Addiction Counseling

ADDICTION COUNSELING

By Joel Turgesen

Addiction:  the condition where a drive, compulsion or thought process is in charge of your life resulting in behaviors that keep getting you in trouble or otherwise making your life and/or those around you, miserable.

There is a reason why you’ve developed the addiction you have.  Why one person prefers alcohol and another meth and another gambling or sex or shopping or people or fats and sugars.  It has to do with where when and how in your life you were traumatized and development was arrested.  This will not be a “blame your parents for all your problems” program.  We’re just taking an honest look.  When a person has been abused (and who hasn’t caught some undeserved flak in their life… we were all raised by less than perfect people) they carry on as best they can, compensating for the pain as best they can.

And then, if this is you, you took that first drink or hit and you knew you’d come home.  It made you feel the way you’d always thought a person should feel:  good about yourself, good about others (good enough to live with them anyway), more creative, less inhibited…high.

Perhaps there was further exploration from there into other drugs, chasing an ever higher high.  But, at any rate, after so many times of using an addictive substance or repeating an addictive process, your brain became addicted – dependent on it for the neurological connections that gave you the feelings you wanted, even after it stopped giving you as good a feeling as it did at first.  You still believe it’s there to be had and that it’s a good and necessary thing…until it starts not working for you or for the people around you.  Your lover gets mad all the time, or leaves; you get in trouble at work, you get a DUII, you hurt yourself or someone else.  And so, you try to quit.

When the brain has become addicted, though, quitting is going to take more than will power.  It may be enough for a while, but if that is all you’re using, eventually your resolve will dissolve.  And it’s not because you have a weak will.  It’s because the deeper pleasure center of the brain, seeking as if with a cunning vengeance for what it needs to feel good, is stronger than the rational, better judgment part of the brain.  Sooner of later, it will overthrow the logic, storm the castle and regain the throne.  The addict within is very patient, it will wait you out and strike when you least expect it.  It is opportunistic and it is powerful. 

To win the battle, you will need -and you deserve - the best of care:  The non-judgmental support of people who understand that this is a disease you are dealing with, a neurologically conditioned response pattern that needs to be reconstructed carefully and intelligently.  You will need to learn ways to improve the way you care for your body, mind and soul so that you can heal.  The old highway that keeps forgetting that the bridge ahead has been washed out but will keep taking you there anyway, needs to be replaced.  A new highway is now under construction.  You are developing a “program of recovery” for yourself, a new lifestyle of healthy living in mind, body and heart Great and constant care needs to be supplied in order to get you to that promised land you seek, that state where you can be you, and feel good, genuinely good, about the unique individual you are. Where you can come to know what your purpose in life is, what your purpose in other people’s lives is, where you can feel happy, joyous and free, and where you can achieve a high, naturally, through cultivating a clean body, mind and spirit.

The person who is honest, open-minded and willing will succeed:  honest with themselves that the old patterns simply are not working anymore, open-minded to the benefit of learning what others before you have figured out (you don’t always have to re-invent the wheel) and willing to grow, to have the courage to change, to call upon the resources you have – from those around you, from within your own brain, and from the spirit.

You will learn this prayer and live it:  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  These qualities of spirit - serenity, courage and wisdom - will transform your life.

ADDICTION COUNSELING

By Joel Turgesen

Addiction:  the condition where a drive, compulsion or thought process is in charge of your life resulting in behaviors that keep getting you in trouble or otherwise making your life and/or those around you, miserable.

There is a reason why you’ve developed the addiction you have.  Why one person prefers alcohol and another meth and another gambling or sex or shopping or people or fats and sugars.  It has to do with where when and how in your life you were traumatized and development was arrested.  This will not be a “blame your parents for all your problems” program.  We’re just taking an honest look.  When a person has been abused (and who hasn’t caught some undeserved flak in their life… we were all raised by less than perfect people) they carry on as best they can, compensating for the pain as best they can.

And then, if this is you, you took that first drink or hit and you knew you’d come home.  It made you feel the way you’d always thought a person should feel:  good about yourself, good about others (good enough to live with them anyway), more creative, less inhibited…high.

Perhaps there was further exploration from there into other drugs, chasing an ever higher high.  But, at any rate, after so many times of using an addictive substance or repeating an addictive process, your brain became addicted – dependent on it for the neurological connections that gave you the feelings you wanted, even after it stopped giving you as good a feeling as it did at first.  You still believe it’s there to be had and that it’s a good and necessary thing…until it starts not working for you or for the people around you.  Your lover gets mad all the time, or leaves; you get in trouble at work, you get a DUII, you hurt yourself or someone else.  And so, you try to quit.

When the brain has become addicted, though, quitting is going to take more than will power.  It may be enough for a while, but if that is all you’re using, eventually your resolve will dissolve.  And it’s not because you have a weak will.  It’s because the deeper pleasure center of the brain, seeking as if with a cunning vengeance for what it needs to feel good, is stronger than the rational, better judgment part of the brain.  Sooner of later, it will overthrow the logic, storm the castle and regain the throne.  The addict within is very patient, it will wait you out and strike when you least expect it.  It is opportunistic and it is powerful. 

To win the battle, you will need -and you deserve - the best of care:  The non-judgmental support of people who understand that this is a disease you are dealing with, a neurologically conditioned response pattern that needs to be reconstructed carefully and intelligently.  You will need to learn ways to improve the way you care for your body, mind and soul so that you can heal.  The old highway that keeps forgetting that the bridge ahead has been washed out but will keep taking you there anyway, needs to be replaced.  A new highway is now under construction.  You are developing a “program of recovery” for yourself, a new lifestyle of healthy living in mind, body and heart Great and constant care needs to be supplied in order to get you to that promised land you seek, that state where you can be you, and feel good, genuinely good, about the unique individual you are. Where you can come to know what your purpose in life is, what your purpose in other people’s lives is, where you can feel happy, joyous and free, and where you can achieve a high, naturally, through cultivating a clean body, mind and spirit.

The person who is honest, open-minded and willing will succeed:  honest with themselves that the old patterns simply are not working anymore, open-minded to the benefit of learning what others before you have figured out (you don’t always have to re-invent the wheel) and willing to grow, to have the courage to change, to call upon the resources you have – from those around you, from within your own brain, and from the spirit.

You will learn this prayer and live it:  God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.  These qualities of spirit - serenity, courage and wisdom - will transform your life.