The goal of living is to survive well and happily. And some people believe that goal can be achieved with the help of drugs. Soon, they find themselves unable to achieve any real goals without leaning on the drugs like a crutch, and they find that the goals they were achieving on the drugs were not really desirable goals to begin with.

Then come the first attempts to quit using and end dependence on drugs and beat addiction. But using drugs has created a change in their physical and mental make-up. Living doesn't seem the same without the artificial stimulation of the substance they've been abusing, so quitting is unsuccessful. Usually they return to abusing the drug at higher levels but with more guilt and greater unhappiness and self-doubt.

People around them and sometimes even the addicts themselves take this as a sign that they really don't want to quit. So it goes, periods of abuse and abstinence, over and over until the periods of abstinence become shorter and shorter.

Now addiction is setting in for real.

I don't need to explain this scene any further. You've seen and maybe even experienced it for yourself. I know I have. I was addicted and fully believed that I was going to continue to use the drugs I was on until I died.

Thankfully, there is a way out of this fog--the fog of drug addiction and deadened senses and dimmed awareness. It's the way of increasing your abilities, your natural talents and doing it naturally, without false stimulants or altered perceptions.

A successful drug abuse treatment program is not really even about drugs. It's about how can you be successful in life, be happy and have the support and love of family and friends without drugs . Remember, there is a difference between rehabilitation and a simple detox.

Visit my blog and read more about the process that can work for anyone, anyone who is truly willing to turn back from the path of drugs and onto the road to clean.

Tony Bylsma is a drug counselor and drug abuse prevention lecturer in Los Angeles, California. In addition to years of drug rehabilitation counselor experience, he has spoken to more than 400,000 students, teachers and other professionals since 1976.