DRUNKENNESS = IGNORANCE !

DRUNKENNESS = IGNORANCE !

99 out of 100 alcoholics and addicts take their first drink or use their first drug for exactly the same reason. To escape from what’s usually a very simple, normal, and common daily event in all of our lives, but too painful for some to tolerate. We can’t face reality, and seek ways to hide from it. When addictions start early with teens, it’s often because of perceived rejection of peers, or perhaps perceived unjust discipline by parents or other authority. Whatever the perceived reasoning, hiding from it will never allow someone to discover reality! Those who turn to drugs and alcohol to escape, will continue to live in a cloud of fantasy until the day they decide to accept their state of denial, and turn from it! While there are many very painful realities in today’s world, accepting, and learning to cope with, and overcome them is vital to growing and maturing.      

Accepting the many hard truths that come with accepting the biggest hard truth, which is that "I'm a drunk, or an addict," can be just as hard as the first! But it's all part of the very long road of recovery which doesn't begin until we completely acknowledge our denial, and begin accepting those many hard truths about who and why we are who we are! The drunk and addict who has been so for a significant period of time needs to realize that they are quite different than their peers, and that it will take some time to “catch up” and “fit in” with others, if they choose to do so.

During the past 15 years working in addiction recovery, I've discovered that reclusiveness is a very common characteristic of most of the people I've worked with.

Whenever an alcoholic or addict makes the choice to use their drug of choice to numb the pain, and silence the harsh realities of life, they are traveling backwards, not forwards. They are not growing, maturing, learning, or moving forwards! They are mired in the present muck that they’ve created. One cannot learn their simple abc’s while inebriated into a state of unconsciousness! The longer a person chooses to stay in their state of drunkenness, the more retarded they become. A thirty year old person, who started using drugs and alcohol to escape reality at 15 years old, has the intelligence of a 15 year old.

Anyone who has experimented with drugs or alcohol just one time, and allowed themselves to get drunk or high, knows that they can’t remember anything from the night before! It only stands to reason that anyone who indulges in drugs and alcohol on a daily basis will experience the same aftermath. They can’t remember anything from the time they spend wasted! The only learning and remembering accomplished by alcoholics and addicts is done so during the occasional moment, hour, or day, when one might experience a short glimpse of sobriety in between their drunken stupors!