there is no answer, Ken. We live in a drug fueled culture.The only answer I've found in my life is my own personal change. I used to smoke cigarettes. I finally quit cold turkey and put it behind me for good 25 years ago.I developed a severe monkey in the 70's & 80's that lasted into the 90's..multiple substance abuse primarily centered around alcohol and cocaine. I was a monster. Never thought about it as a problem until I finally took a hard look at myself in my mid 40's. Stopped drinking, which stopped the coke reflex, which alleviated the cigarette addiction., I watched as most of my social circle continued on living with multiple addictions, with many adding opiates to the mix. There's been a lot a early deaths associated within this social circle of friends. Artists, musicians, lawyers, business owners, cops, dealers..you name it...it crosscuts our society.
Here's my take on it all...YOU are the only person that can change YOU. YOU are the only one going out that door at the end of the life movie. You can try all the programs and all the remedies and all the advice others have to offer but in the end it's YOUR decision and yours only. The brain chemistry involved in substance addiction is PERNICIOUS. I read people saying "I've been sober two years and things are going good". I know from personal experience that giving myself badges of accomplishment and revering "sobriety" is, in the end, a self delusion. YOU have to make that decision to stop using brain altering substance...and then you have to wait, for years and years, for your brain to rewire the electrical exchanges across your synapses to original firing patterns you were born with. I suspect it's different for everyone. In my case it took over seven years but it did happen.
To illustrate,here's a short look into what happened. I decided to go completely straight when I was 43.I stopped cold. It was hard at first, like it is for everyone/anyone but I managed to move forward. Five years later I'm at a family holiday gathering and one of my cousins offers me a Beck's beer at the Thanksgiving family dinner. My entire adult family drinks alcohol in moderation. I figured "hey, it's been 5 years, I can handle this.." I had that ONE beer and ten minutes later I wanted to run out an score an 8 ball. Scared the living bejeezus out of me. I left abruptly, drove home, jumped in bed and pulled the covers over me. Petrified. FIVE YEARS sober and the dual addiction reflex was still there like it was yesterday. The next day I began researching the effects of cocaine/alcohol on the brain and read research being done in Europe that detailed the swift changes in neural transmission between synapses in the brain. Coke rewires the brain in as little as a month! Your brain is a bunch of nerve cells...we all know how long it takes for nerves to regenerate when altered or injured, it's the same for electrical transmissions across the synaptic gaps. NO ONE ever said anything about this to me as I was staying sober. When I found out that the research showed it takes close to a decade for the brain to rewire, I knew I'd have to wait another few years before my brain chemistry came back to normal. Here's the kicker. It did. I was off Block Island ten years later fishing in mid summer. It was blazing hot. I had some guys that chartered my boat to fish for stripers. They brought a cooler of Bud with them. I decided to try one to see if the reflex was still there. THAT was the best goddamned beer I EVER drank in my life. One measly run of the mill Budweiser. At that moment out there on the water in the drenching heat, I realized the coke reflex was gone.
It took nearly ten years but I finally came free from the chemical reflex I had established in my brain from years of abuse. I CAN drink alcohol now and can do it in moderation. I do not drink alcohol because I really prefer not to. I enjoy living in my skin today, just the way I am. I have a number of medical conditions that require I take prescribed heart meds. Other than that, I refuse all attempts by my doctors to get me to begin using pain meds, sleep meds, anxiety meds. We live in this drug culture today, where it's normal to address the aches and pains of life with a pill. This is NOT normal IMO. What is normal is, if you're having trouble sleeping, go out an do anything to get yourself tired...guess what? You'll sleep like a baby. If you have anxiety and find yourself in a brain loop of negative thoughts, take up a behaviour that focuses your mind on something else...learn music, take up painting,ride a bike, go out for a walk...jeezus,I'm as rough and tumble as they come yet I feed birds and watch them every morning like some old lady out on a farm in the woods. It WORKS.
Of course, for better or worse, arguing on a message board daily about the NEP works wonders too. "We're all bozos on this bus" an extremely perceptive individual once said. Enjoy the ride.
) Everything can be solved with a pill these days. 
