Addiction Management And Recovery

Help, support and articles on alcoholism, drugs, codependency, gambling, food, sex, porn and other types of addiction. Find causes, effects, solutions and self-tests to determine the extent of the addiction and to recover.

Addiction Management And Recovery

Addiction Definition:

Addiction can be simply described as a compulsive or obsessive relationship to a substance or behavior. If you feel a "need" for something all the time or at specific times, you may be an addict. This could be a chemical (like drugs, alcohol, or tobacco), another substance (like food or even water), or a behavior (like viewing pictures). To help you recover, we've included many pages on different types of addiction below this text. Here are the best-selling Addiction Recovery Books.

Addiction Symptoms:

It's pretty easy to spot the symptoms of addiction by asking yourself some specific questions: Do I think a lot about the subject (substance or behavior)? Do I frequently use the subject? Do I hide my use of the subject from people I care about? Do I lie to myself or others about my use of the subject? Do I suspect the subject is becoming a problem for me? Are there specific times or circumstances that seem to trigger my use of the subject? Am I doing subject more often than before? Am I doing more of the subject than before? Am I sacrificing people or things I value to do subject? If you said yes to any of these questions, you may have an addiction.

Addiction Causes:

We'll cover the causes of addiction more specifically in the specific addiction pages but, generally, addiction is caused by a feeling of emptiness, incompleteness, or lack...a low self-esteem. Many confuse their triggers with the cause of the addiction. Triggers simply set up the emotional circumstance for the obsessive behavior...they don't cause the behavior. It's popular to blame circumstances outside ourselves for our addictions, like genes, poverty, society. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it defies solution and gives us addicts an excuse to continue. The good news is, because the problem is within us, we can get help, and take part in the solution. This doesn't mean that we're at fault for our addiction, but we are responsible to seek recovery and clean up the messes our addictions cause...and we can!