Addiction Treatment

Addiction has to be distinguished from habit or experiment or party time. Addiction is the inability to predict what will happen in any day after the first use of a mood-altering substance or process. Will the person always - every time - be able to take it or leave it by choice or will an uncontrollable binge sometimes occur?

Habit is often related to home or social environment. That's the way things are usually done in the family, at work or socially.

Party time is what students and other merry-makers do. At times they go too far. Eventually they grow out of it or get bored.

Treatment will depend upon the cause: Party time is enjoyable just occasionally. Slow down if it is becoming too much of a good thing. Be concerned if you can't.

Habit is when you get stuck in a rut. Get out of it if it becomes tedious to you or to others. Worry about it if you can't.

Addiction is when you keep going back to a mood-altering substance or process after giving it up for a time. Be appropriately frightened if that is what happens to you or if you become depressed and angry when you are abstaining.

The three underlying influences in addiction are genetic inheritance, emotional trauma and social opportunity.

Social influences are treated by changing the environment. Abstain from anything and anywhere that causes you damage in any way.

Emotional trauma from the past is best treated professionally. EMDR is a psychological process that heals shame and promotes gentle acceptance of past hurts. NLP helps to re-frame past fear or sadness, seeing life in new ways. Psychodrama works on thoughts, feelings and actions all at the same time, enabling new insights and behaviours to develop.

Genetic influences are countered each day by choosing specific alternative behaviours. Obsession with self disappears when helping others with their compulsive or addictive behaviour anonymously.

Treatment of addiction through drug substitution, such as with Methadone or Prozac, simply creates another dependency. Treatment with CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) is helpful for people who were confused but who had no emotional difficulties. Doctors and therapists tend to like CBT because it shows how clever they are. Psychodrama, EMDR and NLP require imagination, creativity, training and skill.

There are many psychological techniques that can help people to settle their tormented spirits. The tortuous processes of analysis should be confined to history. Positive psychology looks at what people do well and builds on that.

The tailor-made treatment for addiction is the Twelve Step programme, first formulated by Alcoholics Anonymous but now applied to many addictions. One day at a time, as with the treatment for any chronic illness, we meet other addicts, we work the Twelve Steps, we read the appropriate books and pamphlets, we find a guide to help us, and we abstain from all mood-altering substances and processes that affect us.

We come to depend upon a higher power than ourselves, specifically as each of us may understand this concept, to restore sanity to our troubled minds and order to our disturbed lives.

Professional treatment aims to help sufferers from addictive disease of any kind to develop peace of mind in spite of unsolved problems, happy and mutually fulfilling relationships, spontaneity, creativity and enthusiasm.

Followers