Addiction comes in many different shapes and forms; and can be classified as mild, moderate or severe. An individual may not fit into the box of having an alcohol use disorder or an addiction to alcohol, but they may be a binge drinker or problem drinker. A person in other words may occasionally be unable to control their substance use or their alcohol use may occasionally cause problems in their life. What we know about addiction is it is a progressive disease. If left untreated, addiction will progress in severity with time. If alcohol, drugs, gambling, TikTok, gaming or other behaviors are causing a problem in your life or a loved one’s life then it should be enough to recognize that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Intervention and treatment can often occur with honesty and awareness before one suffers the consequences that inevitably come with a substance use problem.
If you answer yes to any of the below questions, your relationship with an addictive substance or addictive behavior is something you should take a closer look at.
- Have you had times when you ended up engaging in your behavior more, or longer, than you intended?
- Have you more than once wanted to cut down or stop your behavior, or tried to, but couldn’t?
- Have you spent a lot of time engaging in your behavior or spent time recovering from the aftereffects of your behavior?
- Have you wanted to engage in your behavior so badly you couldn’t think of anything else?
- Have you found that engaging in your behavior often interferes with taking care of your home or family? Or caused career troubles? Or financial problems? Health problems?
- Have you continued to engage in your behavior even though it was causing trouble with your family or friends?
- Have you given up or cut back on activities that were important or interesting to you, or gave you pleasure, in order to engage in your behavior?
- Have you continued to engage in your behavior even though it was making you feel depressed or anxious or adding to another health problem?
- Have you had to engage in your behavior much more than you once did to get the effect you want? Have you increased the frequency, duration or quantity of use or engagement in the behavior?
- Have you found that when you stopped engaging in your behavior for hours or days you had withdrawal symptoms, such as trouble sleeping, shakiness, restlessness, irritability, agitation, depression, sweating, or other unwanted psychological or physiological symptoms.
Our team at Hill Recovery is happy to meet with individuals and/or their loved ones to help determine whether substance use is crossing the line, or has crossed, into addiction.
Write in with your questions: erin@hillrecovery.com