Addiction to drugs or alcohol has a really specific pattern in order to become the addiction.
You probably wonder. Is the person I am seeking help addicted?
There is different factors on determining "Addiction" or "Social users".
Addiction is a substitution for an inability for the person to deal with different aspects of life.
Someone that needs alcohol or drugs to have fun. Someone that would a substance to be able to communicate. Someone that would need a pill to sleep. Someone that would needs is two beers to relax at night.
The above is just a few example of addiction. Now where is the line between someone that needs treatment or not.
The person has a problem. He is confronted to a situation in life that he has a hard time to deal with. It can be a problem in school, with his parents, his girl friend, his wife, his job etc. Also it can be a physical pain. The important thing here, is the person has no solution for those problems. The person becomes overwhelm by some aspect of life. The substance becomes a solution.
Drugs and alcohol is introduced to the person. He feels to a certain degree a release from that overwhelm. This is when the person becomes trapped in to it. Drugs or alcohol will become a solution to counter that overwhelm. Let's take a really common example of it. You have someone that is a young adult. This person has a communication problem. He is shy. He wants to have a girl friend. There is this problem that prevent him to start a conversation, to just go ahead and ask someone to dance etc. For sure you have seen an example of this in your life. Then this person has a few drinks and suddenly he can talk, ask someone to dance and so on. He just got a solution for his problem. So every time he'll go out. This will be his solution to "have fun", to meet with girls. This person goes in life and gets married. Then a problem comes up with his wife. He still cannot handle this problem with communication. Then he gets overwhelm with it. Then he has a drink and suddenly he can confront his wife. He just found a solution for his overwhelm. Every time in any aspect of life, he will have to confront a situation. Alcohol will be his solution. Any substance will bring the judgment of the person down. So this solution will bring more problem. Then the person will be more overwhelm. You end up with a person that has to use a substance to communicate, to have fun, to sleep, etc. This a really common example of how addiction works. For sure you have seen an example like this in your life. This applies to any substance.
