I would like to talk to you about addiction. There are many types of addiction with the most common being drug and alcohol related addiction. It is important to recognize that addiction is a multi-layer problem that almost always starts with emotional issues, usually occurring early in our developmental stages of emotional growth. When we suffer trauma or emotional malnourishing events that create anxiety, low self-esteem or lack of confidence, then we come across a drug, like tobacco that makes us feel better about ourselves, it is easy to understand how an addiction takes root. As a teenager, maybe smoking a cigarette, made us feel cool or grown-up or accepted, basically making us” fit in” better.
It could be something more dramatic though, like alcohol or marijuana, which are soothing types of drugs that lower our anxieties and make us feel more comfortable around our peers. So, the next phase of addiction is the connection we make in our minds between using our drug of choice and feeling better. Because the drug of choice works so well, we receive a positive reinforcement signal for using it again and again to solve the same problem. This pattern relieves emotional problems temporarily. It doesn’t solve them; it just numbs them so that we are able to function a little better for a short period of time until the effect of the drug wears off.
Trying to resolve this cycle of addiction is complicated because there are so many layers to it. There are the original emotional experiences you are trying to relieve by using your drug of choice, and then there are the problems with the drug itself. Drugs could cause legal problems as well as physical problems that result in you feeling dependent upon this drug for functioning. Use of this drug also prevents you from maturing and growing emotionally to conquer your fears naturally. A soon as the drug wears off, so to speak, fears come to the surface again as anxieties and insecurities increase. Any type of intervention must address the layers of the underlying problem.
Enlight is an intervention that has five different targets. Enlight addresses the addiction layer by neutralizing the positive reinforcement history of calming yourself with this drug of choice. Then, it neutralizes the original emotional experiences of trauma and emotional malnourishment that created the need for the drug in the first place. When you resolve this complex phenomena on all of it’s causal levels, you are basically able to start over again to build your self-esteem and self-worth naturally, without being overwhelmed by your history or compelled by your addictions.
Addiction, Parts II and III to follow.
