JCPC: The Addiction Treatment Information Website

Addiction is a serious problem in our modern world. In reality there probably aren’t any more people who are addicts today than in the past it is just that we have learned to recognize the symptoms a lot better. Regardless of whether or not the rate of addiction is increasing one thing that we can say for sure is that people who are struggling with an addiction need to make sure that they get treatment.

The first thing that you have to understand if you are going to deal with addiction is just what causes them. In this case of an addiction to substances like drugs and alcohol this is fairly easy to explain. The cause of the addiction is that repeated use of the substance causes a change in your brain chemistry. In particular you come to rely on an outside source of certain chemicals because your brain stops producing them itself. This is why it is so difficult to deal with addictions on your own it takes more than just will power to deal with the physical dependence.

In recent years addiction has been expanded to include behavioral compulsions like gambling addiction as well. These are harder to explain because there is no physical mechanism that causes the addiction. Nevertheless it is generally agreed that the addiction is very real. The cause has never been adequately explained beyond the fact that some people have addictive personalities. This has obviously seriously hampered the progress of treatment options as it is hard to treat something when you don’t even know what is causing it. Nevertheless there has been good progress made in this area.

The most important thing if you are suffering from an addiction is to make sure that you get treatment as soon as possible. Most people believe that they need to wait until they hit rock bottom before they can start treatment. This is not the case and in fact it makes it harder. The longer you are addicted to a substance the harder it is going to be to get over it. Therefore it is actually in your best interest to start treatment sooner rather than later. It also a myth that you can’t force people into treatment, the success rate of court order treatments is about the same as for people who enter treatment voluntarily. Therefore if you have a loved one with an addiction don’t hesitate to force them into treatment.

There are lots of treatment options out there for dealing with addiction. Depending on what you are addicted to and how seriously you may be able to solve the problem with just a twelve step program. Most people however find that the counseling offered by an outpatient treatment facility is more beneficial. The best option would be the full time care provided by an inpatient treatment facility but this is out of the price range of most people.