When you’re worried about an addiction, one way to assess the situation is to look at the overall context of this kind of social problem.
We do this a lot at Elevated Recovery, where we help men to deal with the consequences of their addictions. We start to see patterns in behavior and how to frame these things in the proper way, in a way that leads to help, to redemption and renewal, and better protections for marginalized people in our communities.
Impact on the Individual
You often have to start with the negative impact on the individual.
A lot of times, people focus on the cost – how people get money and resources to feed their addictions – but it goes much deeper than that. There are all kinds of emotional costs to consider and unseen issues that only come to the surface in extreme situations.
Really digging into the bitter truth about an addiction helps the healing to start. This helps to evaluate how a life change could improve the situation.
Impact on the Community
Addictions have an impact far beyond the individual. They have negative consequences for the community.
If it’s a drug addiction, the impact may be theft and vandalism done to others in order to feed the addiction.
If it’s a sexual addiction, it involves how pornography is made. You see people, many young women especially, having all sorts of things done to them that they wouldn’t reasonably like. There’s an industry set up to serve this addiction and it’s not hard to see the negative impact there.
Education and Awareness
Another key component to look at is how education and awareness happens in the community.
This starts us talking about how to remediate the impact of the addiction for everyone involved. You start to look at what resources are in place.
We operate our own services here at Elevated Recovery, but we like to see more advocacy and commitment out in the greater community. This might take the form of doctors and medical or mental health professionals getting involved, or it may have to do with concerned citizens taking their own initiative. Ultimately, it also has to do with people deciding to live better.
If you have trouble with addiction behavior, call Elevated Recovery. We do our best to help, based on specific models of how to address these concerns as mentioned above. We are committed to helping you find your way in a discrete setting. Take a step to improve your life and the lives of others.
