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didn't help themselves. Treatment helps, but is can't provide the motivation to develop healthy habits and stick to them. Hence, the many volumes on how to help people get and stay motivated.
Many people wake up one day, decide to change their lives and do so successfully, without help. It is highly unlikely that any of them are addicts in the sense the word has taken - someone who has lost control of their impulses and truly cannot manage themselves. The whole thing that defines addiction is the fact that addicts want very badly to do better and cannot count on themselves to stick to anything they try. It's a pretty scary way to live. In that respect, there are very few addicts who get better without the help of someone, some thing, or some power outside of themselves, or all three, that they turn to for help when they cannot continue to do it on their own.
It's messy, and pretty far from normal life.
Congrats to your daughter, Linnie. She got her toughness from somewhere.
Oh, and nobody knows much about addicts who haven't passed through treatment centers because the 12-step organizations don't keep stats, out of a firm conviction that people's anonymity needs to be protected, and nobody knows much about folks who try on their own. Just about everybody I've ever met who came to treatment voluntarily had tried a bunch of times on their own. A fair number of the folks who were sent by courts were secretly glad somebody had sent them. That's a lot of people, but by no means organized and scientific.
The one thing of which I am certain is that it's hard.
We will now return to our normal political bickering. |
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There is no such thing as an addict who is symptom free who New 
BoaterTalk 
