If you know of someone who is addicted to drugs, you may have witnessed a few of the things you never thought they will do. You may have lived through them betraying their own family, stealing from their own wives, or spending their kids’ tuition on drugs. However, these are just fairly mild compared to other things some addicts do. Nevertheless, situations like these perfectly illustrate why it’s so important to separate the addict from the addiction.
Looking Beyond
Addiction is a chronic brain disease, in which the addiction hijacks the rewards centers of the brain and changes its structure and how it functions. It can greatly and significantly influence habit formation, thought patterns, pleasure, motivation, and behavior.
Because of addiction’s tight grip on them, they have transformed into a stranger that their own friends and family members don’t even recognize. They do things that other people close to them can’t even imagine that they can do.
For an outsider, the solution is easy: “Just quit. Don’t use. Just put down the drugs, walk away, and never look back” After all, that’s the logical thing to do.
However, for the addict, it’s easier said than done because the urge is not just a matter of choice. It’s a physical and psychological compulsion that even a strong will can’t fight. This is thanks to dopamine, which is released when the drugs activate the pleasure center of the brain. The dopamine is the one responsible for our feelings of pleasure, reward, and motivation. When the addicts use drugs, they feel a certain high that makes them not want to stop using. On top of this, they are also trying to avoid the “come down” or the uncomfortable (and even painful) effects of withdrawal.
They Deserve a Chance at Life
Once the addict has taken hold of their lives, it becomes the most important relationship to them to the point that they are willing to trample on everything else just to get another hit, another sniff, another dose.
If you’re on the outside looking in, you may feel like they are hurting people on purpose, although this is not really the case. These addicts did not steal, betray, deceive, lie, or hurt people because she wanted to choose drugs over their family and friends–it’s just that with drugs, it seemed to be the only choice they have. It’s like a matter of survival, although the thing they just want to preserve is their addiction.
This is why it’s so difficult and tormenting to love an addict. They are controlled by the disease to the point that they don’t care about anything else.
However, this is why they need your support more than ever. You have to distinguish the addict from the addiction, to distinguish between the disease and the person you love.
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