01.30.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:24 am by community
As we haved learned throughout time, Narcotic Addictions can be very difficult to overcome and many of us may ask, Why? Core issues are the result of years of self-neglect. These issues can affect the way you live your day to day life and cause strain on relationships and family ties. Eventually leading to substance abuse, after repeated encounters with trying to quit.
Key areas for self-awareness include our personality traits, personal values, habits, emotions, and the psychological needs that drive our behaviors.
Self-Awareness Theory states that when we focus our attention on ourselves, we evaluate and compare our current behavior to our internal standards and values. We become self-conscious as objective evaluators of ourselves. Various emotional states are intensified by self-awareness, and people sometimes try to reduce or escape it through things like television, video games, alcohol, drugs, etc.
People are more likely to align their behavior with their standards when made self-aware. People will be negatively affected if they don’t live up to their personal standards. Various environmental cues and situations induce awareness of the self, such as mirrors, an audience, or being videotaped or recorded. These cues also increase accuracy of personal memory.
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01.29.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 9:01 am by community
Narcotic Addictions can be some of the most difficult and dangerous Addictions known to man, and facing the fact that you have a problem is a great first step towards Recovery. Narcotic Abuse is one of the most wide-spread Addictions in the world. More than 80% of people with Narcotic Dependencies never seek formal treatment.
Today, teens are also becoming more and more susceptible to drug use due to peer pressure, problems at home, or even boredom. You may ask yourself, what can I do to prevent my teen from becoming so irresponsible and naive? Its simple, recognition is the first step. combined with the knowledge to do better, it can make approaching your son/daughter much easier and provide less tension. If you suspect that your child may be using there are many different options available to those who seek help, the most easily accessible are those online.
Here are just a few of the many help options available online.
- Drug Addiction Helpline
This helpline is dedicated to overcoming drug addiction using a treatment method consisting of 8 phases of treatment that when combined achieve full physical detoxification. - The Watershed Addiction Treatment Programs
This is a 24 hour alcohol and drug addiction information line with qualified referral counselors who can provide you with a free alcohol or drug addiction treatment referral to a licensed rehabilitation center. They even have the option of speaking with a counselor live on the web.
- Recovery Connection
This website focuses more on helping you find group support. Many argue that group support is a good first step is helping you realize that you have a problem. The website aims to connect you to every possible group support out there ranging from Overeaters Anonymous to Codependents Anonymous. Search within your state for a support group meeting near you.
Seeking help is very important to reaching your Recovery goals. Whether it be for you or for someone you love, we all share the same goals. To help make this world a better place with the use of less Narcotics.
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01.28.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:34 am by community
As I sit down to write this, I still can’t believe that this is my story. My name is Nicole and I was a competitive bicycle racer for many years. I wasn’t pro or anything but I loved riding my bike fast. I was physically fit, never a smoker or big drinker and my only real addiction was clipping in and riding.
One morning I was out on a training run and a car turned left in front of me leaving me no time to stop. I flew over the hood and landed flat on my back. The first thing I did was wiggle my fingers and toes and thank the lord they all moved. I knew I wasn’t paralyzed but I couldn’t stand up or move. After the ambulance, the lawsuit and countless hours of physical therapy I found myself addicted to pain medication.
I don’t have an ugly story of addiction to tell. I never woke up in a strange place covered in vomit. I never sold all of my possessions or lost the deed to my house. But I was an addict nonetheless. I couldn’t get off the painkillers.
I kept upping my dosage all on my own. I just didn’t think I was ‘one of those people’, an addict. It was easy for me to rationalize that addicts are all homeless people or that if I was able to go to work I must be fine.
However the pills affected my personality, my relationships, my habits and all the other parts of my life. Finally I found help through a website filled with real honest people who had experiences similar to my own. I learned that addiction is a disease and it can affect ANYBODY. Nobody is ‘too good’ to be addicted.
I was taking an ungodly number of pills to kill the pain of depression, my backache and to keep me out of withdrawal for not taking enough pills! I was barely managing to keep my job and I knew I needed help. I was a shell of the athletic and outgoing person that I was. I knew I needed help and enrolling in rehab saved my life.
I want to share my story because there are millions of Americans out there addicted to prescription drugs. My addiction snuck up on me after a devastating accident and my growing addiction to the meds just made everything worse. I was a working professional woman with a good head on her shoulders.
I was an athlete and proud of my body but my body took control of me for a while. I needed help and I asked for it. Please, if my story strikes a chord with you, please do not be afraid to ask for help. There are people out there waiting to help you become whole again.
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01.27.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:07 am by community
Self-awareness is the concept that one exists as an individual, separate from other people, with private thoughts and individual rights. It may also include the understanding that other people are similarly self-aware.
Self-awareness is a self-conscious state in which attention focuses on oneself. It makes people more sensitive to their own attitudes and dispositions. Sometimes when self-consciousness is not taken to mean shyness or embarrassment, it is used synonymously with self-awareness:
Self-consciousness is credited only with the development of identity (see ego). In an epistemological sense, self-consciousness is a personal understanding of the very core of one’s own identity. It is during periods of self-consciousness that people come the closest to knowing themselves objectively. Jean Paul Sartre describes self-consciousness as being “non-positional”, in that it is not from any location in particular.
Self-consciousness plays a large role in behavior, as it is common to act differently when people “lose one’s self in a crowd”. It is the basis for human traits, such as accountability and conscientiousness. Self-consciousness affects people in varying degrees, as some people self-monitor (or scrutinize) themselves more than others. Different cultures vary in the importance they place on self-consciousness but the individual remains self-motivated rather than socially driven.
