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Does Cold Turkey Work?

Every addict has this feeling that perhaps, just perhaps they can simply stop practicing their vice of choice.  If they are on drugs, they figure that they can just quit them.  And if they are an alcoholic, they figure that they can simply drop the drink and never pick it up again.  Even the online addicts may want to separate themselves from their wireless internet providers all at once. The notion of quitting cold turkey works on a lot of different levels.  For one, it works along with the craziness that characterizes every kind of addiction, in which the world seems to work in ways that it realistically does not.  For another thing, it works along with the ego mania that is often one of the fundamental parts of the addict’s life.  After all, what is an addict without a crazy, delusional belief that they are not actually addicted to anything, and that their life is completely under their own control?  But can cold turkey actually work?

In theory, all a person has got to do is stop practicing their vice of choice, and things will eventually get back to normal.  Of course, a person who has a vice inevitably has an underlying problem which will ultimately cause them to go back into some kind of a vice (whether the one that they used to use, or an entirely new one) if they do not ultimately own up to the real problem underneath it all.  And since most addicts are not psychologically capable of doing all of that on their own, it is most likely not going to work that way.

And naturally, if they continue to have the same social network (which almost always consists of other addicts that they can compare themselves to), quitting cold turkey is more like taking a short break from the vice.  After all, when every other phone call is another invitation to use, the temptation is simply too great to refuse.  And why would they?  Between the physical discomfort of withdrawal, and the distorted view of the world that they have acquired through the regular practice of their vice, the world is far too scary to face without their fix.

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Signs of a Drug or Alcohol Addiction

Drug and alcohol addictions can affect anyone from a top online trading broker who trades on the UFX Markets Trading platform to a casual college student. While it might appear as if addictions are not curable, if the addict seeks treatment early on the addiction may be able to be treated.

Part of catching a drug or alcohol addiction early is knowing the signs and symptoms that an addiction is present. Here’s a look at some of the signs and symptoms that are present when a person is suffering from an addiction to drugs or alcohol.

Withdrawals

Occasionally a drug or alcohol addict will try to cure their addictions themselves. This can often lead to signs of withdrawal as the body is craving the drug or alcohol. Withdrawal symptoms can include mood swings, sweating, chills, profound anger, hallucinations and even adverse changes in personality and behavior.

Changes in Personality or Behavior

It is not uncommon for people change over time. However if you notice an extreme change in behavior personality it could be a sign that a drug or alcohol addictions present. Changes in personality include not showing interest in past hobbies, changes in friends, and even changes in a person’s sleep cycle.

Legal or Financial Problems

People who are addicted to drugs or alcohol often have legal or financial problems. These problems can range from overspending on their habits and not been able to pay their bills, to getting in trouble with the law for things such as DUIs, loitering, or stealing.

There are many signs and symptoms of a drug or alcohol addiction. The three listed above are the most common signs and symptoms that an addiction is present.

 

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Can Your Family Help You?

The world of the addict is almost always one where there is very little stability to be had.  For most addicts, they do not come out of especially happy childhoods, and they often suffered some form of abuse as a child.  While this can be a call to them to start something far better when they have children of their own, far too often the addict will subconsciously work to rebuild the bad parts of their childhoods through their choice of mate.  This does very little to add any stability, and a cycle repeats itself once again.  Intense amounts of fighting, more addictive behavior and typically a combination of abuse and neglect characterize how many addicts create their own family structures.  But underneath it all, is family capable of helping a person to get into a healthier state of life, even if the family itself has a lot of problems?

In a lot of cases, a family does love its members, even if there are a lot of problems which stack on top of the group of them.  While there are some instances in which a loving, supportive family has done a lot to help an addicted member of its ranks to get better, this is a very rare occurrence.  After all, for the most part families have very little as far as resources that can help with a person’s addiction.  Very few families have the psychologists and addiction specialists among them who could render constructive help.

In addition to this, most of the families that addicts come out of are riddled with problems which will forever go unsolved.  While it might seem nihilistic to say this, for a lot of families the addict is one of the more well adjusted people, since they are internalizing their problems (through hurting themselves) as opposed to lashing out from whatever internal problems bubble underneath the surface.  For many of these people, looking to their families for help (who may also have ample vices of their own) would be rather like asking a drowning man to give you swimming lessons, and equally ineffective.

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Other People’s Pain

If you are addicted to some form of vice, then you might or might not intellectually realize that you are causing damage to yourself.  But then again, while almost every person who is addicted for a long time realizes (even if it is only deep down) that they are hurting themselves, it is a very common occurrence for them to only see their addiction in terms of where they are with it.  But of course, no human being is living in a vacuum.  And ultimately, there are other people who are going to be hurt by your addiction, in some form or another.

For some people, they are going to be hurt because they legitimately care about you.  For these people, they do not want to abandon you at any costs.  But while their love for you keeps them close by, it is also the thing that hurts them so badly.  If they did not care about you, your slow degradation (and the wasting of your life) would not especially bother them.  But it does, and then some.  After all, when you really care about another person, you love them as if they were a part of yourself.  And when any part of a whole (such as a family) suffers, the entire thing suffers, too.

However, there are also other people who can be badly hurt by your addiction.  In most cases, these people are strangers, who just happen to get into the proverbial crossfire of your addicted lifestyle.  If you have ever driven while drunk or high, you have done a whole lot more than risk your own health and life.  You have put all sorts of people whom you may never meet in danger, as well.  And while you were undoubtedly in no condition to especially care about this risk you were putting others into, you could easily have changed their entire lives.

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