Review: Understanding Addiction
Lately, we've been focusing on the theme of Understanding Addiction (our previous theme was Options for Helping). As always, our goal is to share with you the best, most useful options you have to help your loved one get clean and sober. Here's a review of information we've found helpful for understanding how addiction works. First, we wrote a very comprehensive post that detailed the following...
What is addiction? - the 4 elements
How do I know? - warning signs to look for
What can I do? - steps to take now (without burning yourself out)
We decided it wasn't enough to cover the topics above without addressing the impact and costs that addiction can take on families. In our post titled Addiction Hurts we discussed some of the most common costs that addiction has on families & what you can do to help you and your family reduce some of the impact.
Next, we heard from a reader who's husband is addicted to both alcohol and marijuana. This reader wanted to understand how drinking and 'getting stoned' can possibly be a disease. And past that, she asked if it truly is a disease, is there hope for a cure? Our resident psychologist and expert in addictions addressed her questions - Dear Dr. T – Is My Husband’s Addiction a Disease?
Onto our podcast - we had two episodes on this topic. In both of them we interviewed Dr. Christeine Terry about addiction...
In podcast episode #02 we discussed how to better understand addiction - what it is, how to identify it, and how family members can respond.
In podcast episode #03 we talked about how addiction affect families, marriages and relationships. We also addressed ideas on how to get support for yourself and your family & how family members can learn skills for how to respond to addiction effectively.
The next topic on our agenda will be Communication Skills.