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Are you harboring a painful experience from your past. Is there a history of alcoholism or addiction in your family? If so you are more likely to have a problems with what some individuals know as self medicating. You may have been a victim of sexual assault, physical or verbal abuse, or any other type of situation that may cause you to suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. When you harbor these gruesome memories deep within the confines of your mind and you feel as though there's no outlet; these memories begin to stir about and you want to forget about these things, so what do you do? Most people are too ashamed or too proud to ask for help even though they need to find a way to bring closure to these events. You have a drink, it begins to calm you down. Wow the feeling of release is great. You pick up another drink or other substance and feel even better than before. This becomes a psychological cycle of habitual events. You finally fall asleep with no cares in the world, you are free from your pain. You have psychologically concluded that if you use a substance, you don't have to feel pain. You wake up in the morning feeling horrible from the night before. You can feel your body shaking, reminding you once again that you "need" something to calm you down. Automatically the mind recalls that the substance makes you feel good. You reach out a find the same "friend" that was there for you last night. As you can see this is a never ending cycle of self destructing events. You are self medicating with substances and until you realize the underlying problems and ask for help it will continue to kill you each time you reach for your "friend" If you think you or someone you know may be self medicating. Remember addiction and alcoholism IS a silent killer, the deadly effects of alcoholism and addiction are not always as clear as we would like to believe.

Learn more about this author, Melinda Cook.
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