Addictions

What is Addiction

Reflections Counseling Center can assist those with issues such as addictions and compulsions. Which are destructive behaviors that an individual acquires as a method of coping with the stressors in their life. Most addictions start out as ways of coping with shame which is caused by abandonment neglect and abuse. Sometimes addictions also have a genetic component and are also passed down through biological families. Other addictions can be linked to survival reactions in response to family trauma.

Sex addictions and eating disorders can have roots in emotional, physical, or sexual abuse. Addictions such as overwork, gambling, overspending, smoking, and compulsive exercise appear to be the result of choices that have lead to the psychological or physical addiction to a substance or activity. Many addictive behaviors are maladaptive responses to unresolved trauma. Whatever the origins, all addictions and compulsions share the same criteria.

The following outline describes addiction thought and behavior patterns that overpower a person’s life. These criteria can be used for understanding and evaluating an addiction or compulsive behavior.


Fantasy

All addictions and compulsions involve fantasy. If an addiction or a compulsion does not divert a person’s mind from reality, it’s not worth doing. For the addicted person—or the person starting down addiction’s path—life’s stresses often feel overwhelming or unbearable. Fantasy is a method of survival that allows mental escape from pressures.

People are enticed by their own desires, or fantasies, which stimulate the need to act out the addictive behavior. When fantasy is nurtured, it takes on a life of its own. The fantasy about engaging in the addictive act and the emotional rewards resulting from the addiction behavior become a preoccupation. This preoccupation is so strong that many times it triggers physiological responses in the brain and body.

The addict begins to physically respond to the addiction when they fantasize about the physical act involved. A sex addict will experience excitement and arousal by thinking about a sexual encounter or anticipating looking at pornography. A drug addict can begin to feel the warmth and euphoria of intoxication by anticipating the drug use. Preoccupation about food can turn off the physical hunger response of an anorexic. The hardest part of recovery from an addiction is taming the mind and controlling the fantasy process. The power of fantasy is the enduring power of addiction.

Medicating Emotions
When a person engages in an addiction behavior, his or her feelings are altered. The medication of emotions in this context refers to the temporary relief of stress and shame and the creation of happier or euphoric feelings. At times, the behavior temporarily quiets the chaos of the mind. For a time life feels better.

The truth and danger of this is that addictive behaviors are more consistent that any relationship. When embraced, they result in euphoric feelings a majority of the time. This change is more reliable than any friend or any other relationship. It is this consistency that makes the addiction the strongest relationship in the addict’s life. The other edge of the addiction sword, however, is that addictions are progressive. What once provided that euphoric feeling will soon no longer provide it. The addict must seek out harder substances or experiences to regain the initial high. Thus the addict is drawn more and more into the addictive behavior with less and less to show for it.

False Sense of Control

One of the lies of an addiction is that it helps us control our lives. All lives have stress and, at times, life feels out of control for everybody. For the addict, addiction becomes one of the first and only behaviors that they turn to relieve the stress and regain control. Other alternatives are discounted as having little or no affect on their unique stress situations. A person who has trouble with anger will seek an episode to explode with rage rather than talk about situations that upset them. A sex addict prefers a session of internet pornography to exercising to relieve stress. A person addicted to cigarettes will set up their day around stress-relieving smoke breaks. The stress relief creates a false sense that life is in control again and that the problems have been abated.

Life Stressors
Another factor concerning the false sense of life control is that the addicted person will refuse to address the causes of the life stress, opting instead for the mood change of the addiction. The alcoholic who claims that their marriage is bad will drink and blame it on their spouse instead of facing marriage issues. For a person with money addictions, the stress of financial problems is often escaped by a spending spree rather than using their resources to relieve the debt. The addict's thought process persistently believes that no matter how bad a situation gets, the addictive behavior will be strong enough to counter any life stress.

Timing and Anticipation

The timing and anticipation of the addictive behavior is an important part of the process. The more time an addict waits, the more they experience the affects of delayed gratification and the more self-nurturing it feels. Timing issues also include creating the proper setting. An alcoholic may anticipate a social situation to create an excuse for intoxicated behavior that may be out of control. A person with an eating disorder may plan for time in the bathroom in order to vomit after eating. Sessions of internet porn are often planned around time when the addict is alone or the family is asleep. A proper setting becomes part of the addict feeling nurtured.

Affects of Addiction

Addictions progressively affect all areas of an individual’s life, including their spiritual life, work, health, finances, decision-making, and family relationships. The degree to which any behavior negatively affects these areas indicates the depth a person is in trouble with that addiction. Over time, it is easy to see the downward spiral addictions create in a person’s life and how the hope of control is replaced by a progressively out-of-control lifestyle.

Shame

All addictions have a strong component of self-destruction. This appears to be contrary to the nurturing part of addiction. Addictions produce strong experiences of guilt, embarrassment, violation of personal values, and broken promises to self and others. This results in self-hatred and self-hatred creates a need to be punished. When an addict feels self-hate they will often indulge in the same addictive actions to quiet the shame. This results in more self-destructive behavior and increased shame.

Feelings of shame serve to trigger the cycle of addictive behavior. After a period of time indulging in self-hate, the addicted person will want to feel good. The need to escape the hate will lead to fantasy, which begins anew the addictive cycle.

TYPES OF ADDICTIONS WE TREAT

• Alcohol and Drug Addiciton
  
• Sexual Addiciton
  
• Internet Addiciton
  
• Eating Addicitons or Disorders
  
• Self Injury Addiciton
  
• Work Addiction
  
• Perscription Drug Addiciton
  
• Nicotine Addiction
  
• Overspending Addiciton
  
• Gambling Addiction
  
  
  The information provided here is general in nature and should not substitute for the care and advice of a licensed health care provider.
  

No matter what addiction you or a loved one is struggling with, there is hope for recovery. No one needs to go it alone. We can help.