Addiction and Booze
Stone Mountain Georgia
Addiction is a severe condition that must be immediately addressed before it totally consumes a person’s whole life and being. There have been thousands of books and films that attempted to tackle the horrors of both alcohol and drug addiction over the years. Some famous accounts like the critically acclaimed book ‘Go Ask Alice’ mirror a terrifying reflection of a dark side of our society. While it is already known by most that addiction has already enrooted itself in the American psyche and the American way of life, the statistics that are collected yearly regarding the immense role of addiction to the lives of the average American still continue to shock people. What’s even more staggering is that more and more teenagers get involved in different kinds of addiction yearly. While the numbers of teens doing drugs and slipping into the bottle continue to rise, the ages of these teens involve continue to get younger.
A closer look at the statistics would help us all understand the immensity of this problem in the society. According to the statistics from 2008, 6.2 million Americans in a single month admittedly said that they have taken heavy medicine without proper medical prescriptions. 4 million people ages 12-60 appealed for professional help in curing drug and alcohol addiction that year. On the other hand, more than 19 million Americans admit to continuous intake of illegal drugs—the most popular and most widely used of which is Marijuana, used by 12% of those surveyed, a quarter of which are aged 18-24. An average of 19,000 people die of drug addiction in the United States alone, while an average of 600,000 emergencies reported yearly are caused by illegal drug intake. Most of the reported deaths and emergency cases are from drug intake mixed with excessive alcohol drinking, too. If that is not enough, the markets for Marijuana, Cocaine, and Heroine have all proven to be gold mines, earning over a billion per year in the black market.
The use of illegal drugs and the addiction on alcohol have both taken over millions of lives. Many famous people’s careers and lives have been utterly destroyed by this condition. Families have been broken, and ties were destroyed all because of the drug-induced hell that once the body tastes, eventually the body will always crave. Even lives of little children have been taken by this demon. US statistics now include kids as young as 12 year olds in their records because of how the percentage of drug users even at this early age has significantly grown.
Drugs do not only destroy the life of the one who consumes it. The life of an addict literally affects the life of those around him—the lives of the ones he loves. You cannot separate the horrors of an addict’s lifestyle from the in-born ties he has with his friends and family. Thus, when an addict decides to ruin his life and succumb to the sirens of the drugs or the alcohol, there will always be wounds inflicted on his family members and friends, both socially and psychologically.
With all that stated, it is important that we all recognize how addiction is a social taboo and how lives could still be saved, with proper help of friends, families, and professionals, even when they’re already depending and living on pills and booze. Drugs and booze take over a person’s way of thinking, and so their actions might not always be conscious ones. With this in mind, it is vital that despite hardships and difficulty, the addict’s family and friends still reached out to him. The thing that worsens addiction is the feeling of loneliness and the feeling of being misunderstood. There are many reasons why a person is pushed to turn to illegal drugs and alcohol for comfort. A person may be taking in illegal drugs as a sign that he needs help, but is too weak to ask for it. Without people reaching out and trying their hardest to understand and support him, an addict’s condition could get worse, until he is already completely eaten up by the effects and implications of drugs.
A family’s support is important to a person who is trying to fight and overcome addiction. The people around an addict should continuously show how drugs and alcohol is not the answer. According to one account, a person becomes addicted to something in search of finding that high that will make everything else—every pain and suffering—go away. It’s a defense mechanism against the harsh and cruel world. With proper guidance and support, a person addicted to a substance would soon find that he need not turn to drugs anymore because there are actual people who understands his situation, and who will help him get through.
The best way for families to show support is by hiring professional help in alleviating the condition of their loved one. Georgia has some of the best institutions that offer free help to these people who have been victims of illegal drugs and alcohol. A Stone Mountain drug rehab center found in Georgia specifically adheres to such cases.
Integrated Life Center, a Stone Mountain drug rehab center, focuses on substance abuse treatment services, mental health services, and a mixture of both. It is a non-benefit organization founded in 1999 with the main purpose of providing comprehensive care to abandoned and homeless people with varying degrees of mental problems caused by addiction to illegal substances, teenagers who want to finally put an end to their addiction for the sake of their families and their future, Couples and even families who are suffering from the effects and implications of drug abuse. Patients could either be for long-term treatment sessions, or short assessments from time to time. On the other hand, Integrated Life Center, Inc. is not only a Stone Mountain drug rehab facility, but it also provides detoxification services for patients who are addicted to alcohol.
No matter what type of addiction it is, addiction should be alleviated before it gets even worse.
