Why Do Some Quit While Others Cannot?

[Leigh 87]

Why are some addicts able to quit while others aren't?

 

My friends partner is an alcoholic and, despite having a child and meeting the partner of his dreams (she really is, she is his dream type in every way it is remarkable how happy they are) - he cannot quit.

 

He has everything he wants in life, and he WANTS to quit 100%.

 

On the other hand, my fiance was a drug addict to hard drugs (Injecting), our relationship was rocky and crap a lot of the time, yet he managed to quit. He also changed careers, worked long hours, never took time off work and ensured that he was promoted over the ensuring 2 years!

 

I am curious as to why my friends partner, who had more to live for and MORE motivation and MORE support - cannot quit, whilst my fiance quit at a time where he had a lot less in his life to motivate him (to quit)?

 

Any insight would be lovely thanks.

 

I really want them to move in together soon - she wants to either move in next month, or end it if he cannot manage to quit. He relapses all the time on his path to recovery - they have an amazing few weeks then he ends up drinking again.

 

They even got him on the drugs that made him ill if he so much as sniffed alcohol - didn't stop him.

 

My friend is young and wants kids and is 26 soon. The guy is late 30s. She knows she cannot waste too much time since she wants at least 2 kids, and preferably she wants to opportunity to be a stay at home mum for a while.

 

She has the degree educated career while he is working part time, and still searching for full time work. He previously had a great career and great income but that careers is no longer valid (sporting).

 

Any advice for her? I can't really offer much advice other than hey, my fiance quit eve when his relationship was sh*thouse, so there is a lot of hope that your partner can too esp. given his life is much better than my fiance's was at the time!

[Mr. Lucky]

It's a little like asking why some become addicted in the first place. Many dabble in and experiment with drugs, yet only a small percentage become full-blown addicts. Who knows?

 

Certainly, a good support system, adherence to a program and a degree of self-awareness increase one's chances for successful recovery. But in rehab, like life in general, there are no guarantees.

 

Glad your partner has turned his life around. You're one of the lucky ones...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Leigh 87]

It's a little like asking why some become addicted in the first place. Many dabble in and experiment with drugs, yet only a small percentage become full-blown addicts. Who knows?

 

Certainly, a good support system, adherence to a program and a degree of self-awareness increase one's chances for successful recovery. But in rehab, like life in general, there are no guarantees.

 

Glad your partner has turned his life around. You're one of the lucky ones...

 

Mr. Lucky

 

I am not sure how "lucky" we are.... The drugs I believe have ruined his sperm count and now we cannot have children.

 

Nothing "lucky" about being involuntarily childless

 

Oh well, he paid a price for his actions.

 

My friends alcoholic partner thankfully already fathered a child with his infertile ex (she had no periods) so at least that option is not outside her reach.

[Mr. Lucky]

I am not sure how "lucky" we are.... The drugs I believe have ruined his sperm count and now we cannot have children.

 

Nothing "lucky" about being involuntarily childless

 

Oh well, he paid a price for his actions.

 

I understand, that is a loss. But, having had a family member in/out of rehab and recovery for a decade, I personally know of at least 6 overdose deaths in that circle. Some pay the ultimate price.

 

Would you consider adoption?

 

Mr. Lucky

[S2B]

She would be better off finding a new partner since he can't stop.

 

It's hard to stop - takes a ton of work and facing fears and trauma.

 

Many different methods work when a person wants to quit... but that person must get willing to do anything and everything to quit.

 

She doesn't even know who he really is. Not the real version of him anyway...so she should let him go.

 

She should do counseling as a codependent person.

[Leigh 87]

I understand, that is a loss. But, having had a family member in/out of rehab and recovery for a decade, I personally know of at least 6 overdose deaths in that circle. Some pay the ultimate price.

 

Would you consider adoption?

 

Mr. Lucky

 

His sperm turned out to be fine; was just a botched test. We will more than likely be able to conceive.

 

No I Would not adopt, there are too few babies up for adoption and we would never be candidates.

