For many years, addiction was considered a choice. Unfortunately, this ongoing misconception led to significant fear and stigma surrounding addiction and addiction treatment. Today, treatment professionals in the medical and mental health communities understand addiction is a complex disease that has a detrimental impact on the brain and all body systems. Regardless of your substance of choice, if you struggle with an addiction, you will experience an intense, overwhelming focus on obtaining and using drugs or alcohol. The focus (desire, craving) is so strong that it inevitably takes over, limiting your ability to function or focus on anything outside of substance seeking and using.
When many people think of addiction, they envision the limited view they see on television or in the news. The real picture of addiction goes much deeper and often impacts a far wider portion of the population. Addiction is an illness that is not restricted by demographic. It does not care about age, race, religion, economic stability, or social standing. An addict can be a family member, well-known business owner, local banker, popular community member, or a next-door neighbor.
Each person who struggles with addiction will experience it differently. The changes in symptoms and how addiction “looks” will vary based on the person, their substance of choice, the severity of their addiction, and how long they used. Despite the differences in addiction from one person to the next, there are common effects that present with most substances. Often, these are related to how substances affect the reward centers in the brain. Eventually, with ongoing and increasing substance use, the brain struggles to feel joy and pleasure without the artificial reward stimulation brought on by substance use. Needing to use more and more of a substance to feel happiness is known as tolerance. At this point, it is often difficult, if not impossible, to defeat addiction without the help and support of a comprehensive outpatient or intensive outpatient program in Freehold, NJ.
