP drinkers really have a problem they just don't realize it yet, or they are still just in denial. They are most certainly on the path to a real problem. This was me for decades, literally.

"theKow

drinking: i love the taste and feel too much. I have craving despite avoiding it. each time i participate in a dram or have a beer i can see myself lost in it. it scares me. so despite not really drinking, i know i could. there's a longing for it. prolly the only thing really stopping me are all the other drugs i am on and my father's hopelessness and his life lost to the illness.

opiates: felt like i was dying for a year. constant flu and other things best not mentioned. it took a long time. i miss them. sometimes i want to pop a few and have a drink. what's stopping me is the desire.

smoking: scares the living hell of out me. it's been almost 2 decades. i still smoke in all my dreams. i still wake up and sometimes reach for my smokes. i am still confused at times whether i started smoking again or was that a dream.

i see people saying you can be addicted and get over it. but not be an addict? i don't think it's possible. i think some things are easier to put down, but lets be honest, it's a freaking dice game each time."

I agree totally. I don't think you ever stop being an addict. If you are successful at staying clean and sober, you've just learned to deal with being an addict and have re-learned life on those terms.

My father was a big-time alcoholic and it killed him eventually. He passed that point of no return a long time before he died and his final years were a very miserable existence. I never got that bad, thank goodness, and when it dawned on me that I had finally stuck on foot on that same path, I knew it was time to put everything down for good.

And I've done massive amounts of other drugs in my life as well. Pounds and pounds of week, probably a full kilo of coke by myself just in the last 5 years. So it's a no-brainer that to stay sober from alcohol means never touching any other drugs again as well (sigh). Oh well. It's about time one of us males in my lineage experiments with true sobriety anyway. No of us has ever had the ball to try it until now. My dad was the big drinker like his dad. My uncle was a drinker but he mostly did the other drugs and love coke and pills. I'm enjoying the hell out of it so far. It's such a refreshing feeling to be so clear-headed. My penchant for the other chemicals is also what makes me so certain about 100% sobriety. I just love all of it too much. It can't be healthy to crave it all like that.

Funny you mentioned still dreaming about smoking. I smoked for two decades and finally quit that for good last year. It was easy once I decided I would just never, ever smoke another cigarette or touch any tobacco ever again. I didn't even need the gum this time. But I used to dream about cigs when I was a kid. I would dream about that thing full of packs of cigarettes that's above the head of the convenience store clerk. So weird.

Beating addiction to me is not using it at all "your primary addiction" mine was to alcohol...I smoke pot now but I am recovered from my addiction to alcohol and will stay that way until or if i chose to drink again.

What I consider recovered is getting thru the detox part of the addiction and then staying away from the substance for at least a period of time where you no longer crave your substance every second of every day for me that usually happens around 3 months with alcohol.

I am recovered from alcohol for almost 8 months.
I had 8 years recovered from alcohol from 2005-2014

I'm feeling the same way minus the alcohol it's been over a year that I was prescribed opiates and now 6 months later I feel like boiled crap