bmdadmin

“First the man takes a drink…then the drink takes the man.”

  -Irish Saying

Substance abuse is, at its roots, a thief. The thief has many routes into its victim: swallowing, smoking, snorting, and injecting are among the most common. Some of the substances include prescription meds, nicotine, heroin, alcohol, marijuana, and meth. Abuse of these substances is a thief of your time, energy, and focus. They want nothing more than the entirety of you or your family members’ one and only, unique life.

Robs You of Focus

No other drug dependence is talked about more openly at the office than the mostly harmless caffeine addiction. Who hasn’t heard, “Sorry, I’m not thinking clearly. I haven’t had my morning cup yet.” The side effects for me and others missing our morning Joe includes headache, lack of focus, and fatigue to name just a few. Coffee is usually a harmless addiction. However, even with caffeine, there are people who actually experience flu-like symptoms. Now, we acknowledge, people aren’t lining up in droves to kick their caffeine addiction and we aren’t suggesting they should. However, it highlights an important point. Substance abuse robs you of your focus. It’s not just the heroine addict shaking and aching until they inject. Substance abuse creates an overwhelming need to ‘get one’s next fix’. Going without can make you mentally unfit to complete daily tasks of living, much less work-related tasks. The only thought in your head is “I need”…a drag, the glass, a needle… Substance abuse robs you of mental clarity, focus, and creativity. Eventually, you find yourself waiting in line, seeking the next hit, and willing to spend any amount of money to get it.

Substance Abuse Takes Your Money

The National Institute on Drug Abuse states that “Substance abuse costs our Nation over $600 billion annually”. Let’s put the zeros to it: $600,000,000,000! Instead of creating memories with your income, substance abuse slowly takes every last dime. Additionally, we often see victims of substance abuse first realize there is a problem when they lose their job and their income. The financial fallout means substance abuse takes your unique pursuits: hobbies, movies, books, gym memberships, to name a few. Substance abuse takes your finances and makes them its own.

Substance Abuse Vandalizes Health

Substance abuse is a truly, physically toxic behavior. Just imagine for a minute how many father and son relationships have been cut short by the thief nicotine and its companion, lung disease alone.

Substance Abuse vandalizes your health:

• Cardiovascular disease (including high blood pressure & heart attack)
• Stroke
• Cancer
• HIV/AIDS
• Hepatitis B and C
• COPD (other lung diseases)
• Mental dependency and disorders

In addition, substance abuse vandalizes the health of others:

• Fetal alcohol syndrome or dependency
• Second-hand smoke has over 250 toxic chemicals
• Increased spread of infectious diseases
• Impaired driving and motor vehicle accidents

Substance abuse can create debilitating illnesses that limit your activities and even your breath for years. It enters your body and wreaks havoc on your immune system, heart, lungs, brain, or throat. The vandal leaves its mark inside you for the rest of your shortened life.

Swindles Your Time

Time is the most valuable commodity we have. Right now, stop. Imagine your perfect day for each question:

Where are you?

Who are you with?

What are you doing?

For most people, substance abuse moves us away from the moments we love. This toxic relationship whispers that a few moments with it is all you need. As with all swindlers, this is a lie.

Its name is TIME.

Every morning, it credits you with 86,400 seconds.

Every night it writes off, as lost, whatever of this you have failed to invest to good purpose.

It carries over no balance.

It allows no overdraft.

Substance abuse insidious deception leads millions to invest their precious commodity, time, in the meaningless pursuit of a dead-end, toxic relationship.

Poaches Your Relationships

For most of those in recovery, the most painful thing the thief takes is their relationships. Substance abuse slowly picks them off one by one. Unfortunately, it usually starts with that one truly caring friend who says, “Hey Bob, you haven’t seemed yourself lately. Is everything OK?” Substance abuse then poaches its first relationship. “Who is he/she to get in my business?” The disintegration that follows can be slow and painful, like a bandaid coming off a little at a time. With more toxic substances, it can be a rapid descent into loneliness and isolation. Either way, you end up alone in your room with your cat, the TV, and your toxic relationship with a substance.

Hope is Found in Removing Toxic Relationships

“A bad relationship is like standing on broken glass, if you stay you will keep hurting. If you walk away, you will hurt but eventually, you will heal.” ― Autumn Kohler If you are in a toxic relationship with a substance, there is hope. It is found in walking away. Undoubtedly, leaving will hurt for a time but you will heal. Don’t spend another day settling for less than your full purpose. Our staff is trained to companion you out of your toxic relationship and into the unique life you were put on this earth to live.

Call 502-451-1221 or email  tmcinfo@themortoncenter.org  and our addiction counseling team will determine the most effective treatment program for you.

Since you are researching addiction counseling, then you have decided it’s time for a change in your life. For that reason, today, we will discuss 5 reversals or changes you can expect. Ultimately, it is our hope you make the choice to reach out and reverse the patterns of addiction in your life.

Understand Your ‘Why’ with Addiction Counseling

When we make changes without understanding the negative motivations or unmet needs that drive us, relapse is a threat. Addiction counseling guides us to the reasons why we make choices that destroy. It also helps us understand why our addictions gained so much control.

Ultimately, we are able to reverse these negative choices with ‘whys’ that are powerful enough to help us make positive choices. Then, our positive choices pave the way to the life we deserve.

