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Crossroads Recovery Centre offers high quality, specialised treatment for those suffering from alcoholism, drug addiction, gambling, sex, food and other addictions. Addiction is defined by the relentless pursuit of a drink, drug or other addiction, no matter the consequences to yourself, your family and friends, work commitments and other people associated with you. An addict in active addiction will do whatever is necessary to fulfil their compulsion to use.
Everyone struggling with addiction pays a very high price. Addicts/alcoholics have lost the ability to control the use of their drug of choice and are now controlled by their addiction. Addicts/alcoholics have one thought running through their minds like a mantra ‘Just one more, and then I will stop’ over and over this goes ‘just one more time, I will use and then I will stop tomorrow and everything will be different, just one more time and then I will pull myself together and I will fix my life, just one more time, just one more, just one more’. Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow but tomorrow never comes. Lost in the illusion, they can never break free on their own.
The sad truth is that on his own, an addict or alcoholic will rarely be able to stop using for any length of time. Yes, they might be able to when things get bad enough, or when some crisis forces them to, like an impending divorce, a final warning at work or running out of money, but lifelong abstinence is always elusive. It is staying sober that is the problem. Once the crisis has passed or has been resolved, they invariably return to their previous habits. These periods of abstinence or controlled using are absolutely devastating to the addict and heartbreaking to family and friends who love and care for them. The cycle begins once more, before they realise it, they have torn down the hopes their families had for them, they have torn down the hopes and dreams they had for themselves.
This is the heartbreak and gut wrenching anguish of this disease. Periods of hope and possibility are normally followed by periods of using, a return to the nightmare of active addiction, where the compulsion to lie, steal, manipulate and hurt other people in order to satisfy the selfish compulsion to use, is overriding. The periods of seeming recovery and active addiction get closer and closer together until filled with guilt, shame, fear and anger, an addict will continue to use until the bitter end.
If the disease of addiction is not treated at some point, jail, institutions and death may be a consequence.
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