Addiction and an overly exaggerated sense of independence tend to go together. Often, the addiction started in the first place because the person began to soothe themselves with the addiction rather than reach out to others, which would have been far healthier. In the same right, addicts tend to be more resistant to reaching out for help in general, not just with their addiction. They tend to feel that needing support is a sign of weakness, because a needy person cannot be an independent person. Essentially, addicts have skewed perceptions of what role community and support systems are meant to play in people’s lives. Breaking through this mislead perception is essential to recovering from addiction.
A person who is struggling with a severe addiction is highly unlikely to be able to quit on their own. This is because addiction is a serious disease that is capable of claiming lives. Where an addict’s thinking goes wrong is in their belief that reaching out for help is a sign of weakness. Addicts have difficulty with the concept of control, which can be seen in many areas of their life. One particularly pronounced area that an addict struggles with control is in the deluded belief that they are able to control their addiction. That would be like declaring total control over any other type of disease. It is completely illogical.
The major flaw in this reasoning is in the belief that people successfully get through anything difficult alone. This is not how human behavior works. Trying to be more independent than nature intended us to be is counterproductive. We are creatures that require relationship on many levels, not the least of which is in recovering from disease, mental or physical. When you look at models of highly effective people, you do not see them closed off from help. You see them open to help and able to trust others with matters close to their heart. This type of thinking enables a person to be mentally healthy where as secluded coping with significant challenges always results in failure. If you want to have success in defeating your addiction, invite trustworthy people into it. The brief blow to your independent ego is absolutely worth the lifetime of happiness that recovery can offer.