Is there someone in your family that is suffering from drugs and alcohol? Recognizing an addict during the holidays may not be as easy. After all, many people are celebrating during this time of the year, and identifying an addiction is not easy to do. Yet, when it comes to managing holiday addiction needs, you…
In 1986, an American music group by the name of General Kane released a song describing the painful and consuming nature of drug addiction. The fictional Nathan “Applejack” Lewis came from a loving, two-parent home, but after being exposed to drugs, his life was turned upside down. He stole and even prostituted his wife … and himself … to maintain his drug addiction. There is nothing glamorous about cocaine … in any form. There is no grey area or silver lining when it comes to cocaine usage. It is a dangerous, illegal drug that should be avoided at all costs. Let’s jump straight in and get to the facts.
What is cocaine?
The USDEA categorizes drugs into a number of categories according to the potency and potential for addiction. Cocaine is listed as a Schedule II drug, which is defined as a drug which has the potential for abuse and physical dependence.
Cocaine can appear as a fine, white, crystal powder or as a solid, rock crystal. It can be snorted through the nose, injected into the bloodstream via a needle, smoked, or rubbed into the gums to induce a high that involves feelings of increased energy and alertness. It is an extremely addictive and destructive drug. Cocaine increases the arousal activity in the brain, resulting in feelings of invincibility, loss of appetite, and sexual arousal.
Addiction not only rips apart a life, it does the same thing to the relationships and loved ones held most dear by the addict.
It is a very difficult thing to watch a loved one slip into addiction. Suddenly, someone that you once knew so well has become a completely different person, a person that you can’t trust, a person who seems to fight every helping hand and seek out every harmful situation they can possibly find, a person who pushes away love, a person who pushes away you. You know that this is the addiction working, taking control, but you can’t help but be affected by it. You can’t help feeling hurt, angry, helpless. You can’t help feeling like you want to give up.
And, unfortunately, many people do give up. They try and try until they’ve had enough – enough betrayal, enough rejection, enough hurt. Their addict loved one has hurt them so many times, maybe even betrayed their trust as well, that the need to protect themselves from more hurt and more harm has overtaken the love that they feel for this person who has been changed so drastically by addiction. And they give up. They cut ties, they banish, they forget, they toss aside.
There’s a stigma with addiction – that of the addict passing out in an alley somewhere, unable to move, barely able to function at all. While that image of addiction does come from a real place, there’s a far more prevalent face of addiction out in the world – that of the highly functioning professional. Drug & alcohol addiction knows no bounds. It is not a poor person’s disease, it does not care about race, religion, social status, or career. Addiction affects every tier of society. That fact can be very surprising to people on the fringes of the addiction disease. Below are the career fields that rank highest for addiction among the workforce. You’ll see that addiction really does run the gamut, and permeates some unexpected places.
Getting sober is an ongoing process which requires not only strong will power and a professional help, but also help from closed family.
One way to help your loved ones is finding good detox facility. Start by learning about their addiction and the different treatments available. If they’re open to it, offer to visit the place with them. Offer your help with anything that gets in the way of sobriety. Just don’t push anything! There’s no good in forcing an individual to seek treatment, one has to decide this alone.