I watch Intervention about once a month - I’ve noticed, at least on the show, that the alcoholics they feature are WAAAAAAY worse than the other addicts they feature.
They have worse behaviour.
They pass out in public (sometimes in their front yard) more often than other addicts.
They’re worse to their spouse/children/reletaives than other addicts - it’s only alcoholics who’ve contradicted the interventionist when told they have a great family. More than one have said they have a shitty family.
Their outcomes tend to be much worse. Many of the other addicts will relapse a couple of times but then seem to get better (not always). The alcoholics NEVER recover. One of them died shortly after being kicked out of rehab. More than one was living in a friggin’ ditch for god’s sake.
So, what’s up with this? Is alcohol the worst addiction to beat? Is it just that the show selects the worst alcoholics they can find? I’ve seen episodes with junkies, meth addicts, crack heads, anorexics, bulimics, etc. They all seem to have better outcomes than the alcoholics.
really depends on what you mean by toughest. Alcoholics tend not to think as highly of their family, IMO, because alcohol is a depressent, whereas a lot of other addictive drugs are uppers. Meth and Heroine, in my experience, are the worst addicts to deal with. Meth addicts will steal from ANYONE, even their good friend of 5 years who’s putting them up for the night because no one else will (yes, I was the good friend). Whereas one can never really kick a heroine addiction, methodone just transfers your addiction from heroine over to methodone.
I’ve certainly heard that tobacco is the absolute hardest addiction to kick, but there aren’t really any scientific measurements for levels of addictiveness, so it’s not really possible to say outright. Plus, some people simply have a more addictive personality than others. My dad quite tobacco cold turkey no problem, whereas my mom had to go through hypnotherapy and other such things.
In a week I will have been free from the binds of numerous drug addictions and alcoholism for 11 years.
I have recently quit smoking. I will be three month without nicotine at about the same time.
Here is my take. You asked about breaking an addition. Not pure withdraws. I feel there is a clear distinction. Having your smokes taken away or your drugs/booze without really wanting to do what it takes to sober up will suck in a severe way.
If your life has gotten so fucked up that anything is better than continuing on with your current behavior it is quite manageable to stop. Even with nicotine. If you have really decided that you have to quit you can do it. It is a big deal yea. I mean addition is real but if you have a desire and a goal and built up strength to get through it they are all about the same. At least in my experience.
Going cold turkey with benzos and alcohol for severe long term alcoholics can kill you. Opiate almost can (or maybe do) Those probably suck the worst.
There is so much bullshit rooted in the alcoholics life. You know what? I feel I fight that more still today than my recent battle with nicotine. Cocaine don’t still fuck with my head, I don’t have issues with meth or opiates anymore. But alcohol an alcoholics seem to be a part of my daily life still. Yea maby alcoholism is the hardest for the long term.
I drank very heavily once upon a time; during that same time period, I abused codeine based pain medication, Valium, and a muscle relaxer whose name I have forgotten. And, of course, I was a long term smoker. I was diagnosed as an alcoholic and as a drug addict. I was locked up in a detox/rehab facility for 21 days. It took a little longer than that for me to break the alcohol and drug abuse, but the facility did motivate me and I did give up abusing those things. I quit smoking with the aid of the patch but quit I did. Giving up smoking was one of the hardest things I’ve done; I would go back to smoking in a heart beat. I still dream about smoking and it is now close to ten years since I quit. My experience seems to be contrary to that of fifty-six. Even so, it is possible to break an addiction. What’s hard is to stay away from your drug of choice afterward.
I think the description of the original poster of an alcoholic may not be accurate either. It seems to me more a way Hollywood views alcoholics. A person can be living a seemingly normal life - work family and the rest and still be drinking a slab every night.
Plus (and the medical people on the board will hopefully help me here) I think there is a distinction between addiction and dependency.
The hardest one for me was cigarettes, because they were my last remaining crutch to help change the way I felt. At least I had them to fall back on when I quit drinking and taking drugs.
But it varies from person to person- there is no one answer.
Alcohol is in your face, everywhere you go. Other people are drinking, or talking about drinking, or you see beer trucks and billboards and liquor stores all over the place.
I think that alcohol is harder to *stay away from *than other things because it is cheap, easily accessible, legal, and socially acceptable.
Definition of a “harder addiction to break” is going to be specific to each person. The things I’ve given up are all hard to do without, at first. The piano-playing part is staying off of them, as others have said.
And neither smoking nor heroin are as liable as alcohol to get some moron(s) calling you a party pooper because you’re not using their drug of choice, as LouisB and NinetyWt mentioned.
This is key. Even if the alcoholic admits they have a problem with alcohol, they still have to decide that it’s something they want to fix. Some people having to hit absolutely rock frickin’ bottom before they will try to change.
Having worked in a rehab, and battled with addiction myself, Alcohol is one of the worse ones for a person - because it is legal, and some can function just fine for years while having a very big problem. It is ever present in our culture - and it is socially acceptable. All other drugs like heroine, meth, coke are not socially acceptable. The science behind it is fuzzy - there are more scicne minded folks who can answer that.
From what I recall from rehab, alcohol is mid-range on the tough addiction scale. Tobacco, VLT’s and meth are some of the hardest to kick, brain chemistry-wise.
I do believe tobacco is the hardest to quit, but simply being a confirmed tobacco addict doesn’t do very much damage to your family and friends - other than the fear of you dying of course, and the smell.
Anecdotally (for what it is worth), a lot of people with serious booze addictions I have known had a tendency to blame those around them for their wretched state - to paraphrase, ‘you annoy me, or don’t love me enough, that’s why I have to drink a lot’. Drug addicts of various sorts tend to do this less, and instead stress the harmlessness of what they are doing - again to paraphrase, ‘it’s my choice, and it isn’t really hurting anyone’.
Dunno if this difference is a result of the drug, or social factors.
Again, anecdotally - I’ve done many different recreational drugs in my time, and drunk booze of course, but the only thing I was ever addicted to was cigarettes. Thankfully, I’ve managed to quit, but it wasn’t easy.
Hmmm… almost a simul thread… dont want to hijack this but if anyone wants to tell me help me encourage me assist me in quitting nicotine . drop by here
Replace “drinking” with “eating” and you’ll see why I consider food addiction to be the most insidious. Everything else that’s been mentioned, a person can survive without. Not so much without food! Imagine you’re an alcoholic or a druggie, yet you HAVE to continue to use at least 3 times a day, but NO MORE than that. How excruciating would that be?