AZ-ARC

Addictions

What is addiction?

The term addiction is used when a person becomes dependent on something which severely begins to affect their behaviour and life in general. Common addictions are alcohol, nicotine, drugs, gambling and food, though a person can become addicted to just about anything. If any of the below apply to someone then they would be considered dependent:

• Regularly have a strong desire do something which varies in intensity from strong to severe.
• Has withdrawal symptoms if they try to stop.
• Has failed repeatedly to stop.
• Begins to spend more and more time on the subject in question.
• The use of the subject in question begins to severely affect the persons day to day living.
• The person continues to do the subject in question even though they see or feel adverse affects from it.

Will an addict be an addict for life?

In the case of less serious forms of addiction, the addiction can be only temporary while more severe forms of addiction can have longer lasting effects. In any form of addiction the goal is to quit and there are several programmes which are available to addicts to help them do this.

However the longer the person has suffered from the addiction the more chances are that relapses will occur but if the person is determined and has the best possible help then there is no reason to believe that a person cannot eventually live free of addiction.

How can you get off drugs?

If you have been using drugs for a long time then the best way to try and give them up is with help from your Doctor, more often than not your Doctor will suggest that you reduce the amount taken under medical supervision. You should never just try to quit taking drugs on your own, people who have tried this have found that they very rarely succeed and often relapse.

What kind of people use drugs?

People from all walks of life can become addicted to drugs, people don’t just take drugs to voluntary become addicted to them and some take legal drugs that are prescribed for a medical condition such as anxiety and depression without being given adequate information that those drugs can be addictive.

Other people turn to drugs for many reasons; the most widely used excuse is to escape from everyday problems in their life. Taking drugs however only causes other problems and in most cases makes the problem they were trying to escape in the first place a whole lot worse.