Found this Documentary - can you relate?
 

Hey All,

Not posted in a while, but constantly educating myself. Found this on the internet, wondering if any of you had seen it previously?

HBO: Addiction: The Film: Centerpiece Film: Film Opening

Just wanted to hear what your opinions are - especially what one of the docs says about not having to hit rock bottom before something is done...kind of struggling with that one after 1 year + of the opposite? I guess it's still a case of not being able to fully relate unless you are yourself addicted - but it sure brought a lot home.

Love,
P

The film doesn't go into much detail. I firmly believe that the issue is that you cannot decide on behalf of an addict that he/she needs to get clean. It is a decision they have to reach on their own. Therein lies the crux. What gets an addict to that point where they will seek treatment and become committed to recovery? If there are no consequences to their addiction, their motivation will be low. If on the other hand they are spiraling lower and lower (reaching bottom), they may decide that addiction is not worth it anymore.

My only addiction was nicotine, but I know I tried to give up a couple of times because of other people nagging, but I always started again. It was only once I decided that I was tired of the smell on my clothes, the taste in my mouth, the cost, the inconvenience etc. that I gave up and then it wasn't hard at all.

What the doctor in the documentary may miss, is that if you drag an addict off to rehab or treatment without them wanting to get clean, the chances are that they will get sober for a short while but I think the relapse rate will be much higher. If they want to truly get clean I think there is a better chance.

I've heard that about hitting bottom. That by the time bottom is hit for some, it is too late. Makes sense to me.

Don't know the answer but I do know I use to think all it would take was for my daughter to get the drugs out of her system. Was dumb enough to think once they were out her brain would start working again an she'd be saved..Boy was I wrong.

hey, thanks for your comments - not sure if the link I posted is clear, but this link is to the first part of a much longer documentary that's been broken up - the other films are on the tab on the left hand side.

I think that what sometimes happen is that, by coincidence, a family does an intervention on their loved one, and that loved one goes into a recovery program and it sticks. So the family and anybody involved in that intervention thinks they had something to do with their loved one getting clean/sober. But the more I'm into this, the more i think that those times are just coincidence.

I also remember a story on Good Morning America (or some show like that) where a mom looked for her son in every drug house in some big town (New York City?) until she found him all strung out. He left with her, he went into rehab, and i guess it was a success story. If that's all it took to get my son clean/sober, i'd be driving around town right now looking for him instead of typing on this forum.

We're all here doing small interventions. Every time we tell our loved one that drugs/alcohol are their root problem, that's an intervention. Every day i get on here I read about some type of small intervention that somebody has done.

Like the poster above, I too thought that once my AS got somewhere (in his case, 3 months in boot-camp type jail) that the drugs would get out of his system and then, viola!, his cleaned-up brain would just take over and move him into permanent recovery. Not so. He was not ready to give it up. He still is not.