Are you a drug addict? Is there a constant ‘tick’ in the back of your mind about the getting and using of drugs? 

In DAA we identify ourselves as drug addicts and understand drug addiction as an illness. However, we never tell anyone they are an addict or that they have the illness of drug addiction.

Instead, by describing our own experience of the illness, we help others to recognise its symptoms in themselves. The description given here may help you to draw your own conclusions. 

Once you start, why can’t you control the amount you use and find it near impossible to stop or regulate your using? Why can’t I control the amount I use? 

When we put a mind-altering substance into our bodies, we find we have little or no control over the amount we then take. Though we might start out saying “I’ll only do one” or “I’ll use this bit and save the rest till later”, we frequently end up using far more than we intended.

We react physically to drugs by craving more drugs; our bodies, never satisfied, demand more and more. This phenomenon doesn’t occur in non-addicts (this may include some people who use drugs heavily). Unlike them, once we get started we often have a baffling inability to stop, or even slow down. 

When you decide to stop, why can’t you stick to your decision? Are you constantly trying to quit but it is only a matter of time until you start using again? 

When the drugs run out, or if something else compels us to stop, many of us swear that this time we are finished for good – and mean it. But before too long the thought occurs to us that enough time has passed (perhaps only a day or two!) and that we should now be able to control our drug use.

We can’t adequately recall our recent experience of going completely overboard. We convince ourselves that this time it will somehow be different. We score drugs and begin the cycle once more. Because we can’t keep the memory or thought of what happened last time firmly in our minds, the past consequences of our drug use do not deter us from using again. The idea that drugs will give us a sense of ease and comfort becomes too strong to resist.

Due to what the Big Book calls a strange mental blank spot, the harm we caused ourselves and others, and the humiliation and misery we experienced even a day or two ago, does not prevent us from returning to drugs. The delusion that we can ‘get away with it’ can be very subtle: we tell ourselves we’ll “only do a little bit” or that using “just once can’t hurt me”. At other times, we are seized with a sudden, overwhelming urge to go and score, regardless of the consequences.

One way or another, the insane thought wins out time and time again. Some people mistakenly believe that to be a drug addict one must use so-called ‘hard’ drugs or use drugs every day. But irrespective of the type or amount of drugs we use, it is these symptoms - the insane thinking that precedes our drug use and the physical craving once we start – that distinguish us as drug addicts. Once these symptoms are established, we are in serious trouble. 

Do you suffer from a deep sense of hopelessness, shame and guilt? What happens to me when you’re clean? 

Many of us have experienced a sense that we don’t belong, or that something is missing, or that there’s something ‘wrong’ with us that we can’t quite explain. It seems we can’t find emotional satisfaction the way other people do. It’s as if our lives lack an important mystery ingredient; without this elusive ‘something’, we feel lost and empty.

Equally, we’re unable without drugs to tolerate even minimal levels of stress, boredom or dissatisfaction. The Big Book describes this internal condition simply as restless, irritable and discontented. Of course everybody, at least to some extent, feels this way some of the time. We discovered, however, that using drugs is an extremely effective way to relieve this kind of discomfort. At first, drugs worked for us as nothing else did - though in time they provided less and less relief.

Eventually, we feel bored and depressed even when using. But if we ever manage to get clean, our problems quickly overwhelm us and life soon seems impossibly hard work. It is often when we are clean that our condition becomes truly unbearable. Beset by feelings of self-pity, self-loathing, uselessness and despair, our world seems drained of colour and vibrancy.

Life is at once frightening and excruciatingly tedious. Shut off from any sense of a connection with other people, we experience fear, loneliness, anger and confusion as our normal state of mind. Though life with drugs is no longer an option, we find living without them intolerable.

Many of us grow preoccupied with thoughts of suicide: we want to stop suffering and this seems like the best idea we can come up with. When we use drugs, we lack control. When we stop using, we always start again. The cycle is endless. Some of us didn’t need to use for long in order to realize this. For others, it took many years. Either way, we had to admit that for us this is the truth.