Can you recognize signs of addiction in yourself or others?

CPT (Join to see) Nice article and a good reminder that unhealthy addiction happen to all families regardless of background. My Grandfather was a chronic alcoholic and I have a brother-in-law who is a compulsive gambler. Sadly, both left a trail of broken relationships in their wake.
As a Nazarene, we generally avoid these behaviors as unworthy of our faith in Christ. However, just because my faith background discourages any use doesn't mean that people don't use or get addicted, it happens like in many other parts of society.
This is why I believe in mental health counseling, we need more of it and more frequently to encourage the healthiest possible behaviors and good choices in all citizen's lives.

Not always. I recognized that one of my Soldiers in Germany was an alcoholic, but the signs were glaring. He was late to formation all the time, work performance dropped, barracks room in shambles, no money, getting into fights and I could smell the alcohol on him from time to time. That was easy. I also had a battle buddy that was doing drugs and I had no clue until after he finally came up hot on a UA. After he came up hot and admitted to his addiction, I was able to start to put the pieces together. Both of the instances occurred when I was a junior SSG. I would like to think that today as an older and wiser leader, I would be able to indentify people who need help much easily than before.

I'm addicted to video games, comic books, and toys. Also I have a Pringles Pizza flavor addiction.

CPT (Join to see) I'm not in the medical field, but a few of these I do recognize because I've had first hand experience with an X-Wife that had a few of these addictions (thus the X). Thanks for sharing - very interesting article.

I have two sons who were addicted to drugs and one of them was selling drugs with a friend and the other was breaking into cars and stealing from Walmart to buy more drugs...so yeah....I know all about it....the fights, arguments...screaming....breaking things, punching my walls and making holes...sending them to rehab for 30 days...thank goodness for Tri Care....going to court.....we were in and out of court and going to probation so many times I lost count....visiting them in jail...I have been through hell and back with these boys...no matter how you raise them....crap happens...I was the strictest mom...they never spent the night...their friends stayed at my house....they were never allowed to get into a car with other parents I took them and picked up their friends...yet, they turned 16 and got out and went crazy...I sometimes think if I had not had the ropes reigned in so tight would they have not gone crazy....I'll never know.

Thank you for sharing sir. I unfortunately have had to deal with addiction in my job. I recognized some of the signs but definitely something I will keep in my hip pocket for future use.

After 25 years in the EMS field in Broward County, FL and my staff are medical personnel for the show Intervention. I've learned to sport the behaviors and medical presentation of substance abusers, and there enablers.

Valid article. You're totally right!