Relationships are tricky things.  We need them, we want them, but we often stumble around when starting them.  We also tend to start relationships for the wrong reasons and under unhealthy circumstances.  This is particularly the case for people with a drug or alcohol addiction.  An addict may have a strong need for belonging and support, but their addiction will put the whole situation in jeopardy.

Choosing An Unhealthy Relationship Partner

One of the truths about human nature is that we usually choose to be around people who are about as emotionally healthy as we are.  People who have a strong sense of self and confidence with their personal beliefs will want someone who is in a similar place in their life.  They don’t want to deal with someone who is constantly depressed, anxious and needy, or steeped in emotional drama.  They want someone who will grow and mature with them and build a good life together through ups and downs.

Likewise, a person who has some fairly unhealthy behaviors and emotional instability will gravitate towards people who also have these problems.  They won’t feel comfortable with someone who seems to be strong and stable.  There won’t be enough in common if the emotions and behaviors aren’t more extreme.

Addiction Starts Relationship On Wrong Foot

So as you could imagine, alcoholics and drug addicts already start out on the wrong foot by choosing other people who are neck-deep in emotional troubles.  They are like two people nearly drowning and trying to hang on to each other.  Neither person is giving much to the other because they just can’t.  They are most likely experiencing emptiness, low self worth, and are living in a survival mode most of the time.

A healthy relationship can really take off when both people are ready to give as much or more than they take.  They are focused on making the other person’s life a little better every day, not worrying so much about themselves.  When this can’t happen because of constant emotional distress or consistently unhealthy behaviors, a relationship may create more stress in a person’s life.  A person seeking love and belonging may find themselves feeling worse than before.

Alcohol and Drug Treatment Gets People Ready For Relationships

Alcohol and drug treatment is critical for anyone with an addiction that hopes to have long lasting relationships.  Lopsided unhealthy relationships just don’t last, or they create more drama than necessary.  Alcohol and drug rehab can help a person get sober, teach them about making healthy social choices, and support them as they reconstruct and start relationships as a sober person.  Without alcohol and drug treatment, a person with an addiction will repeat their unhealthy relationship mistakes over and over again.  With treatment, there can always be hope and a new day to start again.

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You feel pressure to go to drug treatment, a lot of pressure. You have family members, a probation officer, your counselor, and friends all telling you the same thing. You need to go right now or you could die. While you aren’t sure that you’re ready to die, you really don’t know how you’re going to last through weeks of drug treatment either. When you’re up against a wall, what’s your real motivation for going to drug treatment?

Motivation For Drug Treatment Comes And Goes

Many people go to drug treatment without finishing their full course. It’s not uncommon for someone to leave after a few weeks or a few days. For them, true motivation to continue may have been fleeting.  Maybe they were just trying to appease a judge, or perhaps they wanted their Family off their back.  They just wanted to stop hearing everyone complain about their drug use. But inside, their spirit wasn’t ready to commit to change.

But sometimes, the pressure actually forces the addicted person to take a stand. They may have already felt some of the pain and consequences from their addiction. They may have already considered that this wasn’t the life they want to lead. When the pressure pushes them over the line, they may already be more prepared to they might have expected. They are grateful for the opportunity and look forward to a better way of living.

Taking The Leap Of Faith With Drug Treatment

This doesn’t mean that the person who left drug treatment early is hopeless. Not at all. In fact, a so-called “failed” run at drug treatment may be the catalyst that gets a person’s mind truly ready for change. It makes them a little more sensitive to the troubles of their life and the choices they can make.

No one can force true motivation upon another person. Only an opportunity can be pushed.  It is then up to that person to either take a leap of faith with drug treatment or becomes too uncomfortable with the reality. This is not necessarily right or wrong, simply evidence of where a person is with their motivation for change.  That’s why it’s so important for family and professionals to not give up on the person with  addiction.

For family members, not giving up may actually mean setting a firm and clear boundary. Their loved one goes to drug treatment or they are removed from family life. Again, this will not force true motivation to build inside an addicted person. But it will certainly present a clear choice, an opportunity to find out how motivated they are for sobriety and healthy change.

Motivation Really Matters For Addiction Recovery

One of the most important aspects of drug addiction recovery is something that can be elusive and hard to define. Motivation makes all the difference for a person’s drug addiction recovery. That can only come from inside each individual and cannot be manufactured by people on the outside. But when it becomes clear, personal motivation in drug treatment can help move a person forward through very difficult emotional work. Drug treatment can when be very effective. If you need to know more about drug treatment for yourself or someone you love, get some information and be prepared. You never know when true motivation for drug treatment will reveal itself.

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How old are you according to your birth certificate?  Have you ever had people say that you don’t act your age?  Well, sometimes that isn’t a compliment.  When you are an adult, people expect you to be able to act in certain ways that are more responsible and mature than teens or kids.  However, so many people with drug and alcohol addiction live how their emotional age is, which is often a lot younger than their physical age.  How does this happen and why does it matter?

Drug Addiction Stunts Your Emotional Age

Emotional age is fluid and adjustable, unlike physical age which advances in a predictable way over time.  People with drug and alcohol addiction often hold on to less mature ideas and behaviors that don’t enhance their life.    For many addicts, deep emotional pain often stems from childhood.  When they use drugs and alcohol to cope with these problems, they stunt their emotional growth at that spot.

If a thirty year old man started using drugs at age fifteen, many people would probably agree that he acts much like a rebellious teen despite his true age.  They may float around living on friend’s couches, never have any money for long, have a long string of short-term jobs, and have troubled romantic relationships.  Instead of absorbing the wisdom from his decisions and mistakes, he’s spent the last fifteen years blocking out reality.  He’s mostly used his understanding of the world from the age of fifteen because that’s when he started living to survive.  And when someone lives to survive, emotional growth gets knocked down as a lower priority.

