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The Thing We Call Addiction
Addiction is a catch-all term for a complex behavioral disorder that is typically characterized by the inability to stop the repetitive behavior in spite of the harmful consequences. The most obvious symptom is that addicts reach a point where they cannot control their own actions. They continue the compulsive behavior because it provides a temporary escape from their problems. Addictions can develop from a myriad of activities such as alcohol, drugs, eating, gambling, shopping, sex and use of the internet,etc. According to the American Society for Addiction Medicine (2012) addiction is defined as the continued use of a mood altering substance or behavior despite adverse dependency consequences or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviors.
Drug addiction is just one of many common addictions afflicting society.
A Release from Life’s Reality
Addictions are often associated with activities that initially bring pleasure and offer a release from life’s everyday pressures. Chemicals produced in the brain which encourage us to partake in pleasurable activities, create satisfaction; hence a “high”. These feelings are usually stimulated by such activities. For many addicts, the craving or impulse provide a short-term escape from the realities of life and are often used to deal with depression or anxiety. For the majority of addicts, the long term consequences bring extra guilt and shame which create an increasingly destructive cycle.
Smoking is one of the biggest addictions amongst young people.
The High Numbers
The United Nations estimates that the world is host to 8 million heroin users, 13 million cocaine users, 30 million users of amphetamines, 141 million cannabis users, 227 million sedative users and 1100 million tobacco smokers. Over 100 million people are dependent on the tobacco trade for their livelihood. You might not be surprised by the global problem addictions have caused. However, you might be surprised to learn that few experts agree on what addiction really is. The medical profession views addiction as a disease whereas the public considers it to be associated with one’s personality, hence the term ‘addictive personality’. The evidence for both concepts is inconclusive. People’s attitude towards addiction is equally cultivated by cultural attitudes and by the medical evidence.
An Approach to Addictions
Neuro linguistic programming (NLP) allows you to make the changes at all levels of the mind, looking at the area that controls your instinctive habits, beliefs and behaviors. NLP uses a variety of techniques to help facilitate the changes to the conscious and subconscious mind. When the addiction connects to negative thoughts and beliefs in a person’s past, NLP can remove the negative associations that have been attached to those memories. If the addiction is formed by deep-rooted habits, NLP can unlock the subconscious part of the mind where those habits reside.
Enabling the person to recognize any behavioral patterns or limiting decisions that he or she may have made when the addiction started. If cravings for an addiction are out of control, the techniques of NLP can install positive triggers to use each time a craving occurs, providing you with the same fulfillment that the craving fulfilled. If the addiction provides an escape from stress, anxiety or an unfulfilled life, NLP can help set goals that can push aside the need for escaping. This will allow the person to detach from the current predicament resulting in an improved self-esteem.
About Addictions
About Addictions provides a perspective for clear thinking about what to do, rather than how to feel about addiction and addiction spectrum disorders. Richard Gray provides the reader with data from Psychology, Neuroscience and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. This will allow clear thoughts about the nature of these problems and what can be done. As he says in his introduction, this is a book to think with. It is short on doctrine and long on practical information about the nature of addictions and the structure of motivations for change. Gray provides information about diagnosis, reports on studies that say something very important about ‘addictive substances’ and research in neuroscience, motivation, and preference hierarchies. He provides techniques and perspectives from Neuro-Linguistic Programming to suggest some novel approaches to treating the problem
Meet Dr. Richard Gray
Dr Richard M. Gray, Ph.D. is Assistant Professor of Criminal Justice, Fairleigh Dickinson University, Teaneck, NJ. Before his move to academia, Dr. Gray served for more than 20 years in the US Probation Department, Brooklyn, NY. He is the creator of the Brooklyn Program, an NLP-based substance use treatment program which operated for seven years in the Federal Probation System. In recognition of that work, he was co-recipient of the 2004 Neuro-linguistic Programming World Community Award, presented at the CANLP conference in Montreal. Dr. Gray is the author of Archetypal Explorations (Routledge, 1996), Transforming Futures: The Brooklyn Program Facilitators Manual (Lulu, 2003) About Addictions: Notes from Psychology, Neuroscience and NLP (Lulu, 2008) and co-editor of The Clinical Effectiveness of Neurolinguistic Programming: A Critical Appraisal (Routledge, forthcoming in October, 2012).
He is a regular presenter at national and international addictions conferences and a recognized expert in Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He received his BA in Psychology from Central College, Pella, IA; MA in Sociology from Fordham University, Bronx, NY; and Ph.D. in Psychology from the Union Institute, Cincinnati, OH. He also earned a certificate in Forensic Psychology at New York University in 2002. He is a Certified Master Practitioner of Neuro-linguistic Programming and a Certified Ericksonian Hypnotist. Richard is a member of the Federal Probation Officers Association, the Canadian Association of NLP, the Institute for the Advanced Study of Health and the NLP Research and Recognition Project.
Listen To The Interview
Tune in to this segment of The NLP View Radio Show, as host, Donna Blinston is joined by author, Richard Gray to discuss his best-selling book, About Addictions: Notes from Psychology, October the 6th, 2012 at 7pm EDT/4pmPST! Stay Tuned!
I have to agree with this article that a lot of people resort to drinking alcohol, doing drugs, etc just to escape the reality of life.
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