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you’ve been unaware, of course this knowledge helps. Often, however, an intervention doesn’t teach anyone anything new, and the best way to get rid of the guilt your addiction causes others is to get even more fucked-up. Then you find yourself getting sober for others instead of for yourself, which allows you to hold them responsible for keeping you sober, and justifies getting high again when they disappoint you.
    Trying to make bad impulses go away, or to scare or cry or communicate them into submission, usually doesn’t work and may actually increase your neediness and drive you back to your addictions. Long story short, most of what you’ve seen on Intervention doesn’t fly in real life.
    Instead, improvement begins with acceptance of the permanence of what’s wrong and a realization that there are, nevertheless, good reasons for pushing yourself to manage flaws that will never stop being a painful burden.
    As everyone in recovery knows, there’s no moment of victory and absolute, eternal sobriety. Success over addiction means knowing why being unaddicted is worthwhile, and trying as hard as you can to stay that way, no matter how harsh the truth of your past, present, or future may be.
    Here are the signs that you’re addicted and stuck:
    â€¢Â You want to understand the root of your addiction (see above)
    â€¢Â You feel constant shame from always letting others down
    â€¢Â You refuse to see your addiction as a problem, even though it’s gotten you fired, dumped, arrested, etc.
    Among the wishes people express when they need to stop an addictive behavior are:
    â€¢Â To end their substance abuse and/or self-abuse, period
    â€¢Â To get others to understand that they don’t have a drinking problem, it’s everyone else who’s got a thinking problem
    â€¢Â To figure out whether they’re really addicted or just a big fan
    â€¢Â To find the elusive middle ground of use between sobriety and addiction
    Here are some examples:
    I’ve gone through detox three times and I just can’t stay sober. The only place I can go after treatment is back to my family and a marriage from hell, but my kids need me. I start out with lots of determination and a list of meetings, and I just get absorbed by the stress of conflict with my wife and caring for the kids, and by the end of the day I’m grabbing for the hidden bottles. I don’t have time to go to meetings and there aren’t any near where I live. My goal is to find the strength I just don’t have and no one has been able to give me.
    My husband tells me he doesn’t have a problem with addiction because he never has a hangover or misses a day of work, but he’s quietly plastered by dinner and useless after, which is when the kids really want to spend time with him. It’s true, he’s a quiet, mellow drunk, but he’s just not good for much after the second glass. He says he’s better than his own father, he’s a good provider, he works hard—and so he has a right to relax at night, so I’m just making trouble by giving him a hard time. My goal is to figure out whether he’s addicted and how to get him some help.
    My wife was angry when she found out that I spend hours every evening looking at porn and playing video games online, but I don’t see what’s wrong. We have a good sex life, I’m not unfaithful, and there’s no harm in it. She says I can’t see how much of my life I’m wasting online, how it’s taking away from other areas of my life, and that I need help. I think the only thing wrong is that she’s mad at me because she’s overreacting to my looking at sex on the Internet. My goal is to get her to see that there’s nothing wrong.
    Before even attempting to decide whether you’re addicted to a substance or destructive behavior, define for yourself what those things mean. You know what your family