Self Help Guide To Addiction
I’m convinced that nobody really understands addiction – unless they’ve been an addict themselves. Even people in the medical establishment sometimes have a poor understanding of what addiction really means – to the addict themselves. In this article I am not going to try to define addiction too much, beyond a few simple thoughts, as it is a huge area, and there are lots of theories. Neither am I going to belabour the difference between addiction and dependency too much. In a sense the two words will be used synonymously here – when I talk about addiction, I am talking about a compulsion to do something, or take something, that is interfering with someone’s life, and which has consequences for them if they stop.
Addiction is all around us. Some addictions appear less harmful than others. There are some things which it is considered a good thing to get addicted to – such as exercise, or healthy eating. Still, these can be taken too far (I am sure there have been divorces over such innocent matters!). We are addicted to TV, addicted to chocolate, addicted to shopping. Those types of addictions are often referred to in a jokey, light hearted way, but they can nonetheless be shattering – the person who eats chocolate to the point they are bed ridden, the person who is so addicted to shopping that they end up with huge credit card debts and go bankrupt. Then there are the more insidious addictions, which are socially acceptable, which people claim are not addictions – by and large I am talking of smoking and drinking, but these days smoking “weed” or cannabis might well come under the same distinction. A lot of people seem to be smoking it in public these days, a lot of people seem unable to make a short bus journey without illegally lighting up a joint at the back of the bus. And then there are the more obvious addictions, which is perhaps what most people think of when the words “addict” or “addiction” are mentioned: Drug addiction – addiction to heroin, cocaine, benzodiazapenes, crack or crystal meth. Those names will fill people with images of emaciated waifs stealing to get their next fix (ok, maybe rock stars in the case of cocaine) – but it is a fact that there are thousands of respectable people in countries like the UK, who are addicted to over the counter painkillers that contain codeine.
A few things need to be made clear – while some addictions (perhaps a mild addiction to chocolate, caffeine, Coronation Street, smoking) can be self-treated, often very successfully, there are some addictions which require professional help. People can and do go through withdrawal (the process of the body reverting back to normal after becoming habituated to a drug) alone, from a drug as powerful as heroin – but withdrawal from benzodiazepnes or alcohol can be fatal in severe cases unless medically managed. Some addictions may need the help of a GP, a detox clinic, or even hospital.
Another thing to realise is that addictions can be very powerful, even when they do not involve headline grabbers such as heroin or alcohol. The reasons behind addiction can be very deep seated, a complicated mix of genetics, background, and other factors. This is why people from all walks of life can become addicted. The fact is the addictive activity or substance is often used in the first place to relieve some underlying symptom such as stress or anxiety (this is known as self medication) – or it gives pleasure, it is a welcome distraction. Eventually, the person seeks more and more, or comes to rely on the substance or activity. Some drugs, such as heroin, can become physically addictive – the body and brain come to learn that the substance is normal, that it is required for normal functioning – when the substance is taken away, the brain almost literally screams for more. Yet even things we might consider non addicting, can in some ways behave in the same way, and cause withdrawal symptoms. People giving up anything will feel low, will lose their sense of joy, may get jitters and shakes, intense cravings. This is because of the way addiction can be said to “hijack” the brain’s reward system. Every time we do something pleasureable, the brain fills with feel-good chemicals such as dopamine. Biologically, this is to reward us for thing such as eating, drinking, sex, etc. But an addiction can short circuit this reward system in a manner of speaking, and we end up with a brain that needs the addiction to keep getting those squirts of feel good chemicals. Pornography addiction is often cited as a classic case of this – the brain needs more and more extreme material for the same squirt of dopamine, and ultimately real sex becomes lacklustre in comparison with the addiction.
So what can be done in the fight against addiction? Unfortunately, as if it wasn’t hard enough to start with, there are actually two battles to fight. You will often hear an addict say something along the lines of “Getting clean is easy, staying clean is the bitch.” Relapse is very common in addiction, and this is partly to do with the way addiction (especially drug addiction, but to a lesser extent all the others) rewires the way the brain works. As I mentioned above, the brain gets used to those squirts of feel good chemicals, and when they are not there, it leads to a rather unpleasant state. Unfortunately, in addictions that have gone on for a while, the brain may take a long time to rewire itself. Put simply, there is an acute withdrawal stage, where the body adjusts to the immediate termination of its addiction of choice, and then there is a phenomenon called PAWS, or Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. With serious drug addictions, this can lead to anxiety, depression, insomnia, inability to concentrate; other addictions will probably just manifest in cravings that persist long after the addictive activity has ceased – it takes the brain and body a long time to learn that it really doesn’t need those cigarettes, or that chocolate, or that two hundred pound dress… the urges, signals from the brain’s chemistry, persist, almost like ghosts, until they slowly fade away over weeks or months. The problem with the addictive process is, that if the addictive activity or substance is resumed, the brain almost resets itself instantly into the addictive pattern, and goes all the way back to square on.
So the process is, to get clean, and then stay clean. The hard part is doing that one day at a time, because when you try to quit an addiction, imagining doing it forever can be a big stumbling block. People use all kinds of different techniques, and different things will work for different people. As mentioned above, some will require medical help, but others will rely on friends or family, while still others go it alone. Some will enrol on a Twelve Step or similar program, using a network of fellow addicts for support. Whatever approach is used, the key is knowledge – knowledge of addiction itself, researched knowledge, and also, perhaps more crucially, self knowledge. Successful quitters have often failed or relapsed several or more times, and it is what they learn from those experiences that enables them to do it better next time.
Beating an addiction in the short term and then relapsing over and over again is not a desirable pattern for most people. This is where a lot of soul searching comes in. An addict who does not want to quit, can be got clean in a detox centre, but sooner or later, they WILL relapse. Even people with the best will in the world, can fall prey to relapse if they do not do the psychological work, to understand themselves and the underlying caused of their addiction. Counselling in various forms can help hugely on the road to recovery, but at the end of the day the addict will have to WANT to quit. I was helped by a life coach in training when I quite smoking – all I needed to realise was that I wanted to quit, and that was half the battle.
If you have an addiction you would like to be free of, and it is not one that requires medical or expert help (for example chronic alcoholism, heroin addiction, etc), then you could do worse than read up on the subject and arm yourself with knowledge, before making a plan. Try to avoid stress when quitting – if you have just been bereaved, or are going through a divorce, you could be setting yourself up for failure – try to find a relatively quiet and calm time (not always possible, I know!). If you have tried and failed before, or relapsed, it might be worth trying hypnosis. Glenn Harrold has a self help audio CD called Overcome Addictions which I have used occasionally as a booster when giving up certain things, and it is relaxing and certainly helped! Alternatively, as mentioned above, you may wish to try counselling – the main thing to know is how addiction works for YOU as well as all the general ideas, and armed with knowledge you can go into battle!
Bear in mind that while millions of people struggle daily with addiction, there are also millions of people around the world who have successfully overcome addiction – from smoking, to heroin and crystal meth, to gambling, sex or pornography addiction. If you want to be free, you can – it will be hard work, but hang in there, and good luck if you stumbled by this article while trying to deal with your own addiction or that of a friend.
In coming weeks and months I hope to add a series of articles dealing with specific addictions and how to start dealing with them.
Peace and Light.