What Is Addiction?
Addiction is described in the dictionary as a compulsive and repeated use of a substance despite the consequences. These are often referred to as "substance abuse", "chemical dependency," etc. However, we can become addicted to behaviors, sex, food, love, negative thinking, gambling, computers, and just about anything that keeps us from feeling or dealing with our "disease".
I have worked in the field of addiction for over 16 years as an addiction counselor, family therapist, consultant, and addiction interventionist. Prior to my getting sober, I was addicted to everything. As the drummer in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, I had it all. Fame and fortune. My name is Dallas, and I am a recovering addict.
The reason I refer to myself as recovering, is there is no cure for addiction, only a daily reprieve, based on my continued work in a 12 step program. Why do some of us become alcoholics and addicts while others appear somehow able to control their drinking and yes, even occasional drug use? Doctors and scientists are now saying what AA has said all along. That this is a disease that is genetic in nature, described as an allergy of the body coupled with an obsession of the mind. I absolutely know this to be true.
I have worked with thousands of alcoholics, drug addicts and people addicted to one thing or another.
The stories are always the same. For some of us it takes life changing events to get us started drinking and using. For instance, my mother died when I was 12. My anger and rage was so profound that when my friend offered me a drink and a joint, well, I took to it like a duck to water. But, that is not why I became an alcoholic. To me drugs and alcohol seemed to some how complete me. That is to say, as far back as I can remember, I always felt somehow different and uncomfortable in my own skin, shy and somehow, "less than". I remember when I was about 4 or 5 years old my mother gave me something called paregoric for what doctors suspected, were stomach ulcers. Mom had to chase me around the house in order to get the spoon in my mouth and administer that foul tasting liquid down my throat. A few minutes later, I remember telling her, "Mom, I feel normal. Why don't I feel this way all the time?" She got this horrified look on her face and stopped giving me the magic elixir.
Then there are those of us who start out able to "take it, or leave it", until somewhere along the way, we cross this invisible line, only to find ourselves unable to stop. I now know that alcohol and drugs affect me differently than those who aren't, somehow, predisposed to this disease. I started to notice that every time I worked with a patient whose family appears to be devoid of addiction, I find out that the patient had been adopted, and in the biological family history, there is some kind of addiction.
My family history is peppered with alcoholism, and somewhere along the road, I crossed the "invisible line", and lost the ability to control my drinking and using. I was aware that drugs and alcohol were destroying my life, but was powerless to stop. It has been my experience that even the brightest and most successful of my clients who suffer from this disease, can not regain control of their using, once addicted.
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About Dallas Taylor - Alcoholism - Intervention - Interventionists |
