(proclinical.com)
Addiction is a degenerative disease characterized by progressive and sometimes irreversible deterioration and partial or total loss of all matter of bodily functions and organs.
Some changes are unchangeable (I'm getting a little choked up here).
Imagine being the sibling, parent or child of someone deep into their addiction. Now imagine wondering if the addict doesn't stop now, they may be on the road to where certain changes to their brain will become permanent. It may be too late already, you think.
You know that the addict or alcoholic is still using because with your own eyes you see that they have been slowly dying. You are glad when they get arrested because you know that when they are behind bars, their disease has also been arrested. It's not living, but it's not dying either. You squeeze a little hope out of this jail cell interruption. This is wearing on you, has been wearing you down for years now. Your hopes are slowly eroding, hoping for the best, but beginning to expect the worst.
Each time, each relapse, each arrest, each drama more like the countless times before. Hope itself has become degenerative.
Unwillingly, you are swept up in your user's addiction too.
You, too, will now need help.
Whether you can feel it yet or not, you are becoming the victim of a victim of addiction. Twice removed from reality you may begin to wonder about those around you. Are they becoming a victim of a victim of a victim? Thrice removed.
Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters.
None will be untouched.
These waters have become dark and silent.You have long felt that everything you do and/or don't do has somehow become part of the problem.
"You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."
You'll hear this in an Al-Anon meeting. The 3 C's. Cause, Control, Cure. "You didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it."
There are no 100% right or easy answers. Every situation is different. Every person is different.
It is easy to forget that Change is possible.
"Addiction spreads outward from the human pool, infecting the waters. None will be untouched.
These waters have become dark and silent."
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"Hope is still possible," I tell you.
You are reluctant. You've heard it all before, from the addict, from others in recovery, from deep within your own heart (I'm getting a little choked up here).
*****
"Hope is still possible," I tell you.
You are reluctant. You've heard it all before, from the addict, from others in recovery, from deep within your own heart (I'm getting a little choked up here).
Change is possible.
I've seen it before.
I warn you that I've seen people suffer permanent brain damage. Suicide. Complete and utter hopelessness. But I have seen change, too. The possibility of change. The reemergence of hope after the smallest hope seemed nothing less than foolish.
I've seen it before.
I warn you that I've seen people suffer permanent brain damage. Suicide. Complete and utter hopelessness. But I have seen change, too. The possibility of change. The reemergence of hope after the smallest hope seemed nothing less than foolish.
I have seen too, that recovery may miraculously spread outward from the human pool, purifying the waters. All may begin to heal. These waters may become restorative and resilient.
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"It is not the most intellectual or the strongest of species that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able to adapt to and adjust best to the changing environment in which it finds itself."- Charles Darwin
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These are the waters in which we find ourselves. These are the waters of addiction and these also are the waters of recovery. Every flick of our fins may move us towards the Beauty of Recovery and away from the complicit and degenerative qualities of Addiction.
Swim in the direction of Recovery and away from the progressive, downward pull of Addiction. There are 10,000 ways forward.
Find your way forward because "nothing matters more than that we remain sober because when we remain sober everything matters more."
Recovery is possible, doable, irreplaceable.
Strive.
Strive on.
It is the least, the most and sometimes the only thing that we can do.
Strive!
Strive on.
It is the least, the most and sometimes the only thing that we can do.
Strive!
*****
Journey with this Author through this Autobiographical Fiction.
#Read ALL DRINKING ASIDE: The Destruction, Deconstruction & Reconstruction of an Alcoholic Animal
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