SFP 002 – Understanding Addiction: What is it? How do I know when my loved one is addicted? What Can I do?
This podcast was released November 3, 2013, by the original owners of this website when it was called SoberFamilies.com.
In this episode of Helping Families Help Podcast (formerly Sober Families Podcast), we talked with Dr. Christeine Terry about addiction: what it is, how to identify it, and how family members can respond. We’ve all heard terms like addiction, alcoholism, but what does is mean to be addicted? How can we tell the difference between every day substance use that’s not harmful, and patterns of addiction that are harmful? These are the kinds of questions addressed in this show.
Sometimes it’s really easy to tell if your loved one is addicted to drugs or alcohol. They may even have self identified as an addict or alcoholic. But there are also a lot of other family members who have a hard time knowing whether their loved ones drug or alcohol use has crossed over from the nonproblematic range into addiction. Part of the point of this episode is to help those family members to be able to tell the difference. We discussed what addiction is and signs that you can be on the lookout to tell if your family member is addicted.
In this podcast we talk about:
What addiction is
How tolerance develops
How to tell if your loved one is addicted
Ideas on how to seek help for yourself