Addiction recovery
Throughout my experience with studying addiction, I have also learned that it is immensely difficult for a person to realize that the addiction is there, in his/her life and it is destroying a lot of it. Like, for example, I read an article recently in a popular magazine about a girl who has been taking sleeping pills for a long period of time, but all that time failed to realize that the pills actually grew into an addiction that was ruining her life. Like, originally, she started taking the pills on a Sunday night or whenever she needed to fall asleep to be awake and running the next day, but then she realized that she needed to take the sleeping pills in all other situations, i.e., when she could fall asleep on her own, but did not want to go through the trouble of knowing that she has to wake up at a certain point. Then, the author of the article says that she was spending time with friends, but later had no recollection of what happened during the meeting or the party. Once, she woke up on the plane flight, with a flight attendant bending over her, thinking that she had stopped breathing. In actuality, she overdosed on the pills, and in her sleep seemed to be unconscious. The author then says that she realized that she was actually addicted to the sleeping pills, and sought treatment. Her treatment consisted of the rehabilitation program, the one that typically resembled any drug rehabilitation program. If I remember correctly, she states that the program lasted for several weeks, but she was successful at "winning the battle" and became addiction-free. She had to go through the addiction recovery and detoxification, which, from her narrative, seemed painless and harmless. The author expresses her great joy and satisfaction in having to do the drug rehabilitation program since it has taught her that she is strong and capable of living her life without having to depend on drugs, like sleeping pills. She took a strong hold of her life, and was totally blissfully happy about it. And, generally, from other experiences and interactions, I have learned that addiction is one of the most powerful ways that an otherwise healthy normal individual can lose control of his/her life, surrendering to an outside force that takes more and more out of the person as time goes on.