- Hello.
You are about to watch a video produced by
the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
The last phase of addiction is the "disaster" phase.
At this point, the struggle between
the rational part of the brain and the emotional part is over.
Drug or alcohol use is automatic
and few other thoughts occur, other than using drugs.
In the disaster phase, negative aspects of using
far outweigh the few remaining positive ones.
Triggers now include any emotion,
any time of the day or night, because drug use is pervasive.
The overpowering strength of the conditioned response
results in obsessive thoughts of using,
powerful physical responses, severe psychological dependence,
automatic use,
and persistent paranoia.
The person has sacrificed all aspects of a normal life
to obtain and use drugs or alcohol.
It is impossible
to have a relationship with this person--
the drug has hijacked the rational brain.
- Using was a way of life for me,
so I didn't need a trigger.
I woke up, it's time to use.
- When I first started using, it was insanity.
First of all, I was so young.
I feel like I was very blessed
because I didn't have a lot of criminal involvement
and I didn't have a lot of serious health issues.
I didn't do a lot of things that you see
sensationalized in the media now.
I didn't take my clothes off and dance on bars
and do a lot of that kind of crazy thing,
but, you know, I woke up in parks
and I woke up in cars and I woke up in people's houses
where I didn't know where I was,
simply because I used so much that, you know,
I would completely self-medicate myself,
to where I wasn't conscious.
[speaking in foreign language]
- As far as I was concerned, this was the way to do life.
You know, I was hanging out with other people who were using,
so that gave it a sense of normality,
so it was on from there.
Little did I know, when I started,
that it would become something--
that would essentially consume 30 years of my life.
And, you know, I look back at that
and it's like 30 years I won't ever get back,
30 years that I could've been progressing,
financially, spiritually, socially,
and 30 years that I was just going downhill.
- At this point, just thinking about the drug or alcohol
results in overwhelming cravings and almost certain drug use.
Cravings are so overpowering
that they drown out any ideas about stopping.
- I started dismantling-- or, should I say--
my drug use started dismantling my life, piece by piece.
I was willing to compromise things that I,
you know, never thought I'd have to compromise--
my values, my morals, myself--
and I started losing things.
So, first, I started losing friends.
Secondly, I started losing jobs.
Thirdly, I started pushing my family out of my life.
I did all those things and, eventually,
I created a life for myself that was just about using.
And that's the way it ended.
- You know, after I got the felony,
like I said, I had to take random drug screens
and I was taking in other people's urine,
you know, to get through it, not to get caught.
And, you know, I got caught.
I never was as slick as I thought I was
and I knew that I could not stop, I knew it in my heart.
- You know, it was never fun, it was never social.
And I had a really, really good time in college
and I was very functional and very productive.
The problem was, when all that was over
and everyone went out in the world,
I didn't know what to do and, by then, I couldn't stop
and, by then, it had control of me
and every time I tried not to drink,
because bad things were happening,
that never really worked.
And so, yeah, that was my drinking, in a nutshell.
It was never normal and, most of all--
I think it's important-- it was never halfway.
The person that doesn't have the drinking problem,
this is what they really don't get.
One drink, to the alcoholic, doesn't make any sense.
Going out, having a glass of wine over dinner--
completely pointless, to me.
I would drink solely to get completely,
obliteratingly drunk,
and anything short of that really wasn't acceptable
and it just meant I had to keep going.
There was never any halfway with that.
- You know, we talk, in recovery,
about the insanity of addiction
and the insanity is that, as much as my use of chemicals
was hurting me-- physically hurting me,
collapsing my circulatory system, liver problems,
other types of damage that the drugs were doing--
in my mind, these very chemicals were necessary for my survival.
- I would have one beer or one shot of alcohol
and I could stop whenever I wanted to,
but when the obsession and the thoughts came back,
that I could not wait to be drunk again,
I felt like I had no control and I was scared.
I didn't know what to do then,
and that's when I reached out for help.
- But there is help.
After the break,
we will discuss treatments that help people cope
with the devastating effects of the disease of addiction.