The Pain of Knowing An Addict

[Lucky]

Many of us have known people who got caught up in drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, or any other behavior where it became compulsive for them. Addicts can cause those who care about them great pain. As much as we rejoice when an addict seeks help, as much as we want to support him, we are still treading dangerous waters. Many addicts seek help only as a means of keeping the trust of those who support them. They are not sincere. Soon their lies become transparent, and then, among the many tears, there are often promises to do better.

Few addicts are capable of curing themselves. It is not enough for a drug addict to avoid drugs, or a sex addict to avoid the internet sites that lead him to sexual activities. They must stay away from them altogether. They must get help.

And help takes a long time. No addict is cured in 30 days. Most need a longer time, they need a mentor and a support group.

Yet the insincere addict will still try to manipulate people. Even the most devoted rehabber will occasionally slip. Thus, it must be said:

"Never, Never, NEVER Trust a Drug Addict!!

Did I say "never" enough? No, but I have limited space.

One of the things you get to see when you are a drug rehab intake counselor is the incredible deceit and lying of most drug addicts and alcoholics. You think you've seen lying by pros? These people make Bernie Madoff look like a child in kindergarten lying about a stolen tricycle that he is sitting on right in front of you! They are expert liars. It's unfortunate and sad.

However, the people I feel the most empathy for are the parents of the addict. Many of these people have spent over $100,000 to try to help their child with addiction. Hope is a resilient emotion. It truly does spring eternal and is a credit to the amount of love parent's have for their child no matter their age.

Unfortunately, their hope often gets shattered over and over again like the waves of the ocean hitting a rocky shoreline. The actual success rate for most drug rehabs is not that good."

From: http://www.drugrehab...rug-addict.html

We all want our friends who have gone down the wrong path to find their way. But rarely are we equipped to do the work they need. Urge your addict friends to seek help, to stick with it, and to avoid the places that led them into temptation in the first place.

[Guest hitoallusa]

It's hard but sometimes just showing love that you care helps a lot.. Life isn't easy for anyone and people make mistakes but forgiving them and helping them restart is important and eventually it pays.. So don't be discouraged Lucky...

[Guest FourAces]

Your link to the blog has me a little confused now. I am not sure if you wrote the above or are simply sharing a compelling story with us from someone else. In either case I will say I agree with much of whats written.

Like many I have been involved with a addict for decades... one of my brothers. Sadly after all these years there has been much damage done to his mind and body. The one thing I learned over the years is to love him, always support him when hes trying to turn things around but never enable him. It took time to get that combination down right as instinct tends to interfere.

His like has been full of extremes, from a head on collision that caused much physical and mental damage to being shot, to not being able to raise his children, to costing my family large amounts of money for treatments, to his ex wife being murdered, to several arrests, and a slow path of decline.

These days he still takes drugs (though all prescribed) and drinks way too much but is far more laid back. Hes in a wheel chair most of the time, and kind of has his usage routine down to where he is able to maintain some sort of like now.

As for ME I wrote in this forum a few months back about my addiction to gambling and how it cost me every penny I had. Now I have a very boring 9-5 type job, I am extremely unhappy, the money I earn hardly pays for my other addiction food... but I am pleased that I have not been in a casino in months, I have not played a hand of poker or made a single bet on football this year.

I guess being so broke I have no choice but to stay out of casinos ... though I know it would be difficult for me to go to one with say $100 and stick with that budget, its still too soon.

It would be nice though to have a reasonable income but I am too old and too overweight for someone to hire me.

SO thats a couple of my addiction stories.

[Lucky]

That was my writing up until the quote. I wish you the best of luck with your gambling addiction, Four Aces. One year is a good time. But any addict will tell you that fighting addiction is a lifelong process.

My post was about an addict i know who wants everyone to believe that he has turned over a new leaf. I think he is just fooling himself, and,unfortunately, fooling others too.

[Guest FourAces]

Thanks Lucky.

What makes it so difficult for others in regards to your friend is they want to believe the best hope for the best and therefore can easily misled by your friend. It really can be hard at times to determine if indeed he is trying or just manipulating. No one wants to be wrong.

