Addiction is a tough nut to crack – there are an estimated 25 million people in the US struggling with addiction in some shape or form, and while our ability to treat multiple addictions has massively improved, we are still far away from making it a painless process to follow and stick to. It gets especially tough when you run into cases of people who have multiple addictions, creating a need for better recovery practices.
There is more to beating addiction than going to rehab and saying sorry to a few people – it’s a personal and reflective journey through the things you’ve done in life, and it’s an opportunity to change yourself. However, that change takes time, dedication, and will often be beset with issues and speed bumps.
It stands to reason that when someone must fight multiple addictions at once, then their struggle will be exponentially harder as they go through quitting and recovering from the effects of each substance. But the reality is a little bit different.
The Reality Of The “Drug Of Choice”
It is not uncommon to be addicted to two or more things. Some people struggle with alcohol and other drugs. Some people couple an eating disorder with their substance abuse. Some people struggle with sexual addiction, as well as compulsive gambling. Some people self-medicate and are addicted to video gaming. However, it often isn’t until people begin trying to treat one thing that they discover the potency and reality of their other “thing(s)”.
The way multiple addictions can creep up into your life is not necessarily as a set of substances, but as a set of symptoms exhibited through one or more substances. Your drug or drugs of choice do not necessarily reflect why you became susceptible to multiple addictions in the first place, and getting hooked on one kind of drug does not make you immune or disinterested in other narcotics or influential substances.
The substance you are addicted to greatly affects the physical treatment plan necessary to help detox you, ensure a safe withdrawal period, and help undo the damage possibly dealt by your multiple addictions – but at the end of the day, addressing the mental consequences (and potential causes) of an addiction will always require a similar path, one determined not by what you take but by why you take it.
Co-Morbidity Is A Single Challenge
Co-morbidity is the existence of more than one mental illness in a patient. In addiction, a co-morbidity is often the combination of addiction with anxiety, or depression, or trauma. Typically, co-morbidity implies a relationship between the addiction and the mental health diagnosis – and in all cases where such a relationship exists, the treatment that is prescribed needs to address both issues rather than simply focusing on one.
In the case of multiple addictions, it is much the same. The risk of developing multiple addictions is not just a theory, and treating someone struggling with more than one form of addiction still requires a comprehensive, all-encompassing treatment that molds to their circumstances and issues, and addresses all vices and negative coping behavior as part of a single list of symptoms related to environmental factors and psychological/emotional concerns.
It’s not to say that multiple addiction can be solved with a cookie-cutter approach. Rather, troubles with someone’s mental health and physical health must be seen as joint issues related to one another rather than entirely separate. In this case, several addictions must be treated as one person’s struggle towards sobriety.
Multiple Addictions And The Mind
No, this does not mean that there is such a thing as an “addictive personality”. A person’s personality does not tie into their likelihood of getting addicted, unless they have a diagnosed mental illness or other environmental factors such as loneliness, trauma, family issues and peer pressure. However, what it does mean is that people with a predisposition towards multiple addictions (not any specific kind, such as with a genetic predisposition) will likely develop an addiction from any highly addictive substance – and often enough, people use more than one kind of drug. It’s not uncommon to abuse both alcohol and stimulants, for example, or marijuana and pain medication.
The substances you struggle with and the reasons you became addicted to them directly affect the kind of treatment you will have to seek to get better and stay sober. The danger becomes keeping you from developing an overt emotional attachment to something potentially very dangerous and damaging.
For example: going from a heroin dependency to becoming a fitness fanatic is a positive change. There are many ways to indulge yourself in long hours spent at the gym if you eat right, and recover properly. Meanwhile, an addiction to food can become problematic. Stress eating to deal with the newfound problems of your sobriety will lead to added pounds, a miserable mood, and many unfortunate symptoms of rapid weight gain, as well as the dangers of obesity down the road.
Replacing you love for alcohol with a love for coffee can be dangerous, but typically is not. Black coffee, or coffee with minimal additives is rarely dangerous even in atypically large dosages – however, chugging several extremely caffeinated drinks with highly concentrated amounts of caffeine within quick succession can very rapidly and adversely affect the heart and even cause arrhythmia.
The list goes on and on – there are many things you can indulge in to satisfy your cravings for pleasure, but nothing can replace an addiction and still be considered healthy. In moderation, there are countless substances and behaviors that can make life interesting, fulfilling and enriched. But when abused, anything can hurt you. And drugs, given their addictiveness, are easily abused.
The key here is not to think of a thing capable of replacing your multiple addictions – it’s to replace addiction with life. Instead of struggling to regain control over yourself in the face of a substance, it’s about living life and enjoying it in its entirety again. It’s about using recovery as an opportunity to express gratitude and realize self-love. To put it differently, addiction must be tackled as a situation that requires replacement, rather than a vice requiring another source of gratification. A men’s sober living in Houston is a good option to consider for that reason.