Trying to understand and overcome addiction on your own can be a very slippery slope. In addition to the seemingly endless forms of addiction – food, drugs, sex, gambling, shopping, alcohol – there appears to be an equally infinite number of ways that addictions can wreck havoc in our lives. Like a pebble tossed into a pond, the ripples spread out further and further, encompassing various aspects of family life, friendships, work, attitudes, physical health, stability, security, finances, psychological well being, and on and on until it seems impossible to put life back on track, reign in the terror, ease the pain and restore a peaceful life. But it can be done – and addiction counseling makes it possible.
Addiction Counseling can take many paths to wellness. Certainly the benefits to addiction counseling can be seen in lives turned around as your hope for happiness is restored. Addiction counseling assists you in looking specifically at the effects and connections of addictions to your neurobiology, brain chemistry, sugar balance, stress and depression levels, cravings, weight management, sleep habits, cognition and other possible side effects involving unhealthy addictions.
Addiction counseling strives to get at the root of addictions – the painful thoughts behind the negative, destructive and attacking behaviors and actions that only appear to be out of your control. The underlying thoughts often include guilt, false ideas, shame, neediness, abuse, self-hatred, anxiety, depression, fear, obsession, control issues, as well as, feelings of isolation, lack, insecurity, confusion, dependence and discomfort.
Counseling for addiction provides the tools needed to create the inner change of mind that is necessary to manifest and achieve both the inner and outer changes required to live the life you truly aspire to. Addiction counseling puts the keys to happiness and satisfaction back in your own hands reclaiming the control you had given to many outside forces that only seemed to have authority over your life choices and decisions.
Psychotherapy for addiction helps you step back and examine what is really being sought, as well as, how and where it is being sought. Then, together with a non-judgmental therapeutic presence – you can question the validity of beliefs surrounding the likelihood of achieving these goals and truly finding what is sought after. In this way, addiction counseling can get to the root of underlying causes for addictive habits which merely cover over the deeper problems that need healing and resolution.
When death, in its myriad forms, touches our lives and the ensuing grief strikes, a period of deep questioning may follow. Grief counseling helps us to examine, with professional guidance by our side – the nightmarish thoughts, ideas, fears, self-hatred and frustrations that may rise up and seem to trap us in an unending cycle of despair. Sometimes we need help to look at our pain differently – a way that may not seem accessible to us who are caught in the clutches of grief. However, a grief counselor can help us step back and look at the suffering, pain, guilt and lack of peace. A grief counselor can help us learn to be kind and gentle toward ourselves, help us move on and forward and find the strength within our minds to do so.
Hiding or repressing our grief only reinforces the pain. Though we may try to push it down, grief can affect our functioning, behavior and actions towards others and ourselves in every aspect of life – home, work, school, and many social interactions. Therefore, it can only be helpful to seek grief counseling. It is our minds, our thinking, and our ideas that must be healed before we can bring meaningful change into the new normal of our lives. Through the feelings we are experiencing and expressing, grief counseling can lead us back to the underlying painful thoughts, the only place where a shift can take place. To be willing to share the burdens of grief with a counselor is to take the first step in freeing ourselves from the shackles of grief. Why not take the first compassionate step toward freedom?
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