Signs It’s Time to Seek Help for Your Addiction

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All too often, people suffering from substance abuse, whether drugs or alcohol, they don’t see rock bottom coming. Recalling their accounts, it’s a common story to be told that they were surprised to wake up one day and suddenly realize the truth about the situation.

By then, usually, they would have already lost a lot about their old life: relationships with family and friends, jobs, possessions, or even a home. No matter how different these stories start out, however, what is certain is that this descent to rock bottom did not happen overnight. This would have been a steady decline, some faster than others, with plenty of red flags coming up along the way. 

If you think you’re currently on this descent, but are still aware enough to want to do something about it, or if you think you could be someone who would need help sooner or later, here are some telltale signs you could keep an eye out for. 

You Experience Withdrawal Symptoms

It starts out benign enough. You drink a glass of wine or a bottle of beer before going to bed. It’s healthy enough in moderation anyway, right? But then something happens and that one serving suddenly increases to two more, three more. 

If it’s drugs, the escalation may come in the form of needing more doses, or popping a pill more frequently. 

Whichever substance it is, you need to look out for withdrawal symptoms. If you find yourself having an intense craving for alcohol or drugs, if you begin feeling withdrawn from your usual social circle and instead prefer to be alone so you can be free to drink alcohol or do drugs, or if you find that your normal dose isn’t doing anything for you anymore so you feel the need to increase it, then you’re going through withdrawal. 

Mood swings, irritability, anger, arising health issues, increased frequency of use or intake over time, self-harm, or endangerment of others are also some other signs of withdrawal. 

Impact on Family, Friends, Career

It’s usually the people around you who would first notice the changes or the withdrawal symptoms. This is because you’re acting differently from your usual behavior. 

You may start flaking out on your plans with them more frequently, or you’re lashing out at them for no reason. You could be slipping at work, coming in late, missing deadlines, being sloppy with your tasks. 

By this time, your dependency has gotten to a point where you can no longer hide the effects it has on you, although you may still be able to hide definitive evidence that you are indeed abusing the substance. 

Desire to Stop but Inability to Do So

In certain cases, it’s possible that you have particularly high self-awareness, which means that you do recognize the journey you’re on at the moment. There might even be a strong desire to turn things around, seeing how your substance use and abuse have been affecting your daily life and your personal relationships. 

Attempts at quitting cold turkey are common, and failing at it especially so. That’s because people tend to underestimate just how deep an addiction they already have, while at the same time overestimating their ability to handle it. 

In this case, it’s much better for you to seek professional help from centers like Gallus Medical Detox Centers (https://www.gallusdetox.com/). These facilities have treatment programs that can address your issues, and could even provide a custom-fit treatment for you, depending on the factors surrounding your condition.

How Drug Addiction Affects Relationships

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Being in love with an addict can be challenging, even if you aren’t aware of your partner’s condition. Addicts do not disclose their status quickly, and it may take you long before you learn the truth. They can hide, but their behaviors and attitude towards relationships will still manifest.

How to Tell if Your Partner is a Drug Addict

If you have doubts about your partner’s condition, it’s better to investigate them for your sake and theirs too. These signs may indicate that your partner is using drugs.

  • Changes in their sleep patterns
  • Feeling unwell when not at home for more than a day
  • Coming back after an outing with a different mood from how they left the house
  • If you find syringes or small plastic bags in the garbage
  • Leaving the house on short notice with excuses to see a friend, etc.
  • Spending cash they cannot account for, and money disappearing at home
  • Vomiting, nausea, sneezing, and anxiety

Problems Associated with Drug Addiction

Violence

An addict is a mentally unstable person, and the long-term use of drugs can make someone aggressive. Arguments and physical abuse may break a relationship or cause trauma to a loved one. Seek professional help here https://www.infiniterecovery.com/and improve your relationship.

Abuse and Anger

Shouting at your partner, using abusive words, etc., are some of the hurtful things addicts subject to their partners. The condition may deteriorate if the person is taking drugs known for increasing anger and aggression, such as cocaine, alcohol, steroids, prescription stimulants, and MDMA. On the other hand, a loved one can also turn violent against the addict due to the frustrations they cause them. If you constantly hurt someone, they tend to defend themselves too.

Secrecy

Partners who take alcohol or drugs may not open up due to shame, fear of blame, or guilt. In most cases, addicts feel they’ve wronged their partners, and they may not forgive them once they find out the truth. So, all they do is lie about where they are, why they don’t have cash, who they are with, etc. after some time, secrecy will turn into isolation or distancing from their partners, which may cause a breakup.

