Some of the things you believe about addiction probably aren’t true. Media and folklore perpetrate so many myths and half-truths about the disorder that many popularly known "scientific facts" about addiction have no actual basis in science, and aren't remotely factual.

These popular myths of addiction and addiction treatment do not help those struggling with addiction, and in some cases serve only to increase the stigmatization of the disease. These myths of addiction become especially destructive when they influence the judgment and decision-making of someone trying to help a loved one get treatment for a drug or alcohol problem.

If you are thinking about taking action to help someone you love get into addiction treatment, you owe it to them (and to yourself) to learn the truth about addiction and the truths about what it takes to achieve full recovery.

Myth #1: Addiction Is a Choice

It's hard to understand how something that looks very much like a conscious choice (to use drugs or alcohol every day) isn't really a choice at all.

Everyone begins an addiction with a choice to experiment with alcohol or drugs and a thousand choices along the way to continue the recreational use of alcohol or drugs. But at some point, people vulnerable to addiction cross an invisible line that changes recreational use into compulsive use. You can't tell at the time when you cross that invisible line, but after you do, the choices you make are no longer entirely your own. After you cross that invisible line to addiction, the addiction is in the driver’s seat.

Research shows that as drug or alcohol use passes into addiction, subtle changes in the brain manifest in areas known to control decision-making processes. You can choose to use drugs or alcohol for a long time before progressing into addiction, but once you're addicted, you no longer really have a choice.

Loved ones have a hard time understanding how addicts can keep choosing to use drugs or alcohol after all the harm it does. Understanding that addiction causes physical changes in the brain that make it exceedingly difficult for an addict to "choose" to stop on their own can help to explain otherwise illogical behaviors.

Fortunately, these neural changes are reversible and addicts can learn strategies to help them ignore impulses to use drugs or alcohol while their brains heal. Teaching addicts how to ignore compulsions to use during those first months of abstinence is an essential part of addiction treatment.

Myth #2: An Addict Must Hit Rock Bottom

You DO NOT have to hit rock bottom before getting help for an addiction to drugs or alcohol. A lot of people wait until they lose their health, money, family, and careers to addiction, getting help only as their world falls apart.

There is no reason to wait so long. The longer you use drugs or alcohol, the harder it is to quit. Using until rock bottom only increases the difficulty and duration of addiction treatment.

This myth is perhaps the most pervasive and most harmful of all, as well-meaning friends and family members watch helplessly as a loved one loses everything, thinking that only when an addict hits rock bottom can she start to climb up and out of addiction. In reality, intervening well before rock bottom saves everyone from a lot of pain and increases the odds of a full and happy recovery.

Sadly, for a lot of people who never get help, the only rock bottom that ever serves to stop the abuse is the rock bottom that ends their life.

Don't wait.

Myth #3: You Have to Want Treatment to Benefit From It

It makes sense that forcing treatment on an addict wouldn't work – but fortunately (and like a lot of things about addiction) logical doesn't always equate to true. Research shows that people who are coerced or even forced into treatment do just about as well as people who seek help on their own.

You do not have to wait until an addicted loved one expresses a desire to get treatment – and watching and waiting for that day to come can be heartbreaking. Convince them to get help today, and if that doesn't work, do everything you can to make them get help.

Anything you can do to get them into treatment is positive. What they say about their problem as they walk into treatment is much less important than what they say as they walk out after a successful period of care. The research proves that the initial motivation into addiction treatment is far less important than the time spent in treatment – however they get there.

Myth #4: Since Treatment Didn't Work Last Time, It Won't Work This Time

Many people will struggle with addiction for life, and even long periods of abstinence can end in relapse and destructive substance use.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) states that addiction is a chronic disease with relapse rates similar to those for other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, asthma, or hypertension. You would never say to someone relapsing back to symptomatic diabetes, "Since treatment didn't cure you last time you shouldn't get help this time," and you shouldn't expect otherwise for someone with an addiction.

Addiction is, for many, a disease for life. This disease is characterized by relapse, even after long periods of sobriety, and often the need for multiple periods of addiction treatment. In an ideal world, a single period of addiction treatment would cure for life, but often it doesn't. It's just the nature of the disease.

Myth #5: Detox and a Fresh Start Are All That's Needed

Many addicts will need to detox prior to beginning a period of addiction treatment. A physical addiction to drugs like alcohol, benzodiazepines, or opiates means that addicted users of these drugs need to keep using every day just to keep from feeling sick.

People want to believe that if they could just break free from the physical addiction, they could start over fresh – this time without making the same mistakes that got them addicted in the first place.

It makes intuitive sense, and since a period of medical detoxification is much shorter and less costly than a real period of addiction treatment, a lot of people think that the detox-alone route is worth a shot. But detox alone almost never works, and if you are intervening to help a loved one, sending them to detox without further treatment only squanders a valuable chance to actually address the problem.

Addiction is complex, but one fact that has been empirically demonstrated time and time again is that the length of time spent in treatment is directly correlated to treatment success. A person who spends a full year in treatment is going to do much better than a person who spends only a few weeks in treatment.

An example of one year in treatment could be detox, then residential care, then outpatient care – and then continuing involvement in 12 steps meetings. A person who spends only a few days in a detox clinic before being released to their own devices has very low odds of success.

Addiction is a bio-psycho-social phenomenon, affecting virtually every aspect of life. Although physical addiction compels regular drug or alcohol use, there are myriad emotional, psychological, environmental, and interpersonal factors that also cause continuing abuse. Without treatment and learned strategies to deal with all of these pulls to continuing drug or alcohol use, there is little chance that abstinence can last.

What to Remember

The myths of addiction cause too many well-meaning family members to wait for rock bottom, to wait for the addict to seek out help on his own, or to wait for them to wake up to the mess they've made and use a little willpower to make things right.

If you are thinking about intervening against a loved one's addiction, you need to get as educated as possible about the disease and the solutions prior to attempting to influence change. But take solace in knowing that you don't have to wait for rock bottom before taking action, and your loved one doesn't need to want (or believe they need) treatment for it to work. If she enters into treatment, she has a great chance of getting better, whether that treatment is voluntary or not.