Hi everyone,
I’ve been wanting to do something to help drug users for a long time now, so instead of just thinking about it, I’ve decided to go ahead and give this a try.
I’m a doctoral student at UCLA working on my PhD in psychology. I’ve been studying issues related to drug-addiction, sex-addiction, and gambling-addiction for the past 6 years and am continuing on my quest to discover what I call “The pathway to addiction.”
The thing is that on the way I have been, and still am, gaining an amazing amount of knowledge that I think can benefit not only those struggling with drug use and addiction themselves, but also the family members, friends, and loved ones of those being affected by this disease, condition, or whatever each of you feels comfortable calling addiction. As far as I’m concerned, this should all be about somehow actually helping drug users.
I’ve had my own experiences with drug use and addiction, and so I don’t expect my writings to be devoid of subjective input that I feel I can contribute given my experience.
My goal here is to get what we, as scientists, know about addiction to the general public.
I want to do this because I feel that knowledge is a key ingredient not only in curing and fighting conditions (be they medical, academic, psychological, or otherwise), but also in simply being able to handle and accept things as they are more completely.
We tend to be more scared of things when we feel like we don’t understand them.
I’m not going to lie to you on here and I’ll have no problem revealing personal history and experience by they related to my drug use or other aspects of my life.
I want this to be a forum for people to ask honest questions, get honest answers, and be able to look to when they feel like they’re at a loss and need someone who understands. Making a difference takes work. I hope it works…