Again simply put your Dad is right. It is your choice and you can quit. It will be tough but you can do it. If your dad never had a problem he will never fully understand what it takes to get clean. Sorry it stinks but that's the truth of it. You gotta want it and only you can make it happen. Reach out and get all the help you can get.
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It's an obsession of the mind. It says so in the books. Our minds are different from people who can start and stop. Yes you have to want to stop but also need a sponsor and reading materials and even then it's incredibly hard but you will have to fight it and learn about yourself. Addiction is not about will power and quitting is about wanting help. How far you will go to get help and make changes. It's a forever process.
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Definately a choice. Eventually you get so tired of being sick all the time plus in some cases you have what I call a major reality check when someone close to you dies from doing it. I did heroin over twenty years and ignored everyone for the longest time when they would try and tell me how to live. My last overdose is what made me stop. I cared about how it would effect my daughter if I did die and she was in tears when she got to the hospital. That was all it took to make me realize that it's just not about me,,it effects those who actually do love you and it's not fair on them what you put them through in the process doing it
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Listen, my mom said the same thing to me âjust quit itâs easyâ. Well mam if weâre easy we would all be off the bandwagon. Truth is, we self medicate and create a co-dependency with substances because we may not have the tools I.e coping mechanisms to deal and overcome. Alcohol has been my go to when I become overwhelmed with anxiety. I say we try find the root cause of our need to use and go from there. Healing from trauma, pain , ptsd etc. itâs easy for a black and white person to be so square but the gray area definitely exist .
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Itâs definitely a choice just like right or wrong is a choice but itâs easier to escape reality than it is to face reality so from experience I chose to medicate myself and not face the world.
With me it did have a lot to do with mental illness and why I had to find out what my rock-bottom was and once I did I could I can get started on cleaning myself but you gotta ask your higher power to help you too you canât do it on your own
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Addiction is not a choice, it is recognized as a disease for which we are powerless. The second we take that first hit shot or sip we activate our disease. Once our disease is active we look to fuel our drug habits, desires and obsessions that revolve around our addiction. Doing things we normally wouldnât do in order to stay high. Coming to recovery however is a choice. Staying sober is a choice. Anyone can do it if you really dedicate yourself to the work. Just like anyone can become addicted. Addiction does not discriminate.
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No, turns out I have an addiction disorder. I do understand why it's a choice. But it's the addiction that makes it 100x harder to quit like we really want to. And I'm unsure if my dad has had any addictions. We hardly talk and live together. It's like he don't wanna talk to me at all. I understand his point as I've said. But it's making me feel worse mentally no matter what I've tried. In a WAY he is right. Some people make it out, some struggle worse than others, some don't make it.
Addiction is more than a choice in my opinion, we have biological predispositions to certain things. Alcoholism skips a generation and you think that's a choice? Smoking was a choice when you took that first puff yes and quitting is tricky because the brain is addicted and it requires more than willpower or saying no, your nervous system is involved here and addiction is a disease, a real disease that usually is fueled by trauma, this isn't a choice because if it was I would never choose to have addictive thoughts, smoking I quit years ago but I needed medication
When I made the decision to quit I had to seek help with new coping skills. It was a choice to quit but I couldnât have done it without a lot of support helping me.
What do you mean by ECT? Not sure what that is an abbreviation of. But I think it's a mixture of both a disease and a choice... To pick up a drink or a drug is a choice and to decide to quit is a choice. But for some people one drink or drug use leads to a lot of suffering, and you don't choose that when you first pick it up. (If you're like us, one is too many and a thousand never enough.) And for some people it's not possible to simply choose to stop and then you stop. I needed medical care to be able to stop. I needed family and program support. Disability leave from work (which was unpaid and no health insurance benefits - that really sucks - side note.) And the cravings/obsession/compulsion/urge whatever you call it, this is a disease, a mental illness, like any OCD or intrusive thoughts. I use the same tactics for dealing with it that are used for OCD and schizophrenia. Relapse is also something that's both a choice and a disease - just like relapse in cancer. We have to keep getting help just like someone getting dialysis. And also, if we drink or use for years relatively successfully, and then wind up being addicted, whereas some people party and then move on, that's kind of like some people eat whatever they want but others get obesity or diabetes. There's a genetic predisposition like any disease, as well as environmental factors like any disease.
Go with God, and you'll never go wrong.
May I suggest you read
"The Doctor's Opinion" in The Big Book of AA. Reading this helped change my life and get me sober. This the disease of alcoholism very clearly.
Its murkyâŚitâs a choice until itâs not. And that point is different for everyone.
I donât knowâŚIâm not a doctor. B
At the end of the day I chose to drown my problems with whatever made me feel good. Over and over. Even when I didn't care about who I was hurting. I guess because I didn't care about me I should take some people down with me. Pretty selfish, don't you think. Yes I was selfish and I needed to grow up.