Addiction and Substance Abuse
What is addiction?
When we have had experience that is too much for us to bear, we can develop ‘solutions’ to dampen, soothe or flee from our fears or our emotional pain.
We humans can be endlessly inventive in the solutions we find to do the job of easing our pain. Examples of ‘solutions’ might be that we develop a habit of relying on alcohol or drugs – substance abuse, or shopping, over eating, working too hard or endlessly changing our environment.
We easily lose touch with the reality that the particular solution, though temporarily soothing, might actually be hurting us. The difficulty can be that the solution can become addictive, capturing us more and more, so we become lost in its habit and insistence.
How I can help
If you are seeking some therapy to help you break free from the cage of addiction, it may help to find a supportive space to return to where you can face being honest about what is going on and learn to bear your vulnerable feelings, step by step, with another person.
To break free from addiction is often a hard journey, with setbacks and bumps in the road. My role would be to accompany you, believe in you and help you set boundaries to keep yourself safe, with the goal of helping you learn and accept who you are more fully. We can work together towards helping you find greater fullness of life.