- Hello.
You are about to watch a video produced by
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The third phase of addiction is "disenchantment"--
the "person uses more, and more often,
and uses larger amounts."
- I never really even thought of myself as using--
I was having fun.
And I never thought of myself as dependent until later,
when I looked back and realized
there were long periods of time when
that's all I did, was use, every day.
I couldn't get through a day without using something.
- During disenchantment,
the negative effects outweigh the positive ones,
yet use continues.
This is the classic definition of "addiction"--
"continuing use despite negative consequences."
We still do not fully understand
why some people can stop at this point and others cannot.
- A guy handed me that pill and it was called--
On the street, the terms were
"doojie," "buck-action," "horse," et cetera,
and I remember snorting that substance
and getting real nauseous and sick
and sitting on the toilet stool, not to defecate,
but to try to sweat my way through those feelings
of what's happening to my body
and praying to whatever god I understood, at that time,
to help me get through that.
And, of course, I got through that,
and I remember seeing that guy the next day
and I was like, "Damn, what was that?
Do you have another one?"
- At this point, triggers are many, frequent,
and very strong.
These triggers result in constant thoughts
of getting and using the drug or alcohol
and in avoiding the negative consequences.
The person's normal life disappears.
Now, the craving response starts working overtime.
The person just thinks about the drug
and then has a full-blown physiological response,
as if he or she had already used.
That craving drives the person
to obtain the substance and then to use it.
Very little of this process occurs in the rational brain.
It happens in the addicted brain.
In the disenchantment phase, rational thought is gone
and cravings become very powerful.
Even situations only slightly related to drug or alcohol use
may trigger strong cravings.
- And, along the way, I found myself
continually getting arrested for drunk-in-publics,
continually getting arrested for assaults
and possession of marijuana and certain drugs.
- I was a high school dropout.
I had had several interactions with the police.
I caught a couple of cases.
And, by this time, I went from smoking marijuana
to smoking crack cocaine,
so I was a full-blown crack addict.
And I really didn't realize it, at the time,
I didn't realize I had an addiction.
I just thought that I was making some--
I was just having some trying times.
But those trying times
just spiraled out of control, for years.
I had lost a lot of respect--
or people had lost respect for myself
and it just got out of control,
to the point where I was panhandling on the corners,
selling the shoes off my feet.
I would sell the shoes off your feet, if you allowed me to.
I would steal, I would rob, I would break in people's homes.
And when I was doing these things,
I was never proud, doing them.
- But I just kept going.
When I was 16, my mother became ill,
and was in a lot of medical treatment-- she had cancer.
And when I was 17, she died.
So when I was 16, I started drinking alone.
I would take it from--
my father had a large stock of alcohol in the basement
and I would just steal it.
Or if I went to your house, I would take your alcohol.
I would wait 'til you were somewhere else
and I would find it and drink it.
And I just found alcohol wherever I could go.
- As my disease progressed and as I got older,
it was the same way.
I would, you know, hang out with all the people
that were drinking and drugging
in high school and middle school,
and when they were done, I would go use on my own, you know,
and my using progressed pretty heavily.
I mean, my last few years of high school,
I could safely say I was using five or six days a week.