You knew what you were doing was wrong, but somehow you still never expected to be arrested. The booking process was a shock to your system. Subsequent events made you suddenly conscious of the fact that your life — and your addiction — had seemingly spun out of control without your notice.
Nobody ever becomes an alcoholic or a drug addict overnight. A substance abuse disorder can start slowly and build over time. Long before you find yourself obsessively thinking about that next fix or another drink, you may:
- Suffer from an untreated mental health condition, like bipolar disorder or depression
- Struggle with chronic illness or pain that isn’t properly treated
- Have poor coping skills that make it difficult to endure ordinary life stressors
- Be struggling with situational problems that you don’t know how to handle, like the loss of a loved one or a bad marriage
Like others before you, you may have turned to drugs or alcohol as a form of self-medication.
There’s no better time than the present to consider in-patient rehab for your addiction. The primary benefit, of course, is that treating your addiction or alcoholism benefits you physically. The second is that it can also benefit your criminal case.
Judges are permitted to take into consideration mitigating factors regarding a defendant’s situation that would suggest leniency is in order when it comes time for sentencing. Going into rehab, where any mental health issues you have can be addressed and you can learn coping methods that will help you kick your habit for good shows that you are taking the situation seriously — and taking action to make sure that you’ll never put yourself in that position again. That can make for a persuasive argument that jail wouldn’t serve any real purpose in your case.
If you’ve been charged with a drug crime or an offense that involved alcohol consumption, find out more about your defense options.