Whether your addiction involves a substance, gambling, a drug, shopping, or any other addictive thing, there is help available to you! It can be difficult to find the motivation, or to feel hope that your life can change, but it’s possible. You already know what your addiction is doing to your body and mind. What else can such things cost you?
New Opportunities
Even if your employer, your family, and others do not know about your active addiction, you do not hide it as well as you think that you do. Every addict thinks that they have completely hidden their problem, and yet there are subtle signals which are impossible to hide. These subtle cues create the inability for you to be honest. This will show to others, who, even if they don’t know why you’re being dishonest, will recognize that you are. No one wants to hire, marry, or even be around someone who is being dishonest.
Career
Addictions steal from you your career, as well as your money. Someone who is not actively fighting their addiction generally cannot fully practice their career, regardless of what it is. Addictions in general take down your ability to concentrate. This can destroy your ability to do your job, regardless of what it is. An addiction will actually cost you your medical license, which means you can’t practice anymore. The same is true for the ability to practice law.
Family
Addiction is referred to as a “family disease.” In part this is because the behaviors caused by addiction can be genetic in part, so if your parents tended to have addictions, you might be predisposed as well. This also means that your addiction will affect your family, both because your actions can’t be healthy physically or mentally while you’re suffering from addiction, but also because you can choose to break those patterns. Choosing to get help and be a cycle breaker means that you can help protect your family, instead of destroying it.
It can seem, when you have an addiction, as if it is too late to change. It can seem as if anyone finding out about your problem would crush you with shame. The burden you already bear with both having and hiding your illness is already shaping your life with guilt and sorrow. You can change your life by finding and accepting help to change your world for the better.
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