Many people believe that drugs and alcohol have the ability to provide short-term solutions to many of life’s problems. The difficulty, of course, is that the excessive use of alcohol and drugs does not solve the problems. They offer temporary relief until they become the problem themselves, leading to addiction and dependency for many.

I brought up the topic of what problems they were trying to solve by using alcohol and drugs to a focus group of people in addiction treatment. We generate a list of elements:

Reducing stress

Loneliness

Anxiety management

Coping with depression

I just like to drink and get high.

My husband / wife – dysfunctional relationships

Low self-esteem

Boredom

To fit in socially

Feeling sorry for myself

Pain management (both physical and emotional)

The list went on and on, I’m sure you get the idea. One thing that I think is common among people with chemical dependency, or among drug and alcohol users, is the tendency not to know how to deal with life’s problems in a positive, non-destructive way. Maybe somewhere the skills were never learned. Another possibility is that the skills we learned in childhood were dysfunctional and we still use them as adults with little success.

Here is a reality to consider. Life is life, there are good and bad moments, we get frustrated with ourselves, other people, places and things. I think one thing that absolutely must be done in recovery is to rule out the option of going back to drug and alcohol use as a means of solving life’s problems.

How am I going to handle the death of a loved one, the loss of a job, the celebration of the birth of a new baby? I really don’t know, I’ll handle it to the best of my ability when it happens. But one thing that is absolutely certain is that the option to return to drug and alcohol use and abuse is no longer on the menu of my life options.

That emotional and intellectual commitment to abstinence is rhetorical if not backed by a plan of action. The intellectual decision to stop drinking is about 2 percent of the game. The other 98 percent involves having a concrete, growing recovery plan, a relapse prevention plan, and an absolutely huge support network.