Source: Wikipedia
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01.26.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 9:41 am by community
Cocaine use has been around for many years and is a highly potent stimulant that is considered to be one of the greatest drug threats to the world because of the violence associated with trafficking and use, the physical and psychological effects associated with its use, and the costs to society as a whole.
In today’s fashion industry, cocaine is abused by more and more models every year in a sad attempt to lose weight. With the added pressure of young Hollywood, models seek to obtain that rail-thin look in order to gain more jobs and become that much closer to becoming a “super star”.
In 1998, the release of GIA, starring Angelina Jolie, Gia chronicles the true story of the rise and fall of Gia Marie Carangi, one of the top model in the late ’70s and early ’80s.
During a period when models were usually thin and blond, Gia became widely successful with her dark and sexy looks and her willingness to do nude photo shoots.
She tries to form a relationship with her mother (who abandoned Gia as a child); and later turns to cocaine and heroin to deal with her emotions. The addiction is no secret, and she almost loses her modeling career when she starts to nod off because of heroin at runway shows and photo shoots.
After going through detox, Gia still did not feel well and eventually discovered she had AIDS after a visit to the hospital. She was one of the first women to be diagnosed with the disease and died at the age of 26.
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01.23.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:24 am by community
The U.S. Narcotic Farm just outside Lexington, KY, was a legendary meeting place for America’s drug addicts. Now, a new book and documentary, “The Narcotic Farm: The Rise and Fall of America’s First Prison for Drug Addicts”, tells the story of the federal prison in Kentucky which was a temporary home for thousands, including Sonny Rollins, Peter Lorre and William S. Burroughs as well as a lab for addiction treatments such as LSD.
From 1935 to 1975, just about everyone busted for drugs in the U.S. was sent to the United States Narcotic Farm outside Lexington, Ky. Equal parts federal prison, treatment center, research laboratory and farm, this controversial institution was designed not only to rehabilitate addicts, but to discover a cure for drug addiction.
According to the book, the institution became a premier center for research into drug addiction and treatment, advancing everything from the use of methadone to treat heroin withdrawal to drugs that blocked the action of opiates.
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01.22.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:36 am by community
More and more celebrities are being admitted in Rehabilitation centers all over the world, and are struggling to keep up with their Recoveries. Having the money, the stress of public life and the connections that they do, it is easy to see why and how these celebs cant stop falling into the trap of Narcotic use.
If you can remember back to when Betty Ford had her addiction to painkillers and Alcohol, she was able to get herself help and was even able to open up the infamous Betty Ford Clinic shortly after her Recovery. So it is possibly to overcome these types of Addictions and help others get help as well.
Located on stunning Mount Timpanogos overlooking Robert Redford’s Sundance resort, Cirque Lodge is one of the USA’s poshest rehabilitation retreats. Perhaps that’s why A- and B-listers like Lindsay Lohan, Eva Mendes, Mary-Kate Olsen and Kirsten Dunst have landed at its doorstep.
Though these types of lavish rehabilitation centers may seem like a vacation, they have helped many celebrities get back on track after long standing addictions.
A short list of recent celebrities who have attended rehab for various addictions include Robin Williams, John Belushi, Robert Downey Jr, Ben Affleck, Michael Jackson, Marshall Mathers (Eminem), Whitney Houston, Elton John, Samuel Jackson, Ozzy and Kelly Osbourne, Nicole Ritche, and Winona Ryder.
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01.21.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 9:35 am by community
Check out this neat recovery Cartoon I found!
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01.20.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 8:24 am by community
The purpose of medical narcotics is ultimately for relief of pain. It is a terrible for doctors to fear that their patients will become addicted. There are many positive ways to use narcotics in medicine. Relief of chronic pain from diseases such as cancer or circumstances such as injuries or operations are just ways that narcotics are used in a positive manner. Doctors can also prescribe narcotics for other conditions.
The difference between narcotic addiction and narcotic dependence can be learned by studying the ways that narcotics are properly used.
While using opioids for an extended period of time, an increase of dosage is usually required to alleviate pain. If individuals develop a need because they stop using narcotics, that is known as dependence.
Addiction can be better classified as a habit which is both compulsive and destructive, especially when speaking of using opioid for reasons other than pain relief.
Addiction is when the consumption of narcotics becomes both compulsive and destructive. This is especially true when speaking of opioid use for purposes other than pain relief.
Another important point to keep in mind is that an intervention, however brief, may make all the difference in the world to getting the addict back on track to restoring his/her health.
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01.19.09
Posted in Narcotics Anonymous at 9:47 am by community
What do you do with yourself? – You’re having a hard time thinking about how to spend your time like a “normal” person. You have spent so many years doing self destructive things with your free time that you don’t have the first clue about some constructive pass times.
You have to think about the old saying that “Idle hands are the devil’s playground”…it’s a saying for a reason. You can get yourself into some trouble if you don’t have things set in place to keep you busy.
Starting from scratch and starting your life over after a Narcotic Addiction is not easy as many recovering addicts lose family members, loved ones and/or acquire thousands of dollars in debt in the long road of addiction and starting over can be pretty gloomy. There comes a time where you just want to learn to live your life differently.
Narcotic Addictions can be very emotionally and physically draining. Those who want to help you, but were never addicted themselves, have little to share on the subject, as their experience and beliefs are based on information provided by equally misinformed books and experts.
As time passes, you will certainly get more comfortable with the idea of recovering from your addiction. You will also begin to feel that you are able to pick up other activities not related to recovery. After you begin to develop more established life and coping skills which will allow you to eliminate the urge to use.
Realize that, if your environment has changed because of your addiction, all is not lost. If your family left or you lost your job or even if you lost some aspect of your life, the final decision that you make to move on with your life is the one that matters the most above all. You still have yourself and, in the long run, that is truly all that matters. Spend some time with your real self, as you might be surprised at who you just found!
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