Retrain Your Brain

Part of discovering our ‘why’ lies in identifying our triggers. Triggers include things like boredom, anxiety, fear, or stress. These triggers unleash ‘tapes’ or thoughts that drive us towards negative behaviors. Addiction counseling helps you identify negative self-talk that leads to destructive patterns. More importantly, you can unleash the power of positive responses to these triggers. These new responses will fuel your relationships and habits to a better life. More about this:

Gain and Restore Relationships

If you are caught in addiction, you know its destructive power is most painfully felt in your relationships. Addictions destroy marriages. Regrettably, addiction tears parent and child apart. As a result, addiction is a disease of the lonely. It does this by pulling us away from the people we need most.

Addiction therapy recognizes this. If you feel you are not at a place to restore what is broken, counseling can help you build new, healthy relationships. In time, these new relationships will become the strong foundation you need to stand on as you restore what has been broken.

Exchange Negative Behaviors for Blessings

To this point, we have identified how addiction counseling helps us identify our triggers and the broken relationships they fuel and, sometimes, are fueled by them. Now, it is time to talk about trading bad habits for blessings!

For example: stress is your trigger for drinking. In a previous session you told your counselor, “I have always been interested in bird watching.” As a result, she encourages you to join the Audubon Society. Soon, you are going on weekly outings identifying species in the area parks. Following your second trip you have a conversation with a fellow birder who works for a company that needs someone with your skill set. In addition, 3 months later, you go to the doctor and discover you have lost 10 pounds and no longer qualify as pre-diabetic because of your walks in the park.

As a result of unlocking one trigger, you reverse it and gain so much power. You explore your love of nature. New friendships open doors that reduce work stress. Furthermore, your health is better. Finally, you soon discover that a second trigger, boredom, is no longer a threat!

Secrets

One of our clients’ favorite rewards of addiction counseling is reversing the role of secrets in their life.

Addiction counseling reverses secrets. One of the most destructive things about addiction is all the secrets that can’t be spoken. Through focused behavioral therapy, clients who hid in the darkness of pain and confusion only months before receive the tools to live openly in their truth.

Without a doubt, unlocking your true self is one of the greatest benefits of addiction counseling! This world needs the one and only you. One of our greatest passions is seeing clients unlock their full potential. Above all, you living your authentic life is priceless!

Unlock the Power of Addiction Counseling Today

Ready to take the next step?

Call 502-451-1221 or email tmcinfo@themortoncenter.org and our addiction counseling team will determine the most effective treatment programs and services to help reclaim your life from addiction.

Addiction treatment for first responders is a vital part of our country’s responsibility to help our helpers. When we think about large trauma events like 9/11 or active shooter scenarios, everyone recognizes the mental and emotional challenges put on our first responders. Nevertheless, every day, there are thousands of smaller events all across the country that can lead to PTSD or overwhelming stress loads for our community helpers.

First Responders Face Daily Critical Incidents

Imagine for a minute, you just sat down for dinner, when a call comes. You leave the food on the table and head out the door to an accident scene. There are minors involved. A DPS officer is the first on the scene. As firefighters arrive he informs them two teenage occupants of one vehicle are deceased. They tell him where tarps are and he covers the bodies as the firefighters begin triage for three more. A small child is the most critical. Her mother is injured but the greater concern is her emotional distress for her child. Yet, a third victim has relatively minor injuries but witnesses say was involved in a race with another car. EMS arrives on the scene and preps the child for transport. The DPS officer begins his investigation of a possible homicide.

Every first responder in this scenario is faced with overwhelmingly challenging realities of life, death, and violence. While all first responders are trained for these situations, their emotional and mental responses long-term will be as varied as their past experience, home life, and family. Each will be offered a Critical Incident Stress Debriefing but first responders are often reticent to show the impact of the incident. They each fear they might be perceived as too distraught to continue to perform the job.

Over the last two years, our communities have faced increasing stress. During this time, first responders have come face to face with covid patients and dramatic rises in traffic fatalities. They have seen the consequences of low cancer screening rates and been called to respond to a rise in family violence including child abuse.

Our first responders have come face-to-face with the difficulties of a worldwide pandemic as well as the resulting economic and social challenges. The increases in so many areas have served to make some of our strongest our most vulnerable.

The Need for Access and Confidentiality

As a result of this, it is no surprise that more first responders than ever are facing long-term PTSD or seeking to “take the edge off” with alcohol or drugs. Studies have shown, having PTSD alone doubles a person’s risk of alcohol and drug misuse. By the time first responders recognize there is a problem, these heroes usually fear being relieved of duty or losing their jobs if they seek help.

First responders signed up for their duty knowing they would face trauma. They do so because they care about our communities and they want to help. So how do we respond when those who are helpers are in need of help?

The answer should be clear. We remove roadblocks to treatment while providing confidentiality in the treatment of their disease. At the same time, we work hard to reduce the stigma attached to first responders seeking help.

Addiction Treatment for First Responders

At the Morton Center, we are passionate about helping the helpers. Our outpatient program is confidential and easily accessible. If you or a loved one are a first responder and struggling with addiction the first step to healing can be as simple as a phone call. Our treatment programs are available on an outpatient basis and through telehealth support online.

The Morton Center counselors are here to support you. Our confidential hotline is available with resources and counselors who want to help you determine the best next steps for you or your loved one.

The Morton Center counselors are here to support you. Our confidential hotline is available with resources and counselors who want to help you determine the best next steps for you or your loved one.

Call us at (502) 451-1221 to get help today.

How You Can Help the Helpers

If you are reading and want to know how you can help our first responders and others facing addiction join our Heroes for Hope and be a difference-maker. When you give right now, you’ll be part of a vision to change the lives of hundreds of families for generations to come! Please be as generous as you can to provide a life-changing recovery from addiction.