Will I ever be cured of my behavioral addiction?

Will I ever be cured of my behavioral addiction?

Marc Kern (Addiction Expert, Director of Addiction Alternatives) gives expert video advice on: How can time be a trigger for behavioral addiction?; Will I ever be cured of my behavioral addiction?; What skills do I need for a successful recovery from behavioral addiction? and more...

Cure is a very funny word. Cure also comes out of the disease model. Cure sort of says "Well I was healthy prior and then I've gotten sick and now I'm going to return to health." In many respects, there are no real cures to addiction. Unfortunately as an addiction evolves, especially a behavioural addiction, you're learning things. You were not born with a preoccupation to gambling but you learned over the course of time that playing the slots or going to card games made you feel better and it wasn't sort of something you learn. What is learning? Actually, neurological pathways began to develop as a function of this learning, just like you learned how to ride a bicycle. You didn't know how to ride a bicycle when you were born, but practicing and practicing actually changed your brain and actually there's new wiring in there. Will you ever forget how to ride a bicycle? Not completely. Will you ever forget how to engage in your destruction behaviour? Not really. You can learn to develop a new way from getting from point A to point B. Not using the old way, not using what I'm going to call a freeway; the way you used to engage in your addictive behaviour. To make yourself feel good, you're now learning how to go out and play games, sports, or something like that rather than engaging in your addictive behaviour. We do not provide, we do not offer, neurosurgery that can go in there and clip neurologically generated synapses that were once there.