If a Broken Bone Needs a Doctor, Why Doesn't Addiction?
No one is told to "just be strong" and get back up and start walking after they've broken a bone; they are rushed to a doctor, have their bone X-rayed, casted up and are cared for until they heal. No one questions if they need professional help; this is seen as a given. It is the opposite with addiction; instead of a doctor they get advise, instead of treatment they get lectured on the importance of having more will power, and instead of an illness they get called weak.
The Strange double standard we often fail to mention
Contrast the different treatments between physical illnesses and addiction. Diabetes and other physical ailments, where individuals don't always have control over them, lead to specialists to take treatment on instead of telling people to try and exert their will power more to be able to reduce levels etc. Similarly patients with heart conditions and other serious diseases don't have to fix their problems solely through use of determination. Families try their best through love or necessity to suggest such advice; "be strong for me", "have more will power and try to quit", or just generally criticize; not understanding that addiction isn't really a choice but an actual physical sickness causing changes in your brain's response to different stresses and impulses which have to be repaired physically first to allow you to recover mentally, like any broken limb or other illness requiring the ability to move it freely again.
Why this misunderstanding is more detrimental than helpful
By simply telling a drug-dependent person to be mentally strong it compounds guilt for feeling miserable for doing things like using drugs for comfort, saying that he is weak instead of looking to an explanation of why things have become this way - addiction requires expert medical and therapeutic help to overcome, it can't and won't be helped solely by the victim and the best intentions and motivations. The reason for the difference in behavior between family members caring for a drug-dependant or family members caring for a drug victim, where if the later suffers a sickness such as diabetes or other issues we wouldn't hesitate to provide professional treatment from doctors and psychologists along with our support. Addiction itself requires what any similar illness require; careful evaluation and treatment, professional assistance to combat withdrawal sickness which in its own way is life threatening (to the patients own body), psychological and mental therapy to tackle the reasons why the patient began to depend on drugs, and psychiatric aid, for it often goes hand in hand with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety which lead to problems like drug dependence to alleviate the distress from these illnesses and much more; none of which can be achieved through a positive quote or good advice which a patient is often receiving instead of treatment from friends and family;
How we should perceive things
Perhaps the one big step to improving addiction treatment begins not just with patients but with the relatives helping. Perhaps, rather than telling an addict patient to 'be strong', asking ' have they been seen and examined properly by a medically-based professional whom specializes in dealing with people on drugs', and then providing real, functional treatment to address and combat drug dependence. As already mentioned, people who have developed addictions require professional guidance and medical, and psychiatric help and not willpower; after all just as much as the body needs a cure for a broken bone it would in this case be appropriate to help the patient heal and fix these problems they have suffered, through dedicated treatment and expert guidance; after all, addiction IS an illness of itself and it can be effectively treated, not just managed through willpower as previously suggested. At Hamara Sankalp Nasha Mukti Kendra we see all addiction as a sickness which requires proper medical, professional help and no criticism, for with the right professional hands aiding in its cure it is capable to heal itself, much like any illness, any fractured limb.
