Let me talk to you about my work.
So as you may have read in my previous article I’m working in an Addiction service from the french government (Santé Publique France). I’ve been working in this service for about 2 years now.
So basically, in this service, we are trying to help people who have an addiction, it could be about alcohol, drugs, medications, gambling etc.
When I started this work, I really wanted to help everybody. I was like I will definitely make people quit their addictions. But to tell you the truth, the reality hit me crazily hard. It wasn’t smooth at all.
You know at the time, I just graduated and I (like every students) wanted to change the world….and I believed that I could change every single people on earth (if they are addicted to something/anything).
Ow and I forgot to mention that I did an internship in this service too and I got a job there when I graduated.
So during my internship there, I did observe lots of things but I’ve never once thought it would be hard to make people quit their addictions. I had this mindset that addictions aren’t good for the person, they HAVE to quit.
Also, addictions are usually a symptom, showing that the person is going through a hardship, or went through a hardship and couldn’t find a way to cope with the hardship. So I was like, if I can find the origin of the symptom I could cure the person. It was that simple.
But…
It wasn’t simple at all, and it’s still not simple at all.
Most of the times the patient says that he/she wants to quit but in reality he/she doesn’t want it at all.
Even if you point the symptom and find a way to soothe the suffering, find a solution for the past hardships,** people still don’t want to quit**.
There are 3 cases:
-Sometimes people actually want to quit but can’t do it, because they use the products for so long that they forgot what is life without the addiction.
-Sometimes people say they want to quit, but they only want it with words, not with actions.
-Sometimes they just don’t want it at all.
The only common point in those 3 cases is that, it’s never simple.
So the process for me to finally get that it won’t be easy and I have to get used to that took quite some time and I guess I just** didn’t want to accept** that. But once I accepted that it won’t be as how I planned, I started to work better with the patients.
I just realized at some point, that the patients, the addicted people used these products because they are addicted to life and they still haven’t giving up on life even though they often say they did give up. I’m pretty much sure now, that people use those products because they want to live, and because they want to enjoy the life…somehow. Also, using those products is a way for my patients to live, and feel like they are living. But in reality it feels more like they are surviving life and not living it. Why did I use the word surviving? From what I did observe over 2 years of work, I realized that most people use these products because they want to survive and to cope with the life, it’s their WAY to live by surviving. Some people actually need those products to not end their life, because they still have something/someone meaningful to make them survive the life.
Yes I am because I’m trying to help people going from surviving the life to living it. I believe that there is always a solution that’s why I believe that you should never give up on being addicted to the life.
Finally the question is: why are they surviving and not living it? (next post)
