Getting to the Roots of Addiction

I frequently work with addiction as part of my Family Therapy Practice.  Shamanic Healing, Sound Healing, Jungian Analysis may be used as well as traditional medication for chemical imbalance prescribed by an M.D.  Any or all of these practices may be applied over time in an attempt to help an addict recover a life and, hopefully, let go of the hold a drug or drugs may have on him or her.

Addiction is one of the leading causes of crime, incarceration, disruption of life, loss of family and severe illness among people of all ages and contributes to an early death for most addicts. It is also a signal of deeper wounds within the psyche.  The addict looks for something outside himself/herself to ease an often strong desire for relief or fulfillment. The drug or substance the addict takes does not help for long.  The drug is viewed as almost an other world experience that brings thoughts of joy and sense of freedom the addict’s actual life often lived on the streets where added abuse, homelessness and physical illness are rampant.

There is also a physiological root to addiction.  This chemical shift within the brain of an addict often begins in a childhood of abuse and emotional or physical abandonment.  Most addicts begin their drug use as young as 11 years old. The life of an addict continues to create altered brain chemistry and returns the addict, after the “high”, to even more of what he or she is trying to escape.  It becomes a catch-22 situation.

As a therapist, my work is to listen.  I do not judge or blame. I am compassionate so I strive to understand and to care.  I am kind.  I am empathetic. I may hug the distressed addict and may cry with them. I hear the stories and offer alternatives in counseling through methods such as story (rewriting a narrative), shamanic healing with its offer of deep meditation and an alternative state or way of viewing the self and the world, and sound healing which is a nonverbal way of reaching through the body to shift the chemistry with tuning forks and chanting.  I invite, if possible, the whole family or those family members who are willing and/or able to participatem to sit with the addict and open up the roots of the addiction in past experiences in the home, streets, and school. It is a deep and emotional experience that results creating a positive force.  

I offer a doorway through my practice.  I continue to try to open that door and encourage, help the person who is addicted, walk through. I also then always send my clients and patients to a qualified M.D. with experience in addiction or who can offer residential treatment and outpatient treatment for those who can accept that.

My overall resolve is to try and help an addicted personality to ease the terror caused by a belief that he or she is trapped, without substances, in an unending abyss of dark emotions.  It is the kind of work that as a therapist, I find truly rewarding when I can help someone through the darkness.