ADdictions

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Addictions

Addiction can be defined as doing something over and over to the point where you have regrets, shame, or until it causes harm in your life. Addiction can also be known as “enslavement to a habit.” It’s not necessarily what you use, but how you use it that determines whether it is a problem.

Abuse, compulsivity, and addiction occur across a spectrum and can include:

  • Substances – alcohol, drugs (prescription, street, and nicotine)
  • Food* – too much, too little, general obsession about
  • Behaviors – gambling, sexual activity, internet, money, work, exercise, religion, busyness, spending, electronics
  • Relationships – obsessive love, glorifying the partner and seeing them as their source of happiness, Intensity vs. Intimacy

We can become compulsive about most anything, and casual use can quickly turn to compulsion and need. These over-indulgences will affect your work, play, relationships, as well as emotional, physical, and spiritual health.

 

It’s a good chance the behavior is a problem if it includes any of the following: shame, remorse, denial, minimizing and/or secretive behavior, preoccupation, failure to limit or control. For some addictions, preoccupation with planning the event can be more stimulating and exciting than the actual event, and interferes with your ability to focus on your daily activities and relationships.

Addictions are coping mechanisms that have become so overpowering that you have lost control of your life. Therapy helps you to understand what drives your addiction and meet that need in a healthier manner. I have over 25 years of experience and continuing education dealing with addictive disorders. If you want to know more about your behaviors and how to get help, contact me.

If you or someone you love is abusing food or substances, or engaging is destructive habits, it can destroy your family. When this is occurring the entire family needs help. I offer education and counseling for family and friends who may be suffering due to their unsuccessful attempts in helping the people they love to heal and recover.

         

        individual counseling

        *A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT ISSUES WITH FOOD

        Eating disorders range from intense fear of gaining weight and thus, the avoidance of food to the dependence on and over-consumption of food. Both are on opposite sides of the same spectrum and are driven by the frantic desire to find relief, but ultimately individuals put their mental and physical body in jeopardy. Disordered eating includes dysfunctional patterns of behavior or preoccupation around food, body, exercise that also negatively impacts the quality of life, but do not fall under a specific diagnosis.

        Often I’ve heard from clients that they didn’t seek help earlier because they didn’t fit into the classic eating disorders that they’d heard and read about. If you’re not bulimic or anorexic, but obsess about food, how much you weigh, how much you ate yesterday, how much you hate your (stomach, thighs, butt….) body, you are not living your life to the fullest and you can benefit greatly from treatment. This negative focus is destructive and distracts you from enjoying your life.

        It is not uncommon for patients having undergone Bariatric Surgery to continue their compulsive eating, thus resulting in weight gain, and/or switching to another compulsive and self-destructive behavior. Not unlike other addictive behaviors, I believe that the eating and/or body image disorder is a symptom of some deeper unresolved pain that needs attention. My treatment approach is aimed at helping my clients find the root cause of their pain and the courage to work through it.

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