10 Things The Adult Child Of An Addict Wants You To Know

Here is the final article in our mini-series, looking at the outcome of adults who have experienced living with a parent or parents who were chronically using drugs, binge drinking alcohol or had addictions to both. With their testimony, those currently going through a similar situation may benefit from the experience of those who’ve lived with a parent(s) as addicts before.

There are many adults among us, many of whom you might not recognise with intimate knowledge of what it’s like to grow up with an addicted parent.
Sadly, there are also many people who love those adults and don’t know what it is like to have become an adult who was once a child raised amongst chaos, instability, fear, shame, embarrassment, frustration and even anger.

For many of us, our entire childhood was swathed in dysfunction. As development goes, the severe dysfunction of our childhood probably resulted in severely delayed or stunted emotional, mental, educational, financial and even physical growth in certain cases.

This article is compiled by combining the most commonly felt issues that they’ve experienced when they were younger and had a parent, parents or guardians who were misusing drugs, binging on alcohol and developing an addiction to drugs and alcohol.

7 Things People in Active Addiction Or Recovery Wish You Knew

For many people, a substance addiction aka substance use disorder (SUD) or alcohol use disorder (AUD) was like a living organism that started with the seeds of addiction being planted in our minds. They then slowly grow and grow, constantly stretching its tentacles out of our minds and across our bodies whilst constantly taking a stronger and tighter grip on our body, mind and soul until it reaches the point at which we are completely encased in a thick, black unbreakable case, stronger than platinum or bullet proof glass.

In this article we look at some of the most common misconceptions, lies and myths when it comes to the general public or those who have little to no experience with addictions.
Information gets passed down from parents to children, hence why all of this information is still swimming around out there.

But if we share what we learn with others, challenge wrong information and correct it where you can, the lives of addicts will be much better off. Not only for accessing treatment and therapies, but just to simply tell families and loved ones that they have an addiction without fear of being judged, shamed or even exiled from their families, job and friends just to list a few!…

Recognising Drug And Alcohol Addiction As A Medical Condition & Not A Choice Or Moral Failing

One of the difficulties in recognising drug and alcohol addiction as a disease is it just doesn’t seem like one initially in comparison to others such as diabetes, stroke or blindness.

It doesn’t look, sound, smell and it certainly doesn’t act like a disease. To make matters worse, generally, it denies it exists and resists treatment to the very last second before treatment begins.

Drug and alcohol addiction has been recognised for many years by professional medical organisations such as the NHS, research institutions and leading addiction charities, groups and organisations as a primary, chronic, progressive and also unfortunately sometimes a fatal disease too.

What Hitting Rock Bottom Means For Those Addicted To Drugs And Alcohol

What Hitting Rock Bottom Means For Those Addicted To Drugs And Alcohol

Hitting or reaching rock bottom is the place that some people with severe drug or alcohol use disorder (addiction) must reach before they are finally ready to admit that they have an addiction and finally reach out for help, support, treatment and therapies to change their life around.

Find out more about rock bottom here and how you can change your life around when you find yourself at this lowest possible point.

Seeing Your Own Addiction Or The Addiction Within Those Around You As A Downward Spiral & How To Support Others Without Enabling Them

Addiction is often described as a downward spiral. What this means is that over any significant period of time the life of the individual will deteriorate.

In the beginning, the individual may find that the benefits of using alcohol or drugs outweigh the disadvantages, but over time, this situation reverses. The longer the person remains addicted the more they will end up losing, and if they are unable to end the behaviour, it can eventually kill them.

Helping them without enabling them can sometimes seem like the same thing, however, they aren’t. Find out how and why inside…

The 5 Most Common Behaviour Traits Of An Addict And What You Can Do About It

The behaviour of an addicted person is baffling, frustrating, frightening and sad. The power substances have over the addict is so strong that many people are totally overwhelmed and powerless by it.

Their actions and words are dictated by their need and desire for more drugs and/or alcohol, but those who know and love that person may not be able to understand why they are behaving the way they are or why making permanent changes is so difficult when others who don’t have addictions could make those changes easily.

In this article, we will look at the top 5 most common traits of an addict, how to recognise them and what you can do about them…

How Addicts Justify Their Using/Drinking Behaviour To Themselves And Others & The Top 20 Most Common Lies They Use

Do you want to look like this? These addicts thought they were just like everyone else, carry on reading to find out why.
Addicts are a perfect example of people who put a great deal of effort into justifying their unreasonable behaviours. They want other people to view them as rational because this is how they view themselves and receiving this “approval” from someone else lets them know that their behaviour is acceptable and without and form of negative label being attached to them such as being weak willed, ashamed, embarrassed, frustrated or even hate in some cases.

Find out 20 of the most commonly used excuses and lies used by addicts and the psychology behind this and the consequences that addiction causes, not only on the addict, but those directly and indirectly around them too.

How Addicts Rationalise The Irrational

Those who have never been dependent on an addictive substance will see addicts behavior as highly irrational. They do not have the addict’s ability to rationalise the irrational in order to explain away their own self destruction. This individual is not willfully doing something to cause harm to themselves or other people. As far as they are concerned, what they are doing is right and necessary.

It are these polar opposite thought processes and behaviours that help explain why addiction is so destructive.
Continue reading this article to find out the reasons, science and psychology behind the lies, thought processes and behaviours that addicts employ and how to change this destructive pattern of behaviour.

How And Where Addicts Hide Their Drugs And Alcohol And The Deception That Surrounds It

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT MEANT TO BE USED AS A GUIDE AS TO HOW TO HIDE DRUGS OR ALCOHOL AND IS ONLY MEANT TO SERVE AS INFORMATION FOR FAMILY, FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES TO IDENTIFY WARNING SIGNS! Addiction is messy and causes chaos in a person’s life as well as for family and friends. One

Misconceptions And Myths About Recovery And Addiction

In the lists below you will find some of the most common myths and misconceptions that occur regarding drugs, alcohol and addiction in general, regardless of the substance. It is important that the true facts, statistics and most up to date research findings are published and constant awareness is distributed throughout our communities world wide