You may think it’s impossible for you to overcome your drug or alcohol addiction. Or, maybe you tell yourself you don’t want to get clean — that you’re just not interested.
The truth is you might be scared. Overcoming addiction takes a huge amount of courage, motivation, and determination. The thought of enduring the withdrawals and other hard work required scares a lot of addicts, so they choose not to even try.
The many costs of drug addiction
Not getting treatment for your addiction can cost you your life. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, almost 92,000 people died of drug overdoses in 2020 and that doesn’t include deaths from alcohol addiction. In addition to that, drug addiction is incredibly expensive with many addicts spending over $100 each day to satisfy their needs and some spend considerably more than that. In addition to the real possibility of dying from an overdose and spending all available money on your substance of choice, there are other intangible costs as well. For instance, addiction causes loss of relationships with family and friends, plunging the addict further into his or her using lifestyle.
Common reasons addicts do not want or seek help
Only 13 percent of people suffering from drug addictions receive treatment, according to a national survey conducted in 2020. Why don’t more addicts seek specialized help? The answer varies from person to person, but here are some of the common reasons given: Fear.
Your addiction feels almost as if it’s a part of who you are and getting clean can seem like killing off a part of yourself. Using drugs provides comfort and relief from life’s struggles that you may not want to face. Being high feels good. Both drug and alcohol addicts spend their lives trying to recapture that euphoric feeling the first time they got high or buzzed. Once thoroughly caught up in addiction, you realize you’ve built your entire life around your habit. Chasing that high has taken top priority. Feeling lost when clean. As an addict, you’ve probably alienated most or all of your primary relationships consisting of non-users. You’re hanging around other addicts. If you’re clean, you feel you’ll be an outcast from both worlds.
Drug use replaces something that’s missing. It’s likely that long before you started using and then began struggling with addiction you felt as you had a hole inside of you. Others don’t notice it, but you constantly tried to fill it with many things. Getting high masked the empty feeling left by the hole better than other things. You may fear that the hole will swallow you up if you don’t have the drugs to cover it.
Life will become unbearably boring. Many people begin using drugs or alcohol for the thrill they get from the effects. Maybe you think you’re better able to socialize when high because you don’t feel anxiety about interacting with others. Your addiction allows you to avoid boredom and solitude and the uncomfortable thoughts that come up during those times. Fear of failure. Some addicts are well aware they have a problem and go to great lengths to manage it on their own, so they don’t have to seek professional help. But these efforts always fail, reinforcing the fear that treatment at a rehabilitation center will also fail.
Each of these reasons for not getting clean really only amount to one thing: fear. So, you’re not any different from an addict who says he or she is ready to get clean and do the work required to get there. It’s just that you fear the unknown. But you deserve addiction help and treatment just as much as anyone else. You deserve life — a life free from your addiction, loneliness, and hopelessness.
At Edge Treatment, we provide outpatient addiction recovery services that are customized to your individual needs and circumstances. Contact us today and let us help you come back from the Edge.
