Understanding an addicted family member can be very difficult. Often the family cannot figure out what happened. Why would they use these destructive drugs in the first place? They can tell the clients get little or no enjoyment from their present drug usage, they just have to do it. It was not like that in the beginning. When clients first used a drug they had different feelings and different results. If there were no positive benefits of some sort at the start, they would not have kept going.

At first they received pleasure and share in the excitement of having other people around when they used. The objective was to connect and have fun with other people. They also used the drug to improve how they felt. They thought the drug made them feel happier, sexier, and more relaxed.

The drug also changed their perceptions and physical sensations in the world. Many felt it changed and improved their ability to act in certain situations. Social activities, dancing, and even better sex have been attributed to drug use. Many times drug usage was just because of plain old fashioned boredom.

It was these positive attributes of drug and alcohol usage that initially lead to the addiction. The client well short sighted in their goals, was not stupid or dumb. These benefits actually did exist and were fun for a while. The side effects and the addictive cycle, of the drug use, came in through the back door. They then thought with either a higher dose, or a different drug they could regain the original positive benefits of drug use. This leads to the drug addiction.

At this point drug use switches from a fun experience to a coping mechanism for stress, anxiety, anger, pain and frustration in their life. This is the point we see the client in drug rehab. It may be difficult to look back that far to see how they started using. It is important because as a client gets better in a drug rehab center, they also have to find ways to get those original positive benefits of drug usage, without using drugs.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 26th, 2008 at 7:11 am and is filed under Alcohol Blog, Drug Blog, Rehab Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.