Drug addicts don’t start out abusing chemicals by falling into a hole. They start by jumping in. This guide offers personal solutions for the drug addict trying to defeat the social, family, mental, and physical health problems of addiction after the fact. It builds upon positives, and starts with a philosophical note.
Forgive Yourself:
The first step on the road to recovery is simply to forgive yourself. Most families will be willing to help you turn over a new leaf, but more often than not society and families are only willing to forgive after you forgive yourself. In philosophical terms, this means building on the positives—you quit—while also remembering the negatives. That means, no matter the drug or pain it caused, you can’t entirely forget that you used. Why? It’s said history is society’s way of not making the same mistake twice. In terms of drug abuse, it’s the same.
Defining Drug Addiction:
According to many studies in print and online, you can define drug abuse (or substance abuse) as “the repeated and excessive use of chemical substances to achieve a certain effect” (Helpguides.com).  What does that mean in basic terms? It means you’re using marijuana to be higher, happier; you’re using cocaine to feel invincible; you’re abusing prescriptions drugs to go lower.  You are zoning out of the world and of society. What are you trying to forget?
Forgetting:
Again, remembering isn’t a bad thing. It’s part of life to remember mistakes only so you don’t do it again. As different drugs have different effects, and no two drug users are trying to escape the exact same thing, you need to start exploring what you’re trying to forget from the past. This is far from easy, especially for highly experienced drug addicts. Addiction is powerful, and it disrupts everything in your life. However, what happened before? Again we are at philosophy and therapy: you need to bring the skeletons out of the closet and deal with them.
Road to Recovery Help—Using Family, Doctors, Friends:
Recovery is definitely not something to do by yourself. Don’t! This guide isn’t the finale to defeating drug addiction, to escaping marijuana or cocaine, crystal meth or pain killers. One of the most powerful tools you will have is the help of friends, family, and doctors. If you are lacking in positive people to help you, and many are, you might consider reaching out. There are many 12 step programs, some for specific drugs like cocaine and marijuana addiction, while others go broader and help with physical abuse and all narcotics (like Narcotics Anonymous, a 12 Step program similar to Alcoholics Anonymous). It’s important to find the cause of your drug abuse so you won’t repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

New Ideas on Addiction:
Finally, there is a wealth of sources on defeating addiction in today’s modern world, whether you live in New York or Shanghai. These ideas are becoming powerful as more and more governments are seeking to help people beat drug addiction. This article itself uses notes from many top agencies like the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.  By exploring solutions like this, you are expanding your knowledge. There are also new ways for you to combat drug abuse via addiction counselors, and even many homes across the country that aren’t entirely rehab clinics but more living spaces for addicts to find positive environments. You are not alone in this, but you will often feel like it.
The road to defeating addiction can be long and dark, but it will almost always make you a better person to your family, friends, and society.