[AdamSmith]

My post was about an addict i know who wants everyone to believe that he has turned over a new leaf. I think he is just fooling himself, and,unfortunately, fooling others too.

We know each other well enough here for me to ask: Did I claim to have turned over a new leaf? How delightful, if I did.

My alcohol addiction continues fierce as ever. Your imputation of a sex addiction on top of that, we might need to converse about a bit more.

[Lucky]

Would that be another characteristic of an addict? To assume that everything is about him?

Sad to say, Mr. Smith, but you are not the only addict in my frame of reference. As to what you are addicted to, I leave that to you to figure out.

[lookin]

I think one of the possible fallouts of a non-specific post about personal frailties is that some of us with personal frailties may come to believe that the post is directed at us. As I myself have a rather broad and deep portfolio of personal frailties, I find I'm continually muttering "Who, me?"

Perhaps we could get a smiley for such occasions.

[Lucky]

We write generic stories all of the time, and folks don't rush in and ask "Is it I, Lucky?" But I guess for some addicts it is different. FourAces did not jump to the conclusion that I was writing about him.

It's a sad fact of gay life that drugs, alcohol, and sex cause problems. If you believe this article:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...opulation.html

then there are more problems than one can shake a stick at. So an addict should not be in too much of a rush to think a thread was about him. There are plenty of addicts to go around. Most of them don't brag about it.

[Guest hitoallusa]

I believe it took a while for straight marriage to be stabilized and to be what is today. It is still evolving but we have to give them credit and admiration for their contribution to our civilization.. After all we would not be able to enjoy hot guys if straight couple decided not to have children and raised them.

I appreciate my parents for raising me.. It takes a lot of patience and love to raise a child and they sacrificed a lot of their resources and time to raise me. They changed my dirty diapers and wiped my ass until I was able to go potty myself.

I digressed but my point is that gay community/marriage needs to evolve into something positive. Instead of drugs, sex and alcohol we need to do positive things for our community and ourselves... We can complain for being treated badly but if we won't have to complain when we are strong. We need to come up with values and models that can bring gay community to another level... We need to make our community that focus on one's inner strength rather than decaying outer beauty of oneself.

[AdamSmith]

So an addict should not be in too much of a rush to think a thread was about him.

This disingenuousness, given your recent public posts together with contemporaneous private communication, is not quite the kind of honesty on which forthright hope for an acquaintance's recovery might be premised. Why are you embarrassed now to say what you were saying already?

[Guest hitoallusa]

AS... I also thought Lucky was talking about my addictions to shoes, handsome princes and making silly posts on here.. Among those If I had to choose then I I would prefer shoes to all the other choices.. I recently watched a drama online and one of the main actresses says that

"Please do not consider that you know everything in my heart... You can't know everything about me" Please give Lucky the benefit of the doubt... I don't think he is a kind of person who will purposely post about someone's personal issues and make light of it on here.

[Lucky]

AS-Do we now have an attention whore? You jumped to a false conclusion. The fact that the person I was speaking of had a sex addiction stopped you not for a second. You must think everything is about you. I have no doubt that you will successfully conquer your addiction, but perhaps less talk and more action might help.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Lucky a couple of people thought it was them you were talking about... I don't think AS is an attention whore and if he is one then other posters are too.. I personally don't mind getting attention but too much attention is not so good as you can see in Kate Middleton's case.. I hope you guys can get along...

[AdamSmith]

You jumped to a false conclusion. The fact that the person I was speaking of had a sex addiction stopped you not for a second. You must think everything is about you.

I was recalling your recent post "I wonder if sex addicts get to have all they want in heaven. AdamSmith should be thrilled if they do."

Pardon the presumption.

[Lucky]

I have no desire to continue this, but surely you are pulling my leg. Please direct me to the post wherein I said that.

[Guest Mcamp]

I have no desire to continue this, but surely you are pulling my leg. Please direct me to the post wherein I said that.

I wonder if sex addicts get to have all they want in heaven. Adam Smith should be thrilled if they do,.

The ugliness of one’s soul is commonly revealed by the act of public betrayal against another’s private entrustment.

