Tag Archives: addiction

How to Come to Terms With Addiction

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Struggling with an addition can be a very isolating process. However, it’s important to remember that you’re not alone. Estimates suggest that somewhere between 15 and 30 percent of Americans will struggle with alcohol or drug dependency during their lifetime. Read on to discover how to come to terms with your own addiction and take steps towards recovery.

Admit That You Have a Problem


Image via Flickr by Alan Cleaver

The first step towards recovery is admitting that you have an addiction in the first place. This can be challenging, especially in the case of social drugs such as alcohol. However, there are some key signs to look for.

Addicts become consumed by their vices, generally at the expense of their professional and personal lives. They notice they can tolerate greater amounts of alcohol or their drug of choice, and often experience withdrawal symptoms if they have used it in a while. They also find curbing their habit is difficult. Are these characteristics sounding familiar to you? If so, it’s probably time to admit that you have a problem.

Assess the Impact of Your Addiction

Coming to terms with your addiction requires you to understand that it doesn’t exist in isolation. Carefully consider your behavior and the way it’s affected the people around you. This process is likely to be painful, but confronting the damage your addiction’s done will help you start doing things differently.

Remember that even though you’ve hurt your nearest and dearest, these people love you. You have a responsibility to them and to yourself to turn your life around.

Recognize That You Can’t Beat This Alone

Addiction isolates drug and alcohol abusers from friends and family members, but these loved ones are crucial in recovery. Reach out to those people who’ve been there for you throughout your life and spend time with supporters rather than enablers.

Also consider looking outside your immediate circle to professional help. This can be confronting, but therapists and staff at rehabilitation facilities are trained to guide addicts towards recovery. Drug or alcohol detoxing at 12 Keys or a similar treatment center can put you on the path towards sober living and minimize your chances of relapsing. Joining a support group can also help you share your experiences with others who understand.

Realize Why You Became an Addict

People don’t usually become addicts for no reason. Many addicts suffer from psychiatric disorders. Many have struggled with economic or emotional hardships, or both. As you start overcoming your addiction you’ll look more closely at your life and discover what void your vice filled for you. Analyzing your life in this way can be challenging, but it will also help you discover what you need to bring to your life to survive without alcohol or drugs.

Embrace the Future

Addiction can be a lonely place that seems impossible to get out of. However, to see only such negativity is not completely coming to terms with addiction. Many people beat their addictions, and with hard work and perseverance you can be one of them. Coming to terms with addiction involves coming to terms with the potential of a brighter future.

At times coming to terms with your addiction will be challenging and confronting. However, once you do you can take steps towards overcoming it.

Tweaking The Dream By Clea Myers | Book Review

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cleamyersMany people have landed in the city of dreams with high hopes of making it big, and in return Los Angeles has chewed them up and spit them out. There are over 100,000 actors in LA and not everyone gets to live their dream. This book by Clea Myers is a cautionary tale. One that should be read by every wannabe. Clea is from a good background, went to Brown University and landed a job with a top producer. Then everything went wrong and she became addicted to crystal meth.

First of all I will point out that Clea is a friend. She is a very lovely person and incredibly talented. She now lives in London and is a writer and casting associate. She even gave an amazing performance in my film Prose & Cons. As I read the book I found it hard not to only to picture this drug addicted young woman with the Clea I know, but I also found it hard to read about her suffering. It is quite a story, and a testament to how strong Clea is, and how far she has come. Clea is heartbreakingly honest and holds nothing back. Her nightmare descent is told in vivid glory. It is a story that was brave to tell and she should be commended for it.

The book is well written. Clea is obviously a writer of note. The tale of her descent into crystal meth addiction should be read by everyone from drug addicts to school children. It is the most anti-drug book I have ever read. In fact, the most anti-drug thing I have every come across. For this reason it should be widely read. If it stops just one person from becoming addicted to drugs then it will have served it’s purpose.

Tweaking The Dream is an excellent read. Even if, like me, you don’t know anything about drugs. The story is partly an epic struggle of survival and another side of Hollywood. An excellent book.

Tweaking the Dream: A Crystal Meth True Story

Flight Film Review

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You may think that Flight is an air disaster movie, but you would be wrong. It is a film about addiction and consequence, but do not let that put you off. This dazzling and adult film from Robert Zemeckis is a punchy, entertaining and thrilling look into the life of Whip Whitaker, a pilot who is introduced to us in the opening scene in a hotel room with empty bottles, cigarette butts, a naked women and cocaine. The cocaine he then snorts because he is working that day and has to go and fly a plane.

