Why am I so depressed? Why living is so hard? Why am I surrounded with these people? Why do I lack of abilities? Why can’t I accomplish my goals? Why am I so miserable? Why everyone is blaming me? What did I do wrong? They don’t understand the joy, they have no idea what I am going through…......
Welcome to addiction. The realm of addiction begins with a great joy and ends in darkness, fear and frustration. I am not trying to elicit facts out of addiction but to argue the treatment and the fact that addicts who are willing to go through treatment programs have been misled greatly.
If we are to accomplish addiction treatment we must abandon the notion of simple causation, addiction treatment is jointly determined by 3 components of body, psyche and worldview. Let’s consider each one in turn.
The most important damage caused by prolonged use of drugs is dysfunction of two vital systems of the body: analgesic and opioid production system inside the body.
According to the research done on thousands of Congress 60 members the 11 months period is compulsory in order to reach certain treatment of addiction and less than this period would be insufficient. (11 months with the D.S.T method and the OT).
Most experts in the field of addiction believe that drug addiction is an illness of mind and spirit. They claim that most problems are in the mental aspect of a patient and physical issues are dealt with much easier; they are simply stating that an addict is a psychological patient.
Congress60 however, believes that drug addiction is not necessarily a mental disorder; this is because a prolong use of drugs, alcohol or narcotics has damaged vital systems within the body and since the mind and body are interconnected, the psyche is also affected.
The roots are physical and once repaired and restored, the mind will also become balanced.
The third important component in a successful addiction treatment is worldview. It is the manner in which an individual views and perceives himself, others and the world around him.
An addict however, has drug influenced mentality and this affects his worldview; we call it a drug induced outlook on life. The individual looks at everything from an intoxicated angle.
Balancing this drug induced outlook is an important part of our treatment; because if this mentality does not change, it makes no difference whether the individual uses drugs or not. A successful treatment is yet to take place in this person.
This is the reason why many addicts relapse in other treatment methods after many years of not using drugs. This has led to a notion that drug addicts need long term care and control whereas in fact, it is not the case at all.
If the patient is treated correctly considering the three components mentioned earlier, he does not require constant care and control and will come clean through the most challenging situations and conditions.
The new ways to enjoy life, sports and physical activity, receiving support from peers who have achieved the impossible in addition to awareness of self, leads the path to the desired destination.
This is where we can claim that the addict has been successfully cured and not to have only quit drugs.
Today when I remember the withdrawal before my time at Congress 60, I just wish that this method will become world widely spread. No one needs to go through those pains and achieve nothing. No one needs to relapse and wonder why this would happen frequently?
Sometimes I wonder is it because of borders that we are so far away from each other? We have addiction in common and it is about time that we gathered and remember if addiction is considered as illness then a proper treatment must take place.
Written by Ehsan Ranjbar