Chemical Dependence: Understanding Addiction
Here is a short video which should help you to understand addictive cycles that affect so many people in different aspects of their life. Whether it's sex addiction, drug addiction or even food addiction, this video starts you out on the first step of addiction treatment with guidance from The Internet Therapist
Step 1: Abandon and shame:
Jef Gazley, M.S.: If somebody has been abandoned, if somebody has been shamed they tend to feel like there is something horribly wrong with them. It's deep in their soul. They can't possibly get it out. The best thing they can do is to desperately stay at 100% for the rest of their lives and never make a mistake and then they will just simply be OK. It sets up tremendous addictive cycles so I am going to give you an example with this.
Step 2: The reaction:
Lets say that this person thinks they are fat and so what they're going to do is they're going to become a Greek god. What they're going to do is exercise two hours a day. They're going to only eat healthy foods and very little of it and at first what they feel is absolutely in control and proud of themselves. They continue to eat that way and exercise for three or four days and they feel the high of being in control of themselves. They notice someone eating a lot of garbage, and they can laugh at them because that person is going to be fat and they know that they're on top of things and they're really a good person, that they're behaviour is they're person hood.
Step 3: Envious stage:
They keep working out. They keep eating extremely well but they look more and more at people eating more comfort foods and they get a little envious. The anxiety builds. They feel like a victim. They try to work even harder and push the exercise even more. But they're already starting to damn themselves because they really want something they shouldn't have. They start damning somebody else. They see somebody really eating and now they're really pissed off. And finally they go to the famous fuck it stage which is where they sit down and eat 57 Hostess Ding Dongs in one sitting.
Step 4: The release:
For a moment in time that release feels glorious. They feel that they are finally back in real control because, "that's what I always wanted is those Hostess Ding Dongs. I know that that's what I wanted and people should be allowed to eat that kind of food. I don't know why people focus on being thin all the time." But then they remember, "Oh my god I really am a fat pig and I promised myself I wouldn't do that. I can't believe I made that mistake. Why am I so stupid?"
Step 5: Damning:
And they start damning themselves from that critical parent again. And the shame builds and then they become incredibly intelligent. All of a sudden they realize that what they're real problem was of course is that they just weren't strong enough on themselves. They didn't have any of those old family values that people keep talking about. So what they do is they start working out three hours a day and only lettuce. What happens is it builds and it builds and it builds and it keeps happening.
Step 6: Stop focusing on release:
In my mind the dysfunctional families drive this incredible craziness and this addictive behaviour. What occurs is in our society we focus on the release. The drug addiction is the problem. If we put everyone in jail or if we gave them enough penalty it would make the problem go away. But the release is the tertiary problem. It's the third problem.
Step 7: Realistic expectations:
The control in the grandiosity, the feeling that we're somehow God, that's the secondary problem. It's the set-up problem. There is no way you can get to be 100% but beginning to be 80%, that's achievable. The real problem is that the machine drives the engine. It's that feeling of hating yourself that makes it so difficult to act in a balanced homeostatic condition where you expect only what is reasonable to expect.
Step 8: Thanks for watching:
Therefore if we really want to change any kind of addictive behaviour what we have got to do is get into the family system and to make it more sane and human rather than more dysfunctional.
