Treatment is a big decision. Coming to terms with the reality of your addiction is humbling and reaching out for help takes a lot of humility. Needing treatment is not a sign you have failed. It indicates you are ready to take transformative action to create concrete change in your life.
- You’re completely powerless over drugs and alcohol: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol is how the first step of the twelve steps of alcoholics anonymous begins. Before you can take any sort of action in recovery, even making the phone call to get help into treatment, you have to have some semblance of awareness that you are powerless over alcohol and drugs. You can’t stop, though you try. You can’t have just one, no matter how many attempts.
- Your life has become unmanageable: And our lives had become unmanageable is how the first step ends. In total it reads, We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and that our lives had become unmanageable. The powerful myth of the “high functioning alcoholic or addict” makes coming to this important realization difficult. Life might not fall apart on the outside, but it is falling apart on the inside. Likely, things aren’t as great as they seem.
- You can no longer maintain responsibilities or relationships: You’re having a hard time keeping up with appearances at work, at school, in friendships, and relationships with family members.
- You are experiencing memory loss more often than you used to: Did you blackout or didn’t you? Even if you aren’t consuming drugs and alcohol to the point of blacking out, you are having a hard time remembering things- which might include how much you’ve had to drink or use.
- You go into withdrawal without drugs and alcohol: You cannot go without using drugs and alcohol anymore without starting to experience symptoms of withdrawal. They might not be “severe”. However, if you are experiencing cravings, shakes, sweats, feeling sick, your chemical dependency has become severe.
- Your health is starting to or has already failed you: Drugs and alcohol are toxic waste inside the body and the brain. Constantly inundating your system with these chemicals negatively impacts your health. In extreme cases, you might experience liver damage, brain damage, damage to the lungs, or a weakened heart.
- Your friends and family tell you that you need treatment: It might have started as subtle suggestions and has now turned into serious conversation. You know they’re probably right, somewhere deep inside. Yet the overpowering voice of addiction continues to tell you otherwise.
- You aren’t sure you will make it if you don’t seek help: Many times have you told yourself that you can do this on your own, you can stop when you want to, and you don’t need help. Likely, you are past that point. You know that you can’t do it alone.
Thankfully, you don’t have to. At Design For Change, we welcome addicts and alcoholics to our home where our residential treatment programs offer a refuge from addiction and hope for recovery. For information on how we’re helping clients find freedom in recovery, call us today at (877) 267-3646.
