From that second, it's like everything changed

Addicts are weak. Weak of mind, weak of character. They're wilfully self-destructive. They're unbearably selfish. They must be. Otherwise they'd stop hurting themselves and hurting others as well, right?

Well, wrong.

Repeated use of drugs and alcohol alters the way the brain works, and consequently thought, speech and action. Addiction is a chronic, relapsing brain disease.


ABC News published an excerpt recently from a new book Addiction: Why Can't They Just Stop?
http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=2929254&page=1

What experts said in the excerpt:

Gantt Galloway, PharmD, a scientist in the Addiction Pharmacology Research Laboratory at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco, explains, "If we look at recovery as a lifelong process that may include one or many relapses, a far more realistic view of success emerges. We need to think of a treatment trajectory: it may take five, seven, nine times before they get it. Chronic depression has similar success rates. Seizure patients? The noncompliance rate is just as high. High blood pressure? All they have to do is take their medicine. It's not as difficult as staying sober, but the rate of noncompliance is just as high."

Michael Dennis, PhD, a senior research psychologist in the Lighthouse Institute of Chestnut Health Systems in Bloomington, Illinois, says that 70 percent of the patients relapse after their first time in treatment. "It's not like fixing a broken bone," he says.

"It's not as simple as just saying no, or just stopping," he argues. "Once someone's arrived at the chronic condition of alcohol or drug dependence, it's not that easy for them to quit."

The excerpt featured some examples of the impact of addiction on the addict's life and the impact on the family. As well as a few true-life stories. Highly sobering, with a Gallup drug addiction poll of 902 adults last year showing that the words immediate family members used were "devastating", "abusive", and "horrible" to describe the strain on their emotional health. Almost half said they suffered from shame over having an addicted family member.

The website also has a video interview in which scans of the brain are shown and how the brain is affected by drug or alcohol addiction. The visual evidence was most stark: The lights literally go out on the brain after addiction but the brain does start recovering from the abuse after 100 days.

The good news from the book and the excerpt: Addiction can be successfully treated but it takes time.

When reading through the excerpt, especially the real-life stories, I was drawn to Psalm 31:9-17 and 31:23-24

Have mercy on me, O LORD, for I am in trouble;
My eye wastes away with grief,
Yes,my soul and my body!
For my life is spent with grief,
And my years with sighing;
My strength fails because of my iniquity,
And my bones waste away.
I am a reproach among all my enemies,
But especially among my neighbors,
And am repulsive to my acquaintances;
Those who see me outside flee from me.
I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind;
I am like a broken vessel.
For I hear the slander of many;
Fear is on every side;
While they take counsel together against me,
They scheme to take away my life.

But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
My times are in Your hand;
Deliver me from the hand of my enemies,
And from those who persecute me.
Make Your face shine upon Your servant;
Save me for Your mercies’ sake.
Do not let me be ashamed, O LORD, for I have called upon You;
Let the wicked be ashamed;
Let them be silent in the grave.

Oh, love the LORD, all you His saints!
For the LORD preserves the faithful,
And fully repays the proud person.
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart,
All you who hope in the LORD.