Do you know what a Catch 22 is? It is like being between a rock and a hard place. It is being damned if you don’t and damned if you do. It is what many addicts feel like in those moments of clarity that seem further and further apart. Every day, alcoholics and drug addicts face depression, loneliness, self-loathing, numbness, nightmares and lost hope. How do we give it back to them?

We should recognize the affects of alcoholism and drug addiction. We should counter it with therapy and care. We should go after it like a soldier goes after an evil force.

Does anyone wake up one day and decide to become an alcoholic instead of a doctor? Does one decide instead of being a fireman, to become a drug addict? It is not the goal of a person to succumb to substance abuse. Why act like it is?

Many people argue the fact as to whether alcoholism and drug addiction are diseases. Why? Because they say people have a choice. Fine. But wait a minute. Isn’t AIDS a disease? Isn’t HIV a blood disorder? Aren’t sexually transmitted diseases well, diseases? These were brought on by choices, too.

It is time to band together and treat the patient. Treat the addict. Go after the disease. Go after the addiction. Here in Texas, let’s take that “Don’t Mess with Texas” motto we are so proud of and see it for what it is meant to be: strength in numbers. Just as I wrote in a post earlier this week, if our legal system is figuring out things like dual diagnosis, then shouldn’t our other departments do so as well? The VA, anger management, community service projects, jail time, all could help with successful rehabilitation in different situations by recognizing that the person is not the problem, the addiction is.

If a person injures another, we go after that person, right? That is what addiction and alcoholism does. Go after the root of the problem, that addiction. Battle the enemy. Yes, a person can be held accountable for his or her actions but tell them they are accountable because they are worth saving, that person deep inside who is now being controlled by substance abuse is still in there and worth saving.

By doing so, you could be helping someone who could very well go on to becoming a rehab counselor, or the parent of the future doctor who finds a cure for cancer. How awesome would it be to have had a hand in that by helping an addict or alcoholic? Exactly.