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It happens to anyone, making no distinctions for gender or intelligence. ‘It’ is substance abuse, and one of the most prevalent kinds of abuse out there is the abuse of a legal substance, alcohol. It is because it’s legal that people fail to see its overuse as a problem. Waking up with a hangover, wondering where you’ve been the night before might be common, and legal, but it’s a signal to any substance abuse counselor. The easiest way to determine if you’ve got a problem with this legal substance is to honestly examine your usage of it. You’ve got to answer one question – does your usage lead to harm? If you wake up feeling sick, or with a splitting headache, or do things the night before that you regret the morning after, these are all signs that you’re doing yourself harm.
It can be hard to admit this, especially when your entire circle of friends is acting the same way. It’s just too easy to slip into the ‘everybody else is doing it, so I don’t have a problem’ mentality. But you’ve got to focus on yourself, because as much as you might wish your friends will provide the same focus, they really won’t. They’ll even give you a hard time if you tell them that you’ve been questioning your own alcohol consumption habits.
And after an honest session of thought on the subject, you may determine that a detox program is the right step to take. It’s never a bad thing to detox. That’s because as your body clears out the toxins left behind, your mind will start to clear up as well.
