Addictions
Addiction exists in an individual who demonstrates a pathological relationship with any mood altering experience that results in ongoing, recurring, life-damaging, negative consequences.
We can also regard addiction as the place where pleasure becomes pain!
Many people engage with substances, activities, and behaviours without major disruption to their lives. Moreover, it is widely perceived that no definitive relationship exists between addictions and intelligence, or willpower levels. Frequently individuals in addiction actually possess above average quotas of both. However negative outcomes potentially transpire when life traumas, social pressures, and genetic predisposition encourage dependency upon alcohol, substances, or specific behaviours as a coping mechanism. People can become addicted to almost anything which offers rewarding outcomes.
Goodman (1998) presents addiction as a condition, in which a behaviour can function to produce both pleasure, and to relieve painful effects, in a pattern that is characterised by two key features:
- Recurrent failure to control the behaviour.
- Continuation of the behaviour despite significant harmful consequences.
Typical areas of our lives infiltrated by these harmful consequences are sometimes known as domains of damage:
- Relational
- Physical
- Mental
- Legal
- Work
- Financial
- Spiritual
The Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM 5) employs various criteria to define addiction:
- Are you taking larger amounts of a substance than you used to, or for longer than you meant to?
- Do you want to cut down or stop but find that you can’t manage to?
- Are you spending a lot of time getting, using, or recovering from using a substance?
- Do you experience intense cravings to use a substance or engage in an activity?
- Do you struggle to attend or perform previously manageable tasks at work, home, or school because of substance use or a mood-altering behaviour?
- Do you continue to engage in an activity or use a substance even when it causes relationship problems?
- Do you miss social, occupational or recreational activities because of substance use or a mood-altering behaviour?
- Do you use substances again and again even when it puts you in danger?
- Do you continue to use a substance or engage in a mood-altering behaviour that is responsible for, or endangers a physical or mental health condition?
- Do you now require an increased quantity of the substance or activity to get the effect you want?
- Do you develop withdrawal symptoms that can be relieved by exposure to the substance or activity?
- Are you restless or irritable when attempting to stop or cut back on this activity?
- Are you often preoccupied by thoughts of this substance or activity?
- Do you engage with this substance or activity when you are feeling helpless, guilty, anxious, or low?
- Have you jeopardised or lost a significant relationship, job, educational, or career opportunity because of this substance or activity?
If you are answering ‘Yes’ to a number of these, addiction counselling may be appropriate for these intensely mood-altering activities:
- Alcohol dependence/addiction
- Co-dependency
- Drug addiction (cannabis, cocaine, ecstasy, heroin etc.)
- Exercise
- Food Addiction (sugar and/or fatty foods)
- Gambling addiction
- Internet addiction (Gaming, pornography, gambling, shopping)
- Prescription drugs (Benzodiazepines or tranquilisers)
- Risk/Danger
- Sex addiction
- Shopping
- Social Media
- Solvent addiction
- Technology
- Tobacco
Our approach
We typically employ an integrative CBT approach in working with client’s addictions or problematic patterns:
- Therapeutic Alliance, Therapeutic Relating
- Behavioural Intervention, Practical Problem Solving
- Cognitive Restructuring, Cognitive-Emotional Relearning
- Developmental Exploration, Schema Change
- Existential, Evolutionary Acceptance, Embracing the Human Condition
Behavioural activation incorporates motivational interviewing which accommodates usage of the Wheel of Change Model. This model suggests that individuals may move backwards and forwards between the stages of change many times, before achieving lasting change. Change does not occur by taking an as the crow flies route and it is best viewed as a process and not an outcome. Getting to where you want to go may initially involve a harm reduction approach, whilst for others total abstinence may be the best way forward.
Waterford Counselling Centre deliver:
- One-to-one Psychological Support
- After-Care Psychological Support: This service enhances clients’ chances of recovery beyond their time in residential addiction treatment centres
- Family Support: So often the unseen casualties of another’s addiction are the parents, partners, children, or siblings whose lives are engulfed by shadows of shame, guilt, hurt, anger, Depression, and Anxiety. Therapy provides an outlet to work through the turmoil and pain of these issues. Please note that support is offered on an individual basis only.
- Employee Assistance Programme (EAP): Clients work with us in addressing troublesome relationships with substances or behaviours, so that they can remain in or return to their workplace environments.
Seeking support is a strength and not a weakness!
“Failures can be our greatest teachers” (Rothschild, 2003, p.202).