Why Are We Here?

There are SEVERAL answers to the question, "Why are we here". The simplest way to answer is to start from the very beginning. 

First - What is addiction? 

Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a drug or engage in a behavior that produces natural reward, despite substantial harm and other negative consequences.

Why can't you just stop?

No fancy copy and paste definition here, but I'll tell you why. We all hate to hear it, but the "choice" thing is true. The very first time anyways. After that, it's no longer a choice, but your brain convinces you that you need it more than food, or sleep. 

Doing a drug, or anything that makes you feel good, activates the reward system in your brain. Along with that, using floods the brain with chemicals that are naturally produced, such as dopamine and oxytocin. Ever hear about how you shouldn't over take antibiotics because then your body will never fight anything off on it's own? The same goes for drugs. When you start flooding your brain with these chemicals at an exponential rate, the brain says "Oh, so I don't need to do anything anymore. You'll take care of all of these awesome hormones for me." Your brain sits back and lets you do all the work. Then...when the time comes that you want to stop, your brain tells you that YOU NEED it.....your brain forgot what to do. 

Now the second part of the science. When you stop, or run out, sometimes in roughly about 12 hours, these very important hormones in your brain deplete. Normally, when you start feeling bad, you'd use, but now you're trying not to. The sudden "Bottoming Out" of these hormones not only can cause severe depression, but it can also cause seizures. Your brain starts sending off alarms throughout your entire body. You get SICK. Not just in your head, but in your body. Survival mode. THIS is the part where people will give up everything they own for that next "fix". Not because they love drugs so much, but because now, THEY NEED IT. 

Because of this, addiction was classified as a disease, but more so, a mental disorder. Addiction, whether its drugs, sex, money, food,....it is all unhealthy, and when going without what you're addicted to, you will most definitely suffer for it. The brain is such a complex, yet wonderful and mysterious organ!

What a Pain in the Brain!

Each one of us are born with a certain number of receptors in our brains. The long term use of opioids especially, change the way our brain looks at pain, and feels pain. Think of it as a room full of empty chairs. Let's say, our pre-opiate disorder brain was born with 20 empty chairs. When we hurt ourselves, maybe a sprain, we'll say 7 of those seats starts vibrating. When we take something like tylenol, then the 7 seats dancing around get sat on. Now they're okay. As the sprain heals, there are less vibrating chairs, so there are fewer people sitting on them. 

Enter misuse of opiates (party guests). When we flood the brain with the very thing that dulls our pain receptors (chairs), it's another situation the brain sees as easy time, and because there is now such an abundance of people standing in the room, your brain does what any nice brain would do and offers them all a chair. Chivalry is not dead. Then your brain takes the back seat and shuts its eyes for a while. YOU invited all of these people here......YOU keep them company. 

Now the party is over. Now, there about 120 chairs in the room....but everyone is gone! Brain wakes up and sees this and has a total meltdown. Brain knows that "Oh No! If you trip and fall....all of these seats are gonna need sitting in! Ah!" Brain get's stressed. Brain get's sad. And heaven forbid you stub your toe. 120 chairs is a WHOLE BUNCH to expect to be seated in at the first sign of pain. The pain you feel will be excessive. Those chairs were designed as a messaging system between the part of you that hurts and your brain. This is why people who abuse opiates or opiate-like drugs become overly sensitive to pain. 

It takes about 18 months for those chairs to dwindle back down to the original 20. Your inability to manage pain IS NOT you looking for another excuse to use like your friends and family are probably telling you. Your brain has been rewired, and now you're going to be hurting all the time, even if it's just the aches, until things start to get back to normal. 

The Big Picture.

When you take the first part of this page into account, the hormones, the reward system, and add it to the inability to properly feel and manage pain, it becomes obvious why it's not as simple as just stopping. There are so many things happening on the inside when we try to stop that in majority of cases, it can't be done without medical intervention and supervision. It's commonly said that the only withdrawal that can kill you is from alcohol and benzodiazepines...but more and more cases of JUST fentanyl withdrawal are showing seizures. It's best to not try to do this by yourself.

We are here because knowing what we know about addiction being another mental health disorder (everything you JUST read is the long version of the definition), it really disgusts us that families are being singled out for it's presence, in a time where 46.8 million Americans are battling a substance use disorder, all thanks to doctors who started pushing prescriptions on people years ago, then a double thanks to the government who waited until the prescription rates were at it's highest ever, then pulled the rug out from everyone, leaving mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles, siblings, sons, daughters, grandmas, and grandpas too, wondering what the heck just hit them. That's over 16% of the American Population. That's ALMOST 1 out of every 5 people you meet has a substance abuse disorder. Something that has been scientifically PROVEN to be mental disorder, yet they're taking our kid's from us for it instead of trying to help us. 

Just the same as any other illness, the medicine for flu may not work as well on "John" as it does on "Jane".  It might take John 3 weeks to heal a broken bone but it takes Jane 6 months. That's perfectly fine, too! Why? Because we are all different! Nothing is ever "textbook" for each of us. 

We support you 100% in your recovery journey, no matter how long it takes you, or how you choose to plan it, we stand by you indefinitely. As long as you are really trying, and you're truly ready to make this change, all of our resources will be at your disposal. 

So how is the government actually allowing some agency where half of the people working in it don't even have kids of their own, come in and tell us we have this many months to be "all better" or they're taking our families from us? Talk about inhumane! They might as well load us up and take us to the shelter for euthanasia too, since they say we are all the same and can never get better.

They are putting people in charge of our recovery who hate us! Who don't care about us! Who WANT us to screw up! 

It's high time this entire country learns what's happening behind closed doors. And I'm the perfect loud mouth for the job. It happened to me, it can happen to anyone with SUD's rates so high, and I won't stop until  A- I'm the voice in the people's minds at night that destroyed my family, and B - we can see to it that this stops happening to families so long as they choose Lifeline Recovery to be their next big adventure!

THAT'S WHY WE ARE HERE.