Decreased Sexual Intimacy

Sexual intimacy is necessary for a healthy relationship. Unfortunately, drug and substance users have poor or no sexual feelings towards their partners. Some drugs are known for causing erectile dysfunction, making it difficult for a man to have sex. Other addicts concentrate too much on their drugs that they don’t find time for their partners. Also, mistrust, abuse, and anger may cause reduced sexual intimacy, which may lead to breakups.

Loss of Trust

Couples enjoy relationships because they trust, love, and care for each other. With the increased deception and lies, a loved one is likely to lose trust and loyalty to the addict or alcoholic. Broken trust leads to anger, resentment, hatred, and mistrust issues among partners. It is hard to bring back broken trust unless the partner is ready to forgive you.

Enabling Behaviors

Your actions may directly or indirectly make it easier for an addict to continue using substances or drugs. Unfortunately, many enablers do not realize that they help an addict get away with addiction without repercussions. Some of the enabling behaviors are; failure to correct a person to avoid making them angry, making excuses for their habits, denying that a loved one is an addict, taking drugs with the person to give them company, and covering for their responsibilities.

Both partners can mend a broken relationship if the drug addict is ready to get treatment. It is hard to maintain a healthy relationship when one is addicted. Talk to your partner, give them hope, and they’ll go for treatment. Please encourage them to join support groups to regain their self-esteem.

I grieve

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Sweat was hiding the tears as they trickled down my flushed cheeks. Most tears these days have been shed in silence, in hiding. Now I stand in the middle of a busy gym on the outskirts of Orlando. The smell of wet iron, the hint of copper, humbled by my current experience of feeling weak handling the iron, exposing my current internal weaknesses; which has been making every attempt to hide any feelings. Swallowing back the pain, unloading the plates off the bar, collecting my things, I went to my car to sob and further hide any visible pain.

Out of the industrial constructs and into the woods of the Florida state road to the place I now call home. The driving is soothing, but the tears continue to stream down my face, the sadness feels warm in my chest and almost overwhelming, as I feel the tightening and fight the feeling of my adrenaline. I am alone. My day is surrounded by the four walls that protect me from the world outside. Bearing these feelings is exhausting as I hide the pain from my entire family. A single friend, one near and dear, friends for over a decade and never meeting in person, has been my audience. My audience of one outside of The Chad who knows my struggle.

Having uprooted my family from Phoenix nearly eight weeks ago I have tried to find where exactly I fit. When I moved to Albuquerque in 1997 I immediately found my niche. I was able to meet people quickly. At work, within the community, my father’s associates, their spouses; friends and a community were no struggle. Having met The Chad, he became my community, my family, we combined and made it our community together. His friends mine and vice versa. Moving to Phoenix in 2003 The Chad and I struggled a bit to find our place. A young couple with a new baby created limitations in our social interactions, but still we managed to create a small community for ourselves over the past several years, and still surrounded by family, albeit my family this time while his still remained in Albuquerque.

Today, I find myself completely lost. Unsure where to start. I started by joining a gym in hopes of meeting other like minded individuals, women and men. Surely I could meet others the way I found a home with my former gym family; a way to escape the desert of the work from home life as a writer. Solitary work as a writer, I find myself the epitome of the stereotype. Searching for words, the strain to write anything of meaning otherwise the message nothing more than just text, I dare not share the conflict and strife of my intimate life for fear of pity or worse, more rejection. The shame of sadness, of feeling. Singularity yet again. Who would care to read the text of some random human. Such a balance of payments. Alone in my work, alone in the iron, alone in my thoughts.

This post was terrifying enough to write. I know my father is reading, possibly my mother, all privy to the solitary confinement of my feelings. Locked away for the past eight weeks as I have pushed through in eldest child fashion. Soldier on, as I always have, making every futile attempt to exhibit happy. When truly I grieve.

The feeling I have wrestled with like Heracles and Anateus, grief, crushing me. The past year has been a year of grieving for me that I have denied myself. The loss of a person I considered a dear friend, while she is still living, our friendship (in spite of my earnest and loving efforts) died. The devastating loss of my grandmother. Upon receiving the news of her passing I was greeted with house guests, soldiering on, I never had moments to grieve like I felt I should. Now I grieve the loss of a former life.

Life was almost Zionistic. My husband and I were both afforded the opportunity to work from home. In constant enjoyment of one another’s company. We never tired of each other, and were like love sick teenagers anytime one was away from the other. A wonderful community of people who banded together, as any village would, to be a part of our children’s lives where we could each rely on another for support. Neighbors that would dole out a ration of grief if they didn’t get the text you had a party when they were on a nightly constitutional through the neighborhood and saw more cars than normal in your driveway. Siblings to come to dinner and weekend pool parties, having long, philosophical talks of nothing and everything all at once. Enjoying watching my children flourish in this community we helped to build for them as well.