 

Adoption should not be a consolation prize, it should be a calling in and of itself and not only something you consider if you're infertile.

[Fugu]

Most people who drink are not alcoholics. Most alcoholics can be treated. But there are some people who just don't enjoy being sober. They can go through treatment and be clean for 6 months. But the entire time there is something in their minds telling them how nice it would be to have a drink or a hit or whatever. It took me a long time to understand this. The only possible way people like this can be treated is through extensive, ongoing (probably life-long) mental health counseling. And even then, there will be relapses. It requires a lot of patience from the people in their lives who matter, and not everyone has it.

[Mr. Lucky]

It requires a lot of patience from the people in their lives who matter, and not everyone has it.

 

At some point, it crosses over from patience to appetite for abuse. And you realize you're not helping your addict by allowing your own life to become a dumpster fire also. Self-preservation is a healthy instinct...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Lotsgoingon]

Some people simply have brains that are more addictive than others.

[Karolina]

Someone can stop smoking, but someone can not. Because there is no willpower or simply does not want.

[anika99]

Why are some addicts able to quit while others aren't?

 

My friends partner is an alcoholic and, despite having a child and meeting the partner of his dreams (she really is, she is his dream type in every way it is remarkable how happy they are) - he cannot quit.

 

He has everything he wants in life, and he WANTS to quit 100%.

 

On the other hand, my fiance was a drug addict to hard drugs (Injecting), our relationship was rocky and crap a lot of the time, yet he managed to quit. He also changed careers, worked long hours, never took time off work and ensured that he was promoted over the ensuring 2 years!

 

I am curious as to why my friends partner, who had more to live for and MORE motivation and MORE support - cannot quit, whilst my fiance quit at a time where he had a lot less in his life to motivate him (to quit)?

 

Any insight would be lovely thanks.

 

I really want them to move in together soon - she wants to either move in next month, or end it if he cannot manage to quit. He relapses all the time on his path to recovery - they have an amazing few weeks then he ends up drinking again.

 

They even got him on the drugs that made him ill if he so much as sniffed alcohol - didn't stop him.

 

My friend is young and wants kids and is 26 soon. The guy is late 30s. She knows she cannot waste too much time since she wants at least 2 kids, and preferably she wants to opportunity to be a stay at home mum for a while.

 

She has the degree educated career while he is working part time, and still searching for full time work. He previously had a great career and great income but that careers is no longer valid (sporting).

 

Any advice for her? I can't really offer much advice other than hey, my fiance quit eve when his relationship was sh*thouse, so there is a lot of hope that your partner can too esp. given his life is much better than my fiance's was at the time!

 

I know this is an old thread that maybe you are not watching anymore but I just wanted to say that you are looking at addiction backwards. You think that a person with a great life should have greater motivation to quit an addiction than someone with a crappy life, but actually it's the total opposite.

 

If a person's life is not being negatively affected by their addiction then they have very little motivation to fix the problem. Your boyfriend probably saw how his addiction was impacting his life and his relationship. He knew that the crappy relationship was due to his using and that he was probably going to destroy the relationship if he didn't fix himself, therefore he had a reason to be motivated.

 

On the other hand it sounds like your friend's boyfriend gets a lot of handholding and coddling. His gf is the ever devoted partner who is heaping positive attention on him even when his behaviour is poor. So why should he quit? If it's true that he already has everything he could want and his gf adores him and supports him no matter what he does then he's got no incentive to change.

 

Imagine a smoker goes to the doctor every year for a physical and every year the doctor tells that person they are in perfect health. Hey! Your heart is strong, you have great lung capacity, your oxygen levels are awesome. You should quit smoking but right now you are in awesome health!

 

Another smoker goes to the doctor and gets told there is a rattle in your chest, your lung capacity is poor and your oxygen levels are dangerously low. Could be copd. If you don't quit smoking you are going to die.

 

Which smoker has greater motivation to quit? Most people have to hit some sort of bottom, feel some sort of negative consequences before they will quit an addiction.