The role of Whit Whitaker is played by Denzel Washington, and, boy, does he go for it. Washington really is one of the best actors that we have. He is just excellence personified. As the pilot that can fly better when high and drunk than other pilots can do sober, his charisma makes you like him, even when he is pressing his self destruct button over and over again. His character’s arrogance is beautifully played by Washington, ‘Nobody could’ve landed that plane like I did.’ An investigation is launched into the crash and the people surrounding Whit are trying to get him off, but is he?

John Goodman’s drug dealer is always underscored on entrance to a Rolling Stones tracks and the supporting cast are all first class. Kelly Reilly is also very good as a drug addict who Washington tries to save.

I loved this film. An entertaining, adult look into addiction and people trying to connect with each other. Go see.

Frost Loves…Electronic Cigarettes

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I am incredibly anti-smoking, but I do understand what it is like to be addicted to something. Iin my case it is chocolate and Coca Cola. More healthy and less likely to kill me. With the current shaky economical situation, it is the perfect time to quit. You can save money and help your health with an electric cigarette.

Most of the smokers I know find that one of the hardest things about giving up is what to do with their hands. Cigarettes can almost be used as a pacifier. The act of smoking is missed as well. An electronic cigarette can fix this. You have something to fidget with, almost like a real cigarette, except –  it won’t kill you. If that is not an upside, then I do not know what is!

A e cigarette is an electronic device that mimics a real cigarette. A vapour gets released when you use the electronic cigarette, which tricks your body into thinking it is actually smoking. Frost tried it on a real smoker, and they liked it.

There are a number of different brands around and you may also like to tale a look at this earlier piece from our archives: http://frostmagazine.com/2011/06/smokers-smoking-the-next-generation/

Turn on, Log in, Drop out – Internet Addiction Disorder

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An addiction for the 21st century is causing increasing numbers of desperate parents to seek help for their teenage children.

Internet Addiction Disorder, or IAD, is now as much of a real addiction as drugs and alcohol, according to the renowned Priory Clinic in Roehampton, south west London.

The disorder can lead to mood swings, compulsive lying, loss of interest in studies and a breakdown in real-life relationships, as surfers spend time using and abusing chatrooms, multi-user games such as EverQuest, and social networking sites like Facebook.

Speaking back in 2008, Richard Renson, then Addiction Therapist at The Priory, said: “In some families, money can be tight. Both parents work and children often come back home alone and go straight on to the computer. It becomes a routine and that routine becomes very hard to break.

“It’s lack of communication with another solid human being. Some people say when they’re gaming online, they’ve got thousands of friends, but it’s not communication and emotional involvement. It’s avoidance behaviour.

“One of the hardest things to manage is our emotional world and if you’ve not got any role models and are only using computer-based information, it’s not going to be solid, concrete or useful.”

Two years on, there are currently no statistics outlining the number of UK addicts, but with Facebook and Twitter usage continuing to amass large numbers of followers, the problem is increasing.

Mr Renson estimated at the time that as many as 20 per cent of Priory patients were chronically affected by internet and computer-based addiction.

However, critics argue potential sufferers only use the internet as a medium to fuel other cravings and that internet addiction itself is not a true condition.

Mr Renson firmly believed this was not the case: “There’s more and more evidence to show that it is,” he said.

“We can sensationalise it, but any action a human being takes that is detrimental to their well-being, and seems a repetition, can be classed as an addiction.”

He added: “Evidence also shows there are ‘hot-spots’ in the brain that remain when somebody stops using the computer. It’s exactly the same as when using a substance.”

An addict, speaking to The Times in March, said: “The social thing was something I always had trouble with. It was a lot easier to socialise and make friends online than it was in real life.”

However, treatment is not as simple as stopping use. Instead, it can be a slow and difficult process, requiring considerable after-care.

The key, according to Mr Renson, is tackling the underlying problems that lead to the compulsion.

“If you start off with abstaining from that substance or behaviour, you get to the bottom of how you feel,’ he said. “You can learn how to manage the emotions you probably thought were too hard to manage initially.

“When you’re not intoxicated, inebriated or doing something that avoids feeling, you can start to make sense of it and see that it isn’t so tough.

“But abstinence is quite a tall order. When you take away a behaviour that people have seen as addictive, it can be quite troublesome. People relapse unless you’ve got a support network around you.”

The cure though, can be prohibitively expensive. It costs approximately £20,000 for a 28-day programme at The Priory, although medical insurance may cover certain cases.

“It may sound like quite a lot of money,” said Mr Renson. “But you can’t put a price on a person’s quality of life. If you can give somebody back their life, it’s money well spent.

“We’re doing quite a lot of education around general compulsive behaviour and addictions,” he added.

“For better or for worse, The Priory has a reputation for treating the rich and the famous, but we have a social conscience.

“We want people to experience the world and the beauties of it. You can’t do that if you’re sitting at a computer.”