Abstinence is a key to recovery for drug addicts and alcoholics.
Addicts share a compulsion to use and a lack of control over use.
When people give alcohol or another drug to their body, the body wants more. Abstinence stops this destructive cycle. It takes about a year of abstinence for the brain to completely clear, and maintaining a drug-free brain is the only way to help it clear. Abstinence in recovery is also necessary because use of one drug can trigger the use of another. For example, a cocaine addict under the influence of alcohol will be more likely to use cocaine than when abstinent.