Are Your Habits Abusing You?

Do you look forward to unwinding with a glass of something alcoholic at the end of the day?

Do you find yourself rushing home just so that you can settle down and pop the cork off that bottle?

Has one glass become 2 or 3 or even more?

We often describe the decline into alcohol dependency as alcohol abuse, I see it another way.  In my view, when someone becomes dependent on alcohol or for that matter addicted to food, cigarettes, drugs, shopping, gambling or sex they are not  playing the role of abuser, but rather they are likely continuing a pattern of  co-dependent relationships with abusers. ......

Hypnotherapy For Addiction - A Holistic Approach

​People  that have experienced the trauma of abuse (most often in their childhoods), whether they were abused physically, sexually, verbally, emotionally; or their needs simply were not met in some way because maybe their parents were not demonstrative, or were too busy to spend time with them, or favoured a sibling;  have learned  a particular pattern of behavior. The choreography for their life was taught and they can’t seem to escape the paradigm of their personalised dance routine.  They weren’t taught the steps of impulse control or emotional regulation they instead learned purely by instinct the shuffle of survival and pain avoidance.
Like most abusive relationships, addiction is initially entered as an escape, ironically usually as an escape from the pain of the previous abusive relationship.  At first the “friendship” seems genuine; it fulfills the promise of blocking out pain and rescuing the person from having to deal with uncomfortable feelings.  It seems charming, makes you feel more confident, more relaxed  and sociable you look forward to it. Then there’s a turning point. 
Like in all abusive relationships, there comes a time when it begins to cut you off from your friends.  You don’t want to feel judged for drinking or eating too much so you begin to do it more on your own.  Then you don’t feel comfortable going out, maybe you can’t drive because you’re already over the limit, or you’ve gained weight and you don’t feel good in your clothes any more or want to be seen by people that haven’t seen you for a while. Maybe you’ve gambled everything in your bank account away already and are scraping through until pay day.  Your  “friend” has become your jailer and revealed it’s true colours as an abuser
This can lead to feelings of shame, of feeling powerless, not control of your life.  It makes it harder to tell people that the relationship has gone sour; you spent so much time and energy convincing everyone that you were having fun, you feel too humiliated to go back now and tell them you need help to escape it.
Do you recognise the abuse scenario?
A lot of people are nervous and reluctant about giving up habits that are ruining their lives because they feel dependent upon them.  They have the cognitive dissonance of all abused people; part of them still believes in who or what they hoped their abuser was, a friend a loved one, a support or a way out of loneliness or pain.   It’s difficult to accept that this “friend” has turned on them.  That in fact it’s been steadily eroding their confidence and increasing their tension not relaxing them, isolating them and ultimately digging them deeper into pain. 
They weren’t abusing their substance of addiction their addiction was abusing them, and they were so prone to abuse that they didn’t notice, in fact they were drawn to the unconscious familiarity.
To break out of this paradigm requires commitment.  It effectively means taking the time to learn the skills of impulse control and emotional regulation that were missed in childhood or overwritten by subsequent repeated experience.  It means learning to be able to sit with an emotion without being overwhelmed by it or succumbing to the overwhelming desire to avoid it at any cost. It means working through the process of releasing the emotions that have been weighing you down, learning to connect with yourself and developing the basis and skills to form healthy connections with other people too. 
I have designed a program to help people work through this process in a safe and gentle environment. The program is designed to move my clients out of the prison of avoidance to a life of personal freedom and self-acceptance.  If you’re interested in learning more please don’t hesitate to contact me on0435 923 817 or usethis contact form on our Hypnotherapy for Addiction Page.  If you have any comment to make on the subject of addiction please feel free to comment below, I welcome the opportunity to further the discusion.