Addictions affect your thinking and behavior until you reach the point where you wonder how you got to be the person you’ve become. You become preoccupied with the drinking, eating or using either by obsessing about it and ways to control it, or by trying to numb yourself to it and its effects. You begin to question yourself and your perceptions of what’s normal. You may feel like or be accused of being the “crazy” one. This sometimes paralyzes us from taking action regarding our loved ones addiction.

After some time addiction also starts to have a negative effect on your family. It is well known that a parent with a drug or alcohol problem can have a negative effect on their family members. You could say that the person with the problem is like someone stuck in a bog. The other family members, in their efforts to help, often get pulled down into the bog too. The first step in putting things right is when the others start to get their own feet on solid ground. Only after they have done this will they be able to help tackle the addiction problem.

Deep into the addiction your life becomes centered on the drugs, alcohol or food – this limits your ability to be emotionally available to your children or other loved ones in your life. They too become casualties of the disease. You reach a point where you’re not certain how or why things have changed, but it has and the love and caring in your family has been lost, and you settle for less.

The good news is the addiction is treatable for you, your family, and the addict in your life. You don’t have to go on living your life controlled by the addiction. Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center and its programs are licensed by the State of California and nationally accredited by the Joint Commission. Impact is affordable and takes most major insurance. Additionally it receives specific program funding from Los Angeles Public Health through Substance Abuse Prevention and Control. Call today to see if you or your loved one is eligible for program funding.
Impact Drug and Alcohol Treatment Center is on line at www.Impacthouse.com and has two locations in Pasadena.

Inpatient: 1680 North Fair Oaks Avenue (626-­798-­0884); Outpatient: 1450 North Lake Ave, 2nd floor (626­-564­-4240). If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction, contact them today.