[preraph]

First you have to want to quit, and then you have believe you can quit and that you are in control of yourself.

 

I quit smoking cold turkey after years just like my mom did. I figured if she could do it, so could I. All those years, I heard how impossible it was to quit. It was next to nothing. The addiction to nicotine isn't even as strong as caffeine and if you can't get through a day or two of mild headaches, you need to buck up. The psychological addiction, the motor habit, is the harder one. But I got a bowl of hard candies, and then when I was craving a puff, I went outside and breathed the fresh air, and it worked great.

 

After 3 weeks, I never even wanted one again. I got the "old feeling" a few years later while reading my diary (memory by association because I always smoked while writing in the diary), and that was the only residual cravings, and I just ignored them, walked around for a minute, breathed.

 

It was EASY. People make this stuff hard by not believing in themselves or exercising their own will over things. You decide to not do it anymore, even if it causes you some minimal momentary discomfort, that's all.

[Lucian Hodoboc]

Well, if we are to believe the Calvinists, some people have been already destined for damnation from the very beginning, so it's not in their powers to walk on the right path regardless of how much they try to.

 

Of course, that doctrine aside, I think the most plausible answer is that it is a matter of willpower (created b y chemicals in the brain) and support from family and friends.

[Mr. Lucky]

Of course, that doctrine aside, I think the most plausible answer is that it is a matter of willpower (created b y chemicals in the brain) and support from family and friends.

 

Having dealt with my own addict for a decade and having seen many other similar stories up close, I'm almost ready to remove "support from family and friends" as any predictor of success.

 

Most of the long-term successes I see are individuals who pulled themselves from the abyss of addiction after hitting rock bottom and did so through their own determined efforts. Any support they found was from strangers in meetings.

 

Many of the serial relapsers have plenty of well-meaning family and friends who's actions only serve to enable the addict.

 

It's one of the hardest things to watch a loved one go through because your instincts, to comfort and protect, are nearly always counter-productive. It takes normal parenting and family structure and turns it upside down...

 

Mr. Lucky

[carhill]

I have a couple of anecdotes...

 

First the functional alcoholic - Wealthy family, religious, popular, good job, long-time good guy husband, mother, community involved, for all outward appearances stable and likable.

 

She stuffed down her personal challenges and medicated them with alcohol, all the time. I got my first significant heads up after stupidly not taking her keys away when I suspected she seemed a bit more tipsy than the couple of glasses of wine she had with dinner and she nearly ran my wife (her best friend) and I down in the street. She also kissed me like a lover when we said goodbye prior to that. I knew something was up.

 

She was a secret drinker. Socially appropriate otherwise and never loud or promiscuous in my presence. It ultimately cooked up her long marriage and she failed in-patient detox and a number of family/friend interventions including by my then now exW's new boyfriend who was a AA member and long sober in recovery alcoholic. She died a few years later at age 49.

 

More interesting, a MW I know. Not a secret drinker. She's schedules it and knows she'll over-rev but doesn't touch it in between. When she DD's for other drinkers she finds it annoying. Still, when party time arrives, watch out. She also presents a peculiar in my experience anyway addiction to smoking, but only when she drinks. Doesn't crave or use in between. If she's around smokers in between, annoyed but doesn't smoke. I've known her for over a generation so have seen the behaviors over the decades and very consistent. How can she obviously show the addictive personality aspects (she states that plainly) but not be addicted globally? IDK. I worry about her health too.

 

Both my examples one would never know their behaviors except for long personal interaction. Well liked, popular, good jobs, from outward appearances, model families.

 

From my own family, a dichotomy. Both mom and dad took up smoking young, in their early teens. Dad smoked literally until the day he died in his late 60's. Two packs a day, unfiltered Lucky Strikes. Mom quit cold turkey after 33 years when I was about ten or so. Prior, the house was a blue haze. Still, dad smoked as usual and mom dealt with it but never smoked again. I'm a lifelong non-smoker but interestingly have no aversion to smokers. It doesn't disgust me. I've always found that puzzling.

