the need to hit bottom?
I watched that HBO addiction documentary last night. I thought it was interesting that a number of the experts interviewed said they didn't think that the addict had to hit bottom, that they thought that the sooner the addicts get help, the better.
I think that there is something to that, it does make sense in a way. I mean, we don't say to people with other diseases that their illness has to get to be as bad as possible before they can start recovering from it.
Also, there was a guy that mentioned that he thought it was crazy that addicts got thrown out of treatment programs for slips. He said something along the lines of: they are acting like people with the disease they have got so why toss them out of treatment for that? In other words--relapse is a part of the disease and should be expected and should not exclude someone from treatment.
I think that listening to these various experts was really eye opening. I would definitely recommend it to all of us dealing with addicts of all types. I do with though that they had touched on those of us around the addict, the enablers, the codependents.