Why Won’t An Addict Stop?
The thing that puzzles many people about addiction is the matter of free will. If the person is addicted and they know there is a problem, why won’t they just stop the behavior that is making them addicted?
It seems obvious to those people who are most affected by a person who is addicted to drugs and alcohol. After all, they have seen the destructive ways of the person who is addicted. They’ve lived through phone calls from employers telling them their loved one didn’t show up for work again or has lost their job because of incompetence.
Even if the addiction has not escalated to the addict losing their job, there are other destructive signs that the addict’s life is spiraling out of control. People who are addicted don’t think about their friends or family the same way they do when they are sober. They don’t pay attention to commitments, family functions or even paying their bills. Even if they have enough money in the bank to make their payments, the very act of taking responsibility for the job is erased as soon as a drink touches their lips or the first hit is taken.
It can be maddening for the person who is either living with the person who is addicted or is a family member watching their loved one go through addiction because the addict doesn’t ever see themselves as being to blame.
That’s right. No matter what destructive behavior they have been doing, a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol does not blame themselves. They blame others.
Once you have become an addict in any form, the tendency to fall back to that addiction is always there if you don’t continue to do the work needed to control the addiction.
So why do some people succeed in controlling their addictions and some do not? A person living with an addict can see what the addict can’t or isn’t ready to see, they will continue to blame other people for why their life is so rotten. And that’s how they feel. Rotten!
While many addicts hate their lives and complain about how awful it is, they won’t blame themselves. By blaming themselves for their miseries, they will then have to take accountability for their addiction. But unless they are ready to look at themselves honestly and admit that they took the drugs or alcohol and they stole from their parents or friends they won’t be ready to make the change. No amount of pushing and crying and screaming from a loved one is going to make them see that they have a problem and that they are the ones that need to change.
For this reason, many times a person who is addicted to drugs or alcohol will go through a treatment program several times before it “clicks.” They have to accept that they were the ones to take the steps to become addicted and that only they are the ones who can take each step to control the addiction. For many people this process can be grueling, not only physically but emotionally.
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