Addiction is lifelong

I had been contemplating the reaction to my post, above, and I take issue with any quick-and-easy approach to managing any addiction.  Last year, there was an ongoing television advertisement for a very posh treatment center that began with a spokesman saying, "Hi, I'm blah-blah-blah.  I used to be an addict, but now I'm not."  

I have been to too many funerals of people who made the conscious decision to drink, drug, smoke, eat, sex, gamble, or work themselves TO DEATH, rather than acknowledge that they were addicts, and that their addictions were killing them before their times.

Some individuals experience success with various techniques and approaches, but any addiction is a lifelong challenge to manage.  People who have had decades of freedom from their addiction can (and, HAVE) relapsed because of stress or some vague and unknown trigger.  And, the very nature of addiction doesn't cause the addict to pick up where they left off at.  Oh, no.....the cruelty of addiction causes the addict to take up whatever they were addicted to with an unmanageable and unstoppable urge to make up for lost time.  The further out the addict is from the substance or behavior, the harder and longer that fall is from the wagon.

Managing ANY addiction is a whole mind-body-spirit endeavor and it is NEVER simple, easy, or painless.  The physical dependency is a snap in comparison to the psychological issues involved with addictions, and that is what makes recovery from any addiction to be a lifelong challenge , and not simply something that we can wish away.  Once an addict, ALWAYS an addict.