Explaining Drug Dependency

Drug Dependency Explained

The fundamental connection between professional addiction recovery care and long-term addiction recovery success is explained by the nature of drug dependency itself. Remember, drug addiction is a disease: a clinical condition with clinical roots that demands, in the end, clinical solutions from clinical rehab experts. You can't get better without addiction treatment because drug abuse is not a choice, and because healing isn't simply a function of will. To beat drug or alcohol addiction for good, you need the kind of help you can't get outside of a drug rehab center.

Effective addiction recovery must take stock of drug addiction as it actually exists: as a disorder with both physical and psychological origins. From a physical perspective, long-term addicts develop metabolic dependencies on their drugs of abuse, with the consequence that chronic drug abusers literally need drugs to survive. Psychologically, addicts are addicts because they rely on drug use as a sort of emotional crutch: They can't find the strength to face the world through any lens except that of a drug high.

For addiction recovery patients, the lesson here is a simple one: Addiction and addiction recovery aren't functions of personal will. No addict decides to be an addict, and no addiction recovery patient can simply decide to get sober. On the contrary, addiction, like all diseases, can only be eradicated by virtue of expert addiction recovery care from a professional addiction treatment center.

Again, the ball is in your court here. Addiction recovery really can help you beat drug dependency…but not until you let it, and not until you resolve to make it work. It's true that addiction recovery isn't a choice. It's also truth that the decision to enter an addiction recovery program very certainly is a choice, and that only those addicts with the courage to make it can ever hope to achieve lasting sobriety. Please, for so your own sake, don't wait another day to do what you have to do.

Addiction Treatment and Addiction Recovery

Addiction recovery, of course, can only be the product of addiction treatment that addresses the entire extent of addiction itself. Drug treatment that works is that which fosters holistic healing: healing of the mind as well as the body, the emotional as well as the physical. Remember, drug abuse exists in both physiological and psychological dimensions, and a drug rehab program that fails to account for both forms of the disease is and can only ever be doomed to fail. Again, if you're going to get better, you're going to have to get the right kind of help.

Physical addiction recovery concerns itself mostly with eradicating the physiological dependencies associated with chronic addiction. Doctors and caregivers at specialized drug detox centers help addiction recovery patients weather the first stage of sobriety with a minimum of physical trauma, employing an advanced range of medical therapies to ensure that drug withdrawal is no more trying than it has to be. Subsequent physical care is aimed at reducing the drug cravings experienced by addiction recovery patients, with the ultimate goal of facilitating the intensive addiction counseling that must stand at the heart of any effective addiction recovery program.

The psychological nature of addiction is such that no addiction recovery patient can hope to stay sober without undergoing an expansive sort of personal growth. Addiction, after all, is an emotionally overwhelming disease, one that colors an addict's capacity for analytical thought and moral judgment. What that means, from a methodological perspective, is that successful California addiction treatment programs must help addicts develop new ways of perceiving the world and themselves; sobriety, if it's going to last, has got to be predicated on individual transformation.

And, again: It isn't easy. The sort of self-exploration entailed by addiction recovery programs will try even the heartiest soul, and no addiction recovery patient ever gets sober without struggling a little along the way. But, obviously, the results speak for themselves. If you've made it this far, you already know how important addiction recovery is, and that no price could ever be too high to pay for sobriety.

If you'd like more information on this topic, please call 1-800-332-9202, or visit our website at http://www.drugrehabsunsetmalibu.com/ .

This article may be used freely, provided that the resource box is included and the links are active. A courtesy copy of the issue or a link to any online posting would be greatly appreciated.

Copyright 2009 Sunset Malibu