Getting through each day, even if it means being drunk or high, is the only thing they are focused on.  Every deep problem they have pushed off for those years is still there waiting for them when they become sober.  If that man sees this all coming back in his face when he stops using drugs, he may or may not be able to cope with it.  He either decides to go to drug treatment and work through the difficulty, or he goes back to drugs and alcohol like he has always done.

Drug Treatment Helps Emotional Age Mature Again

Drug treatment helps to remove the blinders so you can look your emotions straight in the eye.  Gathering up courage and facing personal troubles is what helps a person grow up.  Group therapy, individual counseling, social skills work, and other treatments at drug rehab can all help a newly sober person live each day with open eyes.  If you know your emotional age has been stunted by addiction, make a call today and get started with drug treatment today.

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You may have preferred being a lone wolf when you were addicted to drugs and alcohol. You didn’t butt into anyone else’s business, and other people left you alone with yours.  Yet this isolation allowed your addiction to grow and and endure. Read on to learn more about how isolation can be a big red flag for addiction relapse.

Isolation Keeps Your Focus Too Narrow

Black-and-white thinking is a hallmark of drug and alcohol addiction. It narrows everything down to some sort of extreme. Something either is or it isn’t, no gray area in between. Unfortunately, most things in life quite a bit of gray in them. This makes drug addicts and alcoholics fairly ill-equipped to deal with the realities of everyday life.

This ultra-narrow focus keeps a person from truly getting healthy. Isolation provides a much more conducive environment for this type of narrow thinking to flourish. It can resemble the black-and-white thinking of their active addiction days enough to make relapse more likely.

Isolation Empowers Your Addiction Mind

Much of the reason for social support groups and group treatment is to help recovering addict connect with others. Addiction turns a person’s mind off to other people’s opinions, creating a very selfish outlook on life. Their relationships often end up broken and dysfunctional because of their addiction.

Drug treatment and support groups help them reconnect and learn how to get through rough patches in life support from others. When left to their own devices, an isolated person in recovery may allow their addiction mind to take over. Most likely, this happens so slowly that they don’t notice for some time. But before they know it, they are thinking negatively, feeling rejected, and wondering if their sobriety even matters.

Isolation Can Provoke Emotional Triggers For Relapse

In nearly all situations, a drug addict or alcoholic began their use because of emotional reasons. Child abuse, trauma, family chaos, stress over financial trouble - all of these problems are steeped in emotional upset. When a drug addict or alcoholic in faith these emotional issues with a clear sober mind, they learn to manage their feelings and stress.  The triggers for a person’s addiction may surface frequently, causing them to drink and use to survive through the stress.

When a person is in recovery but isolated, feelings of insignificant or loneliness can seep in.  This general emotional discomfort can start a chain reaction of  provoking other emotional triggers. Without the social support of other recovering or healthy people, the weight of emotional pain can cave in on that person. The urge to use drugs or alcohol may be irresistible at that point, making relapse an imminent problem.

Isolation May Lead To More Support From Drug Treatment

Isolation can seem like personal independence. But be careful, recovering addicts spend very little time in connection with others are add a clear risk for addiction relapse. When you or your family notice that you are spending way too much time and isolation, consider this a big red flag. It may be time to get back in touch with your sponsor, contact your drug rehab alumni group, or even see a counselor again. Remember, your addiction recovery is a lifelong process, not a single event. For more ways to get support during your addiction recovery, contact a drug or alcohol rehab center near you today.

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Grief is a complicated thing.  It’s a mix of remembering and letting go, not easy to do when it’s someone you care about a lot.  Even more difficult is when someone dies under traumatic circumstances.  The shock and horror can make grief something much bigger and overwhelming.  Let’s take a look at how grief can become connected to drug and alcohol addiction.

Addiction To Cope With Loss

Sometimes the loss of a person can burn a hole through you.  It’s like your very spirit has been stolen from you, making it difficult go on every day.  Some of the most heartbreaking losses can be spouses, parents, and children.  When you just can’t see how you will survive that day, grabbing a bottle or some pills can make it seem more survivable.  It can give you something to do other than obsess about the person who died and your emotions.  You can finally have some freedom from your grief, but you may be setting yourself up for another long-term problem.

Addiction To Cope With Changes In The Family

When a person dies, it may feel like there is a huge cavernous hole in the family.  Nothing can fill it except the person who has been lost.  So it becomes a sort of elephant in the living room, something obvious and huge but not directly discussed.  Some family members may push others into the roles held by the person who died, trying desperately to resolve some sense of normalcy.

Those who can’t stand the emptiness may pin all their hopes on someone else to make them happy again - a new boyfriend, another child, the remaining parent.  This can put this other person in a spot where they can’t be genuine.  They are expected to become somewhat of a replacement for the dead person, not being valued for themselves.

When the “replacement” family member feels deep despair and emotional turmoil over this, they may choose to cover it up with drugs and alcohol.  Not only are they dealing with the grief and loss of that special person, they are dealing with the disappearance of their unique identity in the family.  While the family may not intentionally mean to hurt this person, these unrealistic expectations and pressures can cause tremendous emotional pain.

Drug and Alcohol Rehab Can Help Undo The Tangled Web

When the family web of emotions gets this tangled up, it’s often time for someone to go to drug and alcohol rehab.  Not only is the grief still there to be dealt with, but they also have to relearn how to face reality and rebuild their drug-damaged life.  Drug treatment can open up the doors to the grief they haven’t worked through, which can be stressful.  But coping with grief in an open honest way at drug rehab can keep the emotions from being in charge anymore.  That person can learn how to remember while letting go, and still keep their personal identity.  If you see these problems brewing in your family, call a drug and alcohol rehab in your community today to learn more.

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