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Imagine something so powerful that it uses you. It’s like that for those of us who are susceptible to addiction. We voluntarily take our first drink or drug and then it takes over. We develop a psychological dependency – an emotional and mental process that goes hand-in-hand with addiction.

Addiction is not a moral failing or weakness. Those struggling with addiction aren’t bad, although they do bad things to maintain their habit. They are just very sick. Addiction is a brain disease that rewires the cerebral cortex resulting in poor judgment and impulse control. It manifests in compulsive substance use in spite of harmful consequences. It’s progressive in nature ending in jails, institutions, death or recovery.

Becoming addicted is easy because no one knows that’s what they’re doing. We tell ourselves we’re having fun. We need it to relax. We minimize the severity of our addiction by focusing on what we still have, not on what we have lost. For example, I have a roof over my head. I still have a job. The alcoholic says I only drink beer. The cocaine user says I don’t use meth. The meth addict says I only smoke drugs, I don’t inject them. The pill-popper says at least I don’t use heroin. Addiction denies itself in the scariest voice of all – your own.

The main difference between alcoholism and drug addiction is that alcohol is legal and many controlled drugs are not. We also live in a culture where drinking alcohol is sociably acceptable, whereas taking drugs is not.