Now I grieve. Typing as a release in my grief, of a life I left 2194 miles away. My entire family. My friends. My home that I had raised my children for the last 14 years. I grieve and I am lost. My tropical, vacation like environment leaves me lost and bewildered of where to next. Where do I go from here? How do I start over at 40? My surroundings unfamiliar and what once felt like an adventure now brings about dread and loneliness. An occasional phone call, a random tag on a Facebook post, but nonetheless the day-to-day is habitual and regimented, empty and unfulfilling.

I prepared for everything in our cross country move. Everything had a box, a schedule, an arrangement, a preparedness. What I never prepared for was what I would feel once all the boxes were unloaded. After the final tractor trailer delivered our belongings. When my license plates no longer shimmered of purple majestic mountains across a burning horizon with the shadow of the saguaro. What I never planned for was the grief and the reality of being alone.

Weathering the Storm

No better euphemism could apply to my life than this over the past few months. You see, so much has happened to our family since April of this year. We like to believe that everything in this life happens for a reason, whether divine or not, we like to think mostly divine; the experiences we have in this life tell the larger story of the beauty of the human spirit. Needless to say these experiences we have endured over the last several months have kept us busy and away from the virtual world to share with others. Continue reading “Weathering the Storm”

Summer Fun with Krazy Air

A few years ago a new sports type facility opened up in our neighborhood here in Mesa, AZ. The place is called Krazy Air. What the heck is Krazy Air, I thought, as I drove by the facility. Well, low and behold, the business is the joy I had experienced as a child, a sea of trampolines to bounce around on. As temperatures heat up here in Phoenix, we all head indoors for summer fun, Krazy Air is offering some crazy fun this summer at their facility. We as a family have spent many a birthday parties and afternoons at the facility to wear out the kids and just have an all around awesome time. I mean, who wouldn’t want to jump on indoor trampolines? Continue reading “Summer Fun with Krazy Air”

Summer Pup Care – Keeping Your Dog Happy and Healthy

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Summer Pup Care

This past weekend marked the official start of summer here in Phoenix. We are now well into the warm 100 degree weather which means we take extra precautions when dealing with the heat and with traveling with our fur family. Our dogs have to go outdoors so we are sure to have our summer pup care plan in place even when they have a dog door, and we are sure to check on their overall health during these warmer months. With being outdoors and warmer weather, that means travel for some families to escape the heat. Potential hazards arise with all these factors, dog owners should take extra precautions for summer pup care. Continue reading “Summer Pup Care – Keeping Your Dog Happy and Healthy”

The New Mom Smell

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This month one of my dearest friends had her very first child. I could not be more elated for her and her fiance. I could not be more ecstatic that she has been reaching out to me for advice as she maneuvers the road of motherhood. In all of our talks what I have found is how our society has created an environment where they prepare us to be a parent in every clinical and technical sense. These parenting classes sell all the beauty and excitement of the new mom smell. Yet all of these parenting classes, coaching, and boot camps fail to prepare parents, especially moms, for the emotional gauntlet that they run in their first hours, days, weeks (and beyond) of becoming a mother. Continue reading “The New Mom Smell”

Outdoor Spring Activities – Physical Fitness Month

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Hard to believe that we are already into May and almost half way through the year. Spring is in full swing with warmer weather, plants are in bloom, and a great time to get outdoors and get active. May is National Physical Fitness and Sports Month—which makes it the perfect time to renew your commitment to a healthy, active lifestyle while inspiring your kids to do the same. Continue reading “Outdoor Spring Activities – Physical Fitness Month”

To Tina With Love

My grams was not one to tell stories to a crowd, she let her writing paint those pictures for you. Story telling was reserved for my Grandpa to wide eyed grandchildren who wouldn’t know if the amazing tales he told were laden in fiction or extravagantly webbed with truth. However, a story to be told is the story of my Grams, how God worked in her life and she wove His story through all of ours.
Continue reading “To Tina With Love”

Emotional Investments

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I began this post a year ago to the day. The genesis came from a call to my brother after visiting my Dad; at that moment my brother was on my mind and I wanted to say hello to him. I felt in my heart to reach out to my brother based on a chapter in his life, a chapter I had once visited and today find myself still in the process of writing. On our call he mentioned that he was short of calling me at the same moment as he received a package I sent him along with my handwritten letter. We laughed at the fact people never write letters anymore, just emails. I rather enjoy the catharsis in writing letters, something very intimate about pen to paper. Call the letter an emotional investment of time, efforts, love. Continue reading “Emotional Investments”