 

IMO, as we learn more about the brain and how chemical inputs interact with it at the organic and cellular level, we'll learn more about why some people can quit and others can't. From my observation, people often use external substances for their chemicals to self-medicate a problem they're feeling they have. With the MW in my anecdote, I call her drinking 'liquid courage'. She's very shy and soft-spoken when sober, though not necessarily weak-minded, rather keeps more to herself when not drinking. That's fine for her most of the time, apparently.

 

Myself, no substance issues but I do have a marked caregiving addiction, if it can be called that, so I tend to end up choosing to 'help' people like the two in my stories. Sometimes I see that help cross over into unhealthy enabling, as example when I rationalized lady #1 was OK to drive and didn't take her keys. I was enabling her. Bad mojo. Could've killed someone. I imagine substance addicts face similar issues. Boy, is life brief and precious.

[Artdeco]

Both mom and dad took up smoking young, in their early teens. Dad smoked literally until the day he died in his late 60's. Two packs a day, unfiltered Lucky Strikes. Mom quit cold turkey after 33 years when I was about ten or so. Prior, the house was a blue haze. Still, dad smoked as usual and mom dealt with it but never smoked again.

Just out of curiosity - and slightly OT: Did you notice any differences in their respective health conditions after your mom quit?

Edited November 5, 2018 by a LoveShack.org Moderator
Fix quote

[carhill]

 

Just out of curiosity - and slightly OT: Did you notice any differences in their respective health conditions after your mom quit?

 

Dad was always pretty sick during my life, though he functioned pretty well. I think the war had a lot to do with that. It didn't treat him too well, not to mention his first wife left him and took his kids while he was overseas in Italy. Stress on top of stress with death tugging at his elbow.

 

Mom, OTOH, was always healthy. No doubt quitting helped her stay healthy into her late 70's anyway. She died a few months short of 90 after about a decade of stroke and dementia stuff. She had been a widow for about 26 years at that point.

 

More generally, another aspect to addiction is the substance and how the chemicals interact with the brain.....

 

For example, is the process with alcohol versus cigarettes versus cocaine similar or different? All can be addictive but do they interact with the brain in similar ways and affect similar regions which genetically are predisposed to presenting addictive responses? IDK. Brain science is incredibly complex. Learned a little of it when caregiving. I'd opine, like with AD/dementia, when we've seen one addict we've seen one addict; they're all different.

[health]

Most people who drink are not alcoholics. Most alcoholics can be treated. But there are some people who just don't enjoy being sober. They can go through treatment and be clean for 6 months. But the entire time there is something in their minds telling them how nice it would be to have a drink or a hit or whatever. It took me a long time to understand this. The only possible way people like this can be treated is through extensive, ongoing (probably life-long) mental health counseling. And even then, there will be relapses. It requires a lot of patience from the people in their lives who matter, and not everyone has it.

 

Most alcoholics can be treated?

 

Sorry.

 

From what I've seen doctors constantly struggle with people and their stubborn alcohol addictions.

 

Alcohol is the most toxic drug there is.

[JuneL]

It’s also too early to say some former addict has quit his addiction if he has been sober for less than a few years. Many addicts relapsed after a while.

 

Why are some addicts able to quit while others aren't?

 

My friends partner is an alcoholic and, despite having a child and meeting the partner of his dreams (she really is, she is his dream type in every way it is remarkable how happy they are) - he cannot quit.

 

He has everything he wants in life, and he WANTS to quit 100%.

 

On the other hand, my fiance was a drug addict to hard drugs (Injecting), our relationship was rocky and crap a lot of the time, yet he managed to quit. He also changed careers, worked long hours, never took time off work and ensured that he was promoted over the ensuring 2 years!

 

I am curious as to why my friends partner, who had more to live for and MORE motivation and MORE support - cannot quit, whilst my fiance quit at a time where he had a lot less in his life to motivate him (to quit)?

 

Any insight would be lovely thanks.

