She walked into my hair salon, while I was sitting there, reading Vogue, under the hair dryer and confronted me. I couldn’t believe it. My sister of all people, showed up out of the blue and confronted me about my alcohol abuse. Then, I wanted to yell at her in front of all my friends. Now, I want to hug her everytime I see her. She walked me out of the salon, put me in her car and drove me straight out to a luxury alcohol treatment center in Malibu. Like she knew I wouldn’t go anywhere else. My alcohol addiction was almost as bad as my Rodeo shopping sprees. I have to have luxury. But this was serious, my alcohol addiction was killing me and I needed alcohol treatment. She dropped me off, paid for the 30day high-end residential treatment center herself, and drove away. It was such an act of love, between two sisters who haven’t always seen eye-to-eye. Im kind of a bitch sometimes. But now that I’m sober, we have so much to talk about. So much to share, so much to find out about each other.

I am 54 years old, and used drugs heavily and daily for 35 of those 54 years. I was the classic “functioning addict.” I worked, held a good job, and abused drugs every day. I had everyone including myself fooled. In recent years I began to hear an inaudible voice. “Craig, why are you throwing your life away? I have so many gifts yet to give you, and so much more for you to do.” I am convinced it was God speaking, but I continued to use.
A routine health screening indicated that finally after all those years, the drugs were taking it’s toll. I was finally forced to make a choice: sobriety, health and life or drugs, illness and an early death. I needed drug addiction treatment and I chose sobriety, health and life. I have not had a drink or used drugs in ten months. How did I do this? I got my ass up, found the nearest drug treatment center and dove in headfirst. Where I landed was at a high-end residential drug treatment center. I opened my ears, shut my mouth and listened for the first time in many many years. What I heard was “hope,” and today I am hopeful.

My name is Barbara and I’m a 26 year old drug abuser. I’ve had a lot of success at a drug abuse treatment center. First of all, being sober is one of the best successes I’ve ever
had. Because of great, loving drug abuse treatment I’ve been sober for 62 days so far and it’s been great. I’ve learned how to confront my drug abuse and now I’ll be able to confront any situation I might walk into and be able handle it in the right way. The people at my rehab are fantastic. Afterwards, I felt like a whole new person. I felt more active, more awake, and more ambitious. I never thought I could conquer my substance abuse, bit I did and I am a happy recovering addict. Treatment taught me how to live again. I can’t wait until I have a chance to give back to others just as they have helped me. I want to thank all of the staff and students here for helping me get my life back. If you ever need any help, for any drug or alcohol abuse, I hope one day someone like me can help someone like you.

Why do you need alcohol rehabilitation? Let’s start with what an alcoholic is, and why you may need an alcohol treatment center… Alcoholism is a term with multiple and sometimes conflicting definitions. In common and historic usage, alcoholism refers to any condition that results in the continued consumption of alcoholic beverages despite the health problems and negative social consequences it causes. Medical definitions describe alcoholism as a disease which results in a persistent use of alcohol despite negative consequences. Alcoholism may also refer to a preoccupation with or compulsion toward the consumption of alcohol and/or an impaired ability to recognize the negative effects of excessive alcohol consumption. Although not all of these definitions specify current and on-going use of alcohol as a qualifier, some do, as well as remarking on the long-term effects of consistent, heavy alcohol use, including dependence and symptoms of withdrawal. While the ingestion of alcohol is, by definition, necessary to develop alcoholism, the use of alcohol does not predict the development of alcoholism. The quantity, frequency and regularity of alcohol consumption required to develop alcoholism varies greatly from person to person. In addition, although the biological mechanisms underpinning alcoholism are uncertain, some risk factors, including social environment, emotional health and genetic predisposition, have been identified. Does this sound like you…? It did for me.

We’re very lucky that drug and alcohol rehab exists in our society. I guess it does suck to have a need for it in our society, but I am glad that we have it. Our world can be crazy sometimes. That’s a true statement. Drug and alcohol rehab keeps a large amount of the crazy out of the world’s equation. Oh yeah, without drug and alcohol rehabs the world would be an even bigger mess than it is. I hate hearing how people make fun of drug and alcohol rehab or the people who go to them. It sucks because drug and alcohol rehab is pretty much the only thing that can save the people in our world that are suffering from drug addictions and alcoholism. Let’s be real, it’s got to be hard suffering from drug addictions and alcoholism. They are powerful diseases to have and they can destroy lives. That’s actually what they do best. They destroy lives, jobs, and friendships without any remorse. The fact of the matter is that without drug and alcohol rehab we would all be in worse shape than we are now. We should be thankful that they exist and help take the edge off of our world..

My little brother died of a heroin overdose. He died alone in a small hotel room in a foreign country. He’d want me to tell you, tell the whole world, that you don’t have to go out like that. He was a good guy, a loving, fun, smart guy. But he was also a drug addict. He didn’t want to die, he just didn’t know when to say enough. He would have wanted me to tell you about drug addiction treatment. His best friend, another serious partier, and probably another addict, works at a rehab in Los Angeles. While we both live in the same city, we don’t see that much if each other. I wish we did, but we don’t. It makes me fell good that his friend is sober now, and helping other addicts recover from their addictions. It’s a cool part of the cycle of life. While I miss my brother dearly, and wish that he was still with us. I do understand that his death helped others live better lives in a weird, cool way. My brother loved his friend and while I don’t know it for sure, I like to believe that one reason he got sober and is now helping other addicts is that he knew and loved my brother.

The amount of drug abuse in this country is nuts! it’s everywhere. on tv, at school, at home, everywhere! sometimes i wish there was a huge drug abuse treatment center where all the people with substance abuse problems could go and get well. it sucks there’s so many people who need drug abuse treatment and never get it. i know a bunch of people that could use it, and will probably never get it. i bet a bunch of soldiers will come home from the war needing it. you think they would have a lot of drug abuse treatment centers for them. it gets me angry. not at the addicts, it’s not their fault. i know that. i get angry that we treat drug abuse as some weird problem. it’s a huge national problem and something tells me if we just talked about it, like we all talk about other stuff, that it would get better. i know a lot of people who have gotten better after they went to a drug abuse treatment center. this one dude i know, this surfer from Malibu, Ca… dude had a huge cocaine problem. he went to a rehab, got better and now i see him surfing all the time. that’s one. why can’t the rest of them get help too?