Who is the addict?
Active addiction or in the initial stages of recovery we face a problem or a very difficult test, which is to deny our addiction, or in other words, to deny the existence of a problem while continuing to use drugs. Denial is an important and vital part of the addiction disease, as it is the protective shield for us during our active addiction period and even in the stages The first is recovery, this means that our addiction is trying all the time and constantly to convince us that we are not
Addicts, denial continues in all stages of addiction as follows:
The stage of active addiction and has several forms:
* The difficulty of recognizing reality, and the feeling that there is no problem in the first place.
* We tried all the time to replace the drug with another drug, and convince ourselves that this is fine, but we quickly return to the main drug.
* We would never have seen the problems and the devastation that befell us and we are trying all the time to convince ourselves that we can deal successfully.
* Blaming those around us, family and friends, and accusing them of being the reason for what our lives have come to.
* We give reasonable but incorrect justifications for our illness.
* Comparing ourselves to other addicts and seeing that we are not the worst, there are those who are worse than us.
Initial stages of recovery:
Some of us made the decision, and went asking for recovery and change, but unfortunately we are sick of the persistent diseases that have many smart tricks that fit the mentality
Intelligent addiction also, denial continues, but we are constantly trying to discover it through our personal experiences and the many participations with recovering addicts and polished by the study as well, and denial appears in recovery in various forms:
* Our addiction tries to put a lot of differences between us and our colleagues in recovery, so we say we are not that degree of addiction.
* Our addiction tries to control us and convince us that taking a certain drug less effective than our main drug will be fine.
* Denying our addiction is very agile as it works all the time to convince us that we don’t need help, and this comes because of a degree of pride that we can fight the battle each one of us alone.
Not acknowledging our addiction has various forms and can appear in several images, and we have to fill the gaps all the time in front of our addiction, and this is many of the weapons that we learn in our personal program. But we like to say that one of the first tasks required of drug abusers is… full acknowledgment without conditions that there is a problem, and absolute sensitivity against any type of drug.
Denial is the automatic part of our disease, and is responsible for issuing the various defenses to protect our drug use.
Finally, denial is the refusal to acknowledge stress, struggles, painful thoughts, and problems even though it is all so clear to others around us.
Person in denial:
* Refuses to acknowledge a specific position.
* Avoids the facts surrounding that situation.
* Reduces the consequences of that addictive situation tells you you are not bad:
A new picture in which our addiction tries to make us think again and again about what we have reached, and asks us a cunning question.
Am I so bad that I stop using?
This picture often occurs to us in the early stages of recovery or in the late days of our active addiction before the mature decision to take the path of recovery and change.
Often we tend to remember the happy times with drugs and forget the hard days, filled with isolation, shame, and many withdrawal symptoms.
We often think that we were not so bad while taking, and there are those who are worse than us. But the truth says the exact opposite, as there is no life with him
Drug abuse, but our addiction must protect itself to push us more and more to the bottom it wants.
In our program there is a famous word, which is “we must watch the entire tape,” because we often deliberately try to watch the happy moments, without looking at the bitter ends that we reached in the days of active addiction.
It is best to seek help, and for those in the early stages of recovery, they must remember the point that prompted them to seek help.
Growth is simply maturity, learning, letting go of old ways and developing oneself. Human growth is the development of human capabilities in all forms and stages of mental, psychological, social, skill, spiritual life. Effort and return again to the old methods we know and rely on for our active addiction. Our addiction wants us to rely on external things to get an inner sense of satisfaction, just like it used to happen with drugs.
Proper growth depends on the spiritual state, and this is against the elements of an addiction disease that wants temporary external gratification.
The disease of addiction knows very well that relapse is near if we neglect our personal growth.
The thing that must be done to resist our addiction and walk the path of growth, is to learn to be creative, to learn new things. In the past there were many things we thought we could not do, but now as we are on the way to recovery we have made a decision and tried things, we can succeed sometimes and we can fail at other times, but we have to try and work.
There must be trial and error and set goals that are specific and realistic and try to reach them. The person who thrives in recovery is the person who does something meaningful.
We are recovering now and we have made plans for our lives, and we are taking positive steps forward to break free from the isolation imposed by our addiction on us, we are resisting all old methods to achieve the required growth, and become productive and useful people. There are many differences between us, for example, we come from different destinations and cultures, but one thing remains that we suffer from the same problem, which is addiction.
We are like you and we want you to grow like us. We were in your place one day, and now we know the way well. We know where we are going to grow. Let us not present some repeated words in a state of self-pity in order to understand the meaning of the word and what the exact case is:
Nobody loves me because I’m alone in this world.
I’m very tired.
no one cares about me.
I can’t solve things.
I will not be able to forgive myself for what happened during my addiction.
Looking at people who have no problem with drugs and comparing them.
Our addiction loves self-pity, so self-pity is one of our favorite feelings as addicts, because it simply strengthens our selfishness and helps us more to be lazy and a great deal of indifference.
The story of self-pity begins when we play the role of the victim, the helpless, and blame those around us from society, family, work, and friends. This strengthens our principle of laziness and not taking a positive attitude about who we are, and this is what our addiction wants.
At times, we used to admit the mistake, but on the other hand, we postpone any correct action towards this mistake, and we say we made a mistake, but the road is now blocked for any reform. We blame and resent ourselves a lot. In fact, we like that feeling of sadness sometimes.
But through our interactions in the therapeutic community in the early stages of our recovery, we found solutions to this situation, and we left the grief on ourselves, and we went to a set of actions and principles that made us now able to stand strong in front of these pathological feelings that take their orders from an aggravating disease, which is
Addictive disease.
Here are some counteractions to our self-pity:
1- Prevention from self-pity or grief over it, by recognizing the beautiful for those around us, identifying people and things and God above all, and trying to be grateful for all of these, so we can never fall into the trap of self-pity.
2- Awareness of self-pity.
Awareness of this situation is one of the solutions that helped us get out of it quickly.
3- Doing something about self-pity, and this is what we learned here, to take action towards this feeling.
We can talk to a healthy person like us or make many of the suggestions we’ve learned here.
We want to say that all of the above are weapons we are trying to use in the war against drug addiction, but they require a lot of hard work to learn them well.
Fear is the first pillar of addiction disease and is considered the basis of the first.
Our disease is a set of fears that we cannot face, so we resort to using more drugs or our addiction tends to any other type of addiction.
When fear creeps into our lives to include all its aspects, our addiction moves quickly and pushes us to make weak decisions, the most important of which is resorting to drugs as the easiest solutions close to us as addicts, addiction disease is a persistent and aggravating disease and one of the most important causes is fear. Our addiction wants to make us feel insecure so we can turn to
Drugs to act as the engine of our courage or to hide our weakness in front of a particular situation. We are afraid to grieve without drugs, also they must be present in our happy times, we resort to them when we face a specific situation or a specific person such as a life partner. Our addiction helps us to put many false faces on our real face to pass through a situation, or hide our fear of things that may seem normal to others.
