Identifying Symptoms and Triggers of an Addictive Personality

CEBU, Philippines - As drug and alcohol use increases, the user tries to keep life under control. That gets harder and harder to do. Life becomes a great balancing act of excuses, blaming and other forms of denial. Finally the user does desperate things to try to continue to appear normal. These desperate behaviors are called addictive behaviors. They are the things people do related to their drug and alcohol use. Sometimes the behaviors ONLY occur when people are using or moving toward using.

Learning to recognize when one or more of these behaviors begin to happen will help you to know when to start fighting extra hard to move away from relapse.

Do You Have an Addictive Personality?

Which of these behaviors do you think are related to your drug or alcohol use?

•They start lying jus about anything even when there is no reason to do so;

•They start stealing things to be able to pawn and/or sell so that they may buy more drugs;

•They start being irresponsible like spending money meant for living obligations (to pay utility bills, tuitions, etc) to buy drugs. In other words not meeting their obligations of family/work;

•They start being unreliable such as constantly late for, or missing, appointments, always breaking promises, does not do their chores a home;

•They start being careless about health and grooming such as they stop exercising, poor dies, dresses in shabby clothes, does not have proper hygiene, etc;

•They start getting sloppy in house keeping and how they take care of their belongings;

•They start behaving impulsively. In other words they do things without properly thinking about what they are about to do;

•They start behaving compulsively, like doing almost everything excessively such as too much eating/not eating, working. Sex, etc;

•They start losing interest in things that they used to like doing such as recreational activities, family and social life);

•They start isolating such as staying by themselves much of the time, or always locked up in the room/bathroom;

•They start to show obvious intoxication with alcohol and/or other drugs and smell of alcohol/other drugs in their clothing;

•If they are already trying to recover from an addiction, they start missing or being late for 12-Step or other support groups;

•If they have been diagnosed as someone with a co-occurring psychiatric disorder and they stop taking their prescribed medication (antidepressants, anti-anxiety, Antabuse, etc.).

If you, or the person you care about, are showing these addictive behaviors then more than likely there is a problem. Contact and addictions treatment professional and get an assessment so that you may so something about your problem. Remember if they do have a problem with alcohol, and/or other drugs and they do not stop drinking and/or using drugs they are headed for either jails, institutions or death. For more information please feel free to contact us anytime at 032-2389143 or 032-2315229.