Addiction - 10 key points

Addiction needs the help of a trained professional.  But often clients struggle with accepting that they are actually addicted, so let's go back to basics and examine 10 key points about addiction -   

1. Am I addicted?  Yes, if you engage in something (sex, alcohol, food, drugs, etc), it harms you, and yet you still cannot stop doing it
2. Some categorise addictions into: behavioural addiction (eg, gambling) and substance addiction (eg, alcoholism)
3. It is useful to understand the triggers that lead us to engage in the addictive behaviour.  Usually we are only aware of a few, when there are often a large number
4. Similarly, we need to understand the maintaining factors.  Perhaps we have a relationship that fuels our addiciton
5. Addiction helps us to cope with difficulties in our lives.  The trouble is, it often creates more difficulties
6. It is useful to view addiction as a cycle:  We experience distress, so we do or take something to temporarily alleviate the distress.  We then feel guilt or shame, so we take more of the substance, or engage in more of the behaviour
7. Others say that people engage in addictive behaviour when they experience a lack of connection in their lives
8. Mindfulness is a useful approach to addictive behaviour, because it forces us to become aware of what we are doing, right in the present
9. Neuroscientists are examining the argument that abstinence, for a temporary period, if not forever, might be the only hope for some addicts.  They say that abstinence allows the brain time to retrain itself, developing new neural pathways where the addictive behaviour might have once been
10. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is often used to help people manage an addiction.  This is where a person’s thoughts and assumptions are examined, and challenged, to try and change the underlying affect (emotion)

Chris Warren-Dickins LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor in Ridgewood NJ 07450 and Teaneck NJ 07666. To book an appointment, please telephone +1 (201) 862-7776 or email chris@exploretransform.com

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