When you have an addiction, the entire world sees you as just another person.  For those who want to look a little bit below the surface (such as the people who see you on a daily basis), they can usually end up seeing that there is some kind of problem there.  While much of the world will eventually notice that you have an addiction of some sort, most people are not aware that addictions are nearly always the heralds of other things.  When there is an addiction at the top, it is a temple built over a sewer.  And that sewer stinks just as much as any other one does, no matter how carefully you try to cover it up.

For anything to ever be effective at treating your addiction, it has also got to target the underlying cause of what is making you feel bad in the first place.  For many addicts, the notion of “having fun” is typically used as a cover for the real purpose of “not facing the pain which bubbles under the surface.”  In the life of almost every person who ever used with any kind of seriousness, there is a lot of pain which they are very hesitant to face, let alone express.  But if they are ever going to get any better, they are eventually going to have to face all of it.

After all, the act of facing your problems is the first step in overcoming them.  While this is not something that you are likely to be able to do quickly (and it will certainly not be pleasant or convenient), it is the ultimate way to stop your reliance on some kind of chemical crutch.  When the chemical crutches stop being how you run your life, the problem will look solved.  But when the underlying problems are finally vanquished, it will stop being about the looks.