Resisting Addiction Treatment

Dr. Paul Hokemeyer, JD, PHD, at Drugabuse.com, lists 9 reasons for people with alcohol and other drug problems resisting addiction treatment. His first reason cited is the idea that people in recovery are losers. Of course, Dr. Hokemeyer doesn’t accept this. According to Dr. Hokemeyer the reality is: People who stay trapped in their addictions are losers.

This is true. Dr. Hokemeyer goes on to write:

They lose out on meaningful relations with the important people in their lives. They lose their dignity and self respect, their health, their money and their hope. They live in the problem when there’s a solution readily at hand. Sure, it takes work to find the right recovery program and even more work to put together a life that’s grounded in sobriety.

Doing the work is what recovery is all about. Too many people think “help” is given to them. As long as “help is something viewed as given from others, recovery will be difficult. Help is something that is actively sought, internalized, then put into practice. The person addicted to alcohol or some other drug is not expected to know how to deal with addiction — this is the purpose of addiction treatment. But the person looking for help has to take the solutions found in treatment and put the solutions to work.

Those who seek treatment and work at recovery are not losers. It takes courage to face a problem like addiction and deal with it, especially when society has so many crazy notions regarding addiction and recovery. The person in recovery is bombarded with all kinds of prejudice and ill-formed ideas regarding addiction. This is why recovery has to be internalized and looked at as winning, not losing.

There are still medical professionals who think someone with an addiction problem is simply weak-willed. Addiction and recovery must be re-examined. Those in recovery, especially, have to re-evaluate old value-judgments. To think that people in recovery are losers is an idea that should be crushed forever. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’ll write later regarding the other reasons for resisting addiction treatment.

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