Nobody wants to struggle with an addiction. In fact, most drug users don’t even want to admit that they have an addiction. For this reason, those who struggle with using drugs have a hard time recovering from drug usage.
If you can’t admit that you have a problem, you certainly cannot fix the problem. And if the problem does not get fixed, the same unhealthy cycle will continue.
We want to support you so that you will meet your recovery goals.
To support you, here are five barriers to recovery:
Substance abuse has a stigma. There’s no doubt, that the mental health field alone has a lot of growth to do. We still make the people who suffer from mental illness, feel as if they are crazy and we call those that help them shrinks. More importantly, we have convinced ourselves that the mind is something that we should be able to control and if for some reason we cannot, something must be wrong with us.
All of that is simply untrue.
When a person is addicted to a substance, the brain chemistry takes control of their actions towards the substance, in the same way that cancer will take charge of a persons cells. Simply put, a person has no more control over their ability to become addicted to a substance, then a person struggling with cancer or any other chronic illness has.
Denial is another barrier to recovery. Often times, drug users are not willing to accept any level of impairment that they might have. For instance, some users might want to convince themselves that they are in control of their usage, even though they are not. They feel, that if they admit they have an addiction, they must be weak, because the usage is out of their control. This makes it hard for them to fix the addiction, because they don’t admit the addiction is there.
Embarrassment. Simply put, due to the stigma against metal illness and addiction, an addict won’t want to face the humiliation that they would feel if they admitted that they needed assistance in recovery. After all, no one wants to be considered crazy.
Fear. After someone has been coping with drug usage for so long, it can be hard to think of coping with life without it. After all, once a person reaches the stage where they become an addict, much of their lifestyle is dictated by the use of the drug. It can be very frightening for them to think about life without the use of the drugs and alcohol to cope.
Socialization. It’s true what they say, ” like attracts like.” Thus, an addict will likely spend time with other addicts due to the common interest of drug abuse. As this occurs, they compare their self to their drug abusing friends and convince themselves that their usage is not as bad. In cases where it’s not as bad, they assume that they don’t need help because they see other people with a worse addiction.
Admitting that you have a drug addiction is hard. Overcoming barriers to recovery is harder. We hope that we have been useful to support you with understanding barriers recovery. If you would like support overcoming your barriers to recovery, please schedule your free 15 minute consultation.
