I have worked a lot with Addiction and Substance Abuse and have come to the conclusion that they are all part of the human condition; albeit an extraordinarily painful and potentially destructive part of being human. I have also come to the conclusion that we can and do get well because that too is a part of the human condition. Sometimes we just need someone else alongside us for a while to help us get well.
If you are or have ever found yourself addicted to something take heart, it just proves that you are human.
I would agree that Addiction of any kind is a serious problem as is any consequent Substance Abuse but I would always want to pose a question. Is it THE PROBLEM?
There are many and varied roads that can lead us to an Addiction. Counselling can give you the opportunity to look at those roads and dig them up. Somewhere along the road we get attached to our Addiction; perhaps we need comfort, an escape route, a blocker, or answer. Once we are attached perhaps our Addiction becomes our friend, our significant other or our excuse. The deeper we go into our Addiction the more it becomes ‘us’; this is ‘who I am’; this is ‘what I do’.
We can all write our own stories and we can all write a new story. Tearing up the old one and writing a new one isn’t easy and it isn’t pain free but I truly believe it is ‘worth it’ and you are ‘worth it’.
Trauma is something that every human being has experienced and will experience. Some Traumas may be so painful that we have to completely distance ourselves from them in order to survive them and live. We find that we have to ‘forget’ them, lock them away deep inside and distance ourselves from any emotional connection to the Trauma. This can be especially true of childhood trauma. These events and emotions may be ‘locked away’ but they have the potential to be impacting on our daily life as they ‘direct’ our life choices. When do I feel safe? Who do I feel safe with? What do I wear? Where do I go? What do I do?
We may be acutely aware of some Trauma but our perspective of the Trauma may ‘allow’ it to be just as influential in our choices as the unacknowledged Trauma.
The past cannot be changed, what can be changed is our connection to the past and when we change the connection to the past we can change its control of the present. Difficulties may arise because some of our connections might be unknown to us. Disconnecting from traumatic and painful events and/or their emotional content is a basic failsafe that we use to survive the event. Whilst our pain may be blocked and hidden away and the emotions denied, each is still present in the stormy sea of our inner worldview.
My desire is to sit with you, to listen to you as you explore your inner world and to reflect back to you what I am hearing of your inner world, so that you can better understand what it is that is driving your daily experience. Understanding brings choice and choice facilitates change.