[AdamSmith]

Post #12 here: http://www.maleescor...nesday-9-19-12/

As I see that Mcamp has also documented above. Thx.

Would I make such a thing up when it can be so easily proved or disproved?

[Guest Mcamp]

The only thing that causes more harm to the "addict" which resides in all of us, in one fashion or another, are the amateur posers who vocalize their claims of superiority and self-righteousness, all the while failing to recognize their own personal short comings and undesirable behaviors in their own lives and feeling better about themselves on the backs of other people's genuiene struggles.

And that's very, very sad indeed..

[lookin]

While the OP's post focused more on the friends and families of addicts, this Time article focuses more on the process of addiction itself. Not too surprisingly, the brain plays a major part in both the process of becoming addicted and perhaps one day in the process of managing the addiction. Also not too surprisingly, there seem to be as many subtleties in addictions themselves as there are subtleties in the brains of different folks and in the substances and behaviors to which they become addicted.

And, once again, black or white thinking is not likely to capture the full range of behaviors that may, or may not, define an addiction.

"Addictions," says Joseph Frascella, director of the division of clinical neuroscience at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), "are repetitive behaviors in the face of negative consequences, the desire to continue something you know is bad for you."

One can easily find a range in the individual meanings of "repetitive behaviors", "negative consequences", "desire", and "bad for you". And there's certainly a range in the workings of the individual parts of the brain responsible for forming an addiction, as well as in the various substances and behaviors that can lead to an addiction. So it's no surprise, to me anyway, that many of us can see ourselves as addicts when the lower boundaries of the ranges are applied and that few of us may see ourselves as addicts when the upper boundaries of the ranges are applied.

What was a surprise, again possibly only to me, was the level of understanding that was in place, even five years ago when the article was written, about the way the various parts of the brain interact and change in the development of an addiction and the possibility that some, though not all, of these interactions and changes may be one day be reversed.

If I had known a half-century ago how strong a hold nicotine would have on me, I'd never have started smoking in the first place. Same with caffeine. But I didn't. So I began using both, and went through near-torture to finally quit. And, had I known many years ago how strong a hold an anonymous message board would have on me, I wonder if I'd have started posting in the first place.

Oh, probably. I'm sure I can give it up any time I like.

[Lucky]

I see, it was a dig for dig, and Adam couldn't be bothered to post his own dig:

AS to me: I begin to suspect the only place where you will enjoy sex is in the afterlife.

Addict behavior is often self-serving, manipulative, and ego-centric, not to mention deceitful.. As much as we hope the addict can move on to recovery, those of us with experience with addicts refuse to get pulled into their games. Adam Smith is playing a game both here and in private messages, and I will not participate further.

If that displeases you, Mcamp, I will be hurt for all of three seconds.

[AdamSmith]

AS to me: I begin to suspect the only place where you will enjoy sex is in the afterlife.

A modest corrective: you will see fhat was my reply to Hitoallusa, not to you.

You cautioned me not to make everything be about oneself.

I concur.

[Guest hitoallusa]

Lucky that comment was made to me if I am not wrong... I have met AS and I really liked him. I am serious about dating him but I told him that I wanted to be treated like Melanie( gone with the wind) and we won't have any sex until I get to know him better and meet his mother first... I know it sounds silly but I have met plenty of guys who just wanted sex with me and it didn't work out at all.. I didn't want that and if I wanted just sex I can hire escorts... Anyways, AS has been teasing me ever since... And I think that is what he meant...so sorry for the confusion...

[lookin]

A modest corrective: you will see fhat was my reply to Hitoallusa . .

Indeed it was and inspired an image that tickles me still. I hope it will tickle Lucky.

Nice pics.. I'm not sure whether having sex on the beach is so pleasant as in the movies.. Sun is too hot and sand is too coarse...

I begin to suspect the only place where you will enjoy sex is in the afterlife.

Eagerly waiting to welcome Hitoallusa,

AdamSmith learns he has a headache.

[AdamSmith]

I wanted to be treated like Melanie( gone with the wind)

P.S. This I understand.

I must not have been listening before.