 

I really want them to move in together soon - she wants to either move in next month, or end it if he cannot manage to quit. He relapses all the time on his path to recovery - they have an amazing few weeks then he ends up drinking again.

 

They even got him on the drugs that made him ill if he so much as sniffed alcohol - didn't stop him.

 

My friend is young and wants kids and is 26 soon. The guy is late 30s. She knows she cannot waste too much time since she wants at least 2 kids, and preferably she wants to opportunity to be a stay at home mum for a while.

 

She has the degree educated career while he is working part time, and still searching for full time work. He previously had a great career and great income but that careers is no longer valid (sporting).

 

Any advice for her? I can't really offer much advice other than hey, my fiance quit eve when his relationship was sh*thouse, so there is a lot of hope that your partner can too esp. given his life is much better than my fiance's was at the time!

[Fugu]

Most alcoholics can be treated?

 

Sorry.

 

From what I've seen doctors constantly struggle with people and their stubborn alcohol addictions.

 

Alcohol is the most toxic drug there is.

 

Alcohol is the most widely available addicted drug, and there's hardly any social stigma attached to it, which is why alcohol is problematic.

 

I'd say most alcoholics can be treated but even with treatment, most alcoholics will relapse at least once. The key is how to handle the relapse. Alcoholics usually do better with strong social support from family and friends who can confront them in case of relapse. My dad fell into this category. He went clean for almost 20 years. Then he had a health scare, freaked out, and decided he needed vodka again to 'calm his nerves'. But we confronted him, said this **** wasn't gonna work, and he cleaned up and never looked back.

 

But having said the above, there are some alcoholics who will die from the disease. My sister is one of them. I've given up on her. I love her dearly, but I know she will die from alcoholism and there's not **** I can do to save her. She's been in and out of rehab for years. She plays it cool for six months (more like six weeks these days) and then she goes off and does her own thing. Her son, my nephew, was schizophrenic and died a horrible death two years ago. She was already weak but that destroyed her. She lost her baby. She completely and utterly dead inside. She doesn't want to be alive but doesn't have the guts to kill herself with a pistol. So she just wastes herself away. It's all over but the funeral. I hate writing this. I feel guilty for it. But it's the cold, hard truth.

[health]

Fugu - sounds like you've seen alot. Ill be back with a more thorough reply to you.

[health]

Ya, it's crazy how most societies made alcohol their drug of choice. I know you're saying most alcoholics can be treated. I just know how tempting it is for me to go back and how many binges I've had since saying I'd quit 3 years ago. I also heard that once

people really become alcoholics it's very difficult to stop.

 

I too have people in my life I can't save - more due to mental healthy issues.

Agoraphobia - ppl who can't leave the house. It was hard to see over a 15 + year period. Telling these ppl to get out and get a job and live. But at some point you can't really help. And what sucks is these people don't smoke, drink or do anything. They just have mental issues.

 

I too see people whose life is all over but the funeral. That's a great way of putting it. It's hard to hear. But we can only lead a horse to water and not get them to drink it.

[Fugu]

Ya, it's crazy how most societies made alcohol their drug of choice. I know you're saying most alcoholics can be treated. I just know how tempting it is for me to go back and how many binges I've had since saying I'd quit 3 years ago. I also heard that once

people really become alcoholics it's very difficult to stop.

 

Alcohol changes the brain's wiring. It strengthens the connections between alcohol and the pleasure centers, but as your liver gets used to processing higher volumes of alcohol, your brain demands more alcohol to get the feeling that people seek when they drink. Unless you're a chronic binge drinker, this cycle can be broken simply by laying off for a week or so at a time. The desire to binge might still be there, but the desire to drink might not necessarily be.

 

But the more regularly you consume alcohol, particularly in large quantities on a daily basis, the more likely it is that your body will 'expect' it. And once your body begins to expect alcohol, that's when it crosses over from being a psychological dependency, which can be cured by yourself, into being a chemical dependency, which can almost never be self-treated.