3 Keys to Regulate Your Drinking, Drugs and Other Dependencies.

Have you ever gone to a therapist before because you are struggling with addictions and found that therapist to be absolutely useless??

Me too.

Most likely this is because they do not have a ‘lived experience’ and are not specialists in the field of Addiction Recovery.

You need someone who has walked the walk and who knows what addiction FEELS LIKE so you can be walked through to the other side, to freedom.

Addictions are complex and represent the tip of the iceberg.?

They are a symptom of deeper issues.?

Untrained and inexperienced therapists will try to treat the symptom (the addiction) while allowing the disease and wounds driving it to fester away.

Key #1: Understanding Addiction as an Attachment Disorder

All human beings from the cradle to the grave (-John Bowlby) need to be attached emotionally and physically to other human beings. That's why we have partners, children, and dogs.?

Addictions interfere with and will eventually break down these healthy attachments.

Addiction steps into the space reserved for healthy attachments and relationships.?

That's how addictions covertly steal everything from you.

They fulfil a short term need (to experience pleasure) while sacrificing the long term.

Those around you can feel you slipping away even if you can’t.

Slowly the addiction chips away at your self esteem, your peace of mind, your relationships, your happiness, and your health, until it becomes your PRIMARY ATTACHMENT.

Your PRIMARY ATTACHMENT is the thing that keeps you warm at night, the thing that soothes you when you feel stressed and overwhelmed.

It’s a trap. This relationship is one way.

It takes and takes and takes, and gives nothing back.

Eventually it will take centre stage while you lose the things that give your life meaning, giving you no choice but to rely more fully on the addiction.?

This process unfolds ever so slowly.

It can take decades.?

All of a sudden you look back and say…

“Oh my god, how did I get here”...

The solution??

Learn how to detach from this ‘Primary Attachment’ that is addiction and attach to the recovery process which will in itself bring you peace and a sense of control driving your recovery into the future.

Key #2 - Understanding Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome ot PAWS.

Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome is a medical condition that occurs in individuals a few weeks after they stop engaging in addictive behaviours such as gambling, seeing sex workers, and other compulsive or addictive behaviours.?

PAWS is also triggered in people who cease using drugs such as Cocaine, Speed, Ice, Marijuana, MDMA (the list goes on), and Alcohol.?

PAWS occurs due to a chemical imbalance in the brain.?

This imbalance is activated when regular spikes of dopamine are no longer taking place because the ‘user” has stopped engaging in addictive behaviours and/or substance use.

PAWS symptoms can last several months (even years) and cause the sufferer to experience a range of unpleasant physical and emotional symptoms, including but not limited too;

Headaches

Depression

Exhaustion

Confusion or “Foggy Brain”

Aches and Pains across the entire body for no apparent reason.

Sleep disturbances

Unexplained excessive perspiration

Intense mood fluctuations.

(This list goes on).

There are many things one can do to treat these symptoms.?

Often though, without the professional support and knowledge of the withdrawal process many people end up returning to their problem behaviours just to experience relief from these horrible symptoms.?

Returning to problem behaviours will take away these symptoms.?

Positive reinforcement for the sufferer that it is best they continue ‘using’….

As you can see, knowledge is power. Once you can recognise these symptoms for what they are (transient) they switch from being overwhelming to annoying. There are also many treatments available that will ease these symptoms in the short term until PAWS passes all together.

Key #3 Understand The Power of Group Psychotherapy.

Why?

So you can put fear aside and engage in the most successful modality of addiction treatment there is. Put simply, it works.

Individual Counselling, Psychology Sessions, or seeing a Therapist 1-1 will not have an impact on your ability to stop or moderate addictive behaviours in the long term.

It doesn't work.?

You know this.

That's why you’re still reading.

Chances are you have tried this already, and it has failed.?

Scientific study after scientific study has proven that the only way to take back control is by utilising the power of the group.

Please explain?

When one person (your Therapist) offers you feedback around your addictive behaviours you can easily dismiss it. You restate your case as to why it is a good idea that you continue to attempt to control it. You leave, you fail. You come back. Repeat.?

When you sit in a group setting with like minded people who are all trying to achieve the same goal (which is ultimately to achieve behavioural change) it is impossible as a human being to ignore feedback from your ‘community’.

Why is the group so powerful?

Because we are hardwired to follow the group and to fit into our ‘community’.

How do you think cults work?

The need to “fit in” and take on opinions of others in our ‘community’ is a survival strategy that was hard wired into us over thousands of years of evolution.

It's about safety in numbers and about avoiding being rejected by our ‘tribe’.

It really is that simple.?

Spend long enough in a group of people who all have the same goal and it's only a matter of time before you become one of them!

How else do you think programs like AA work?

I’ll never forget a saying I heard that summed it up really succinctly.?

If you sit in a hairdressers chair long enough, you will end up with a haircut.?

Simple isn't it ?

Motivating too.

All you have to do is commit to the process.

The rest will take care of itself.

So far to date not 1 person who has completed my addiction recovery coaching program is still struggling with addictive behaviours. Every single one of them is sober as I write this.?

Pardon me for saying so, but that’s INCREDIBLE!

The time to stop is NOW or it might never be.

Book through my website www.dmcounselling.com.au or call my practice on (02) 9516 0001.