Virgil Roberson

NY Licensed Psychoanalyst :: Virgil Roberson

  • Individual
  • Couples
  • Group
  • About
  • Info
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • 212-581-5428 180 Pondfield Road
    Bronxville, NY 10708

Explore Topics of Addiction:

Overcoming any addiction is a major accomplishment to be celebrated but investigating the events and situations that trigger your compulsive behavior is critical to recovery.

During counseling for addiction, we will explore the issues that have caused you to self-medicate through your addictions. Together we will empower you to make the healthy choices so that you can live a happy and fulfilling life. Individual therapy and/or group counseling sessions are both effective methods of therapy for addiction but many people find the support of their peers in a group environment most effective.

The articles that follow were written to explain how therapy for addictions can encourage you to take the steps to break unhealthy relationships and cultivate healthy ones that will provide you with a more fulfilling life.

December 14, 2020 by Virgil Roberson

Coping Strategies for Addictive Behavior During the Holidays

By Virgil Roberson, L.P., M. Div., NCPsyA, Executive Director

Coping Strategies for Addictive Behavior During the Holidays

If you struggle with addiction, the holidays can be a minefield, triggering the negative behaviors you’ve been working hard to avoid.  Add our ongoing public health crisis, with the sharp spike in cases of coronavirus, and the dangers multiply.

In ordinary times, the myriad sights and sounds, the traditions and expectations of the holidays can arouse powerful emotions. This year a sense of loss arising from public health restrictions, and the need to limit or forego many celebrations, as well as personal losses suffered because of the pandemic, might prove to be overwhelming.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: addiction, holiday

July 13, 2020 by Virgil Roberson

Triggers for Addictive Behavior Multiply Over the Holidays—Here’s How to Cope

By Virgil Roberson, L.P., M. Div., NCPsyA, Executive Director.

If you’re struggling with addiction, the holidays can be a minefield of dangerous triggers of the negative behaviors you’ve been working so hard to avoid.  Whether you have negative or positive associations with the days between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and no matter your faith background, the myriad sights and sounds, traditions and expectations—not to mention weeks packed with activities—can arouse powerful emotions.  The increased stress and anxiety can provoke patterns of behavior that have not served you well in the past: too much alcohol consumption, over eating, gambling, excessive shopping, or acting out in whatever form it takes for you—all intended to put you in control while actually robbing you of personal agency.

Can you get through the holidays without a meltdown? Yes, but it helps to be prepared.

The process involves three stages: awareness, acceptance, and action.

First, take some time to acknowledge how difficult this time of year can be. The holidays fill our senses with lights and decorations, baking cookies and scented greenery, music and singing.  All of these can remind us of how the holidays used to be and are no longer.  Losses are often felt more keenly.  No matter when we lost loved ones, how long ago we sold the family home, or when we were laid off from our dream job, we find ourselves taking stock during the end-of-year holidays and feel those losses all over again.

The holidays also come packed with expectations—of ourselves and others.  When those expectations aren’t met, which almost inevitably happens, we often allow resentment to take hold.  And if our expectations rise too high, or we hold them too tightly, the resentment that follows can induce a “fight, flight, or freeze” response, actions we’ve been trying to avoid.  Expectations become the match that lights the fuse of addictive-related behavior.

People struggling with addiction often react poorly to authority figures. A flight attendant simply asking a passenger to raise her seatback might provoke a negative over-reaction.  A parent re-asserting authority over a 20-something son home from college might initiate an escalating confrontation.

It’s important to recognize the triggers that get you into trouble.  They may be feelings of self-pity, which lead to the twisted logic that if Uncle Joe can drink excessively, why can’t I? Or if cousin Mary can go back for a third helping, I can too.  If my sister can have that expensive sweater, I want one as well. Another trigger might be too much of a sense of well-being, followed by the fearful conviction that something bad will inevitably follow.  Or you may fall into a pattern of comparing yourself with others at the company party or within the extended family; coming up short, you fall into despair.

A danger sign might be an increase in “cross addictive” behaviors.  Maybe you’re suddenly smoking again or behaving in inappropriate ways—coming on too strong at the company Christmas party, acting inappropriately with family members, or even becoming promiscuous with casual acquaintances.  Such a loss of judgement and self-control are clues to impending trouble.

Shame—whether recognized or not– is often the emotion underlying all these feelings.  Something missing, something needed long ago and never received, can make you feel bad about yourself.  Bad enough that you’re compelled to act in an addictive way—anything to mask that shame and attempt to regain the control that shame has taken away. But shame can be acknowledged, and it doesn’t have to rule.

So, first learn to recognize your particular warning signs and triggers.  And be aware of the difficulties that the holidays in particular pose for you.

It’s important to know your own boundaries so you don’t collude with the idea that you have to act out on your feelings; learn what you can handle and what you can’t.  You might choose to set the terms for a visiting family member, saying, “You’re welcome to come, I’d love to have you, but I ask that you not drink while you’re in my home because I have trouble handling that; if you prefer not to honor this request, I’m happy to arrange to get together another time.”

It helps to decide ahead of time what limits you’ll set for yourself and how you’ll handle situations that you anticipate.  This is hard work!  It’s difficult to resist peer pressure, which can be intense.  It’s tough to risk criticism when you’re yearning for acceptance.  But it’s healthy to map out in advance where your boundaries lie and what you’ll do if circumstances threaten to spin out of control.  Act with the intention of remaining in charge of your behavior instead of letting others dictate it.

It’s also important to accept your feelings, however uncomfortable they make you.  Acknowledge your fears, doubts, even your anger.  These feelings won’t hurt you, but what you do with them can create situations you can’t undo later.

Then, decide what action to take.  Ask yourself what you want and how you can achieve it.  If you want to keep peace in the family over the holiday dinner table, what can you do to facilitate that?  Can you let go of your previous demands and expectations?  Can you adopt coping mechanisms to help guide you?

If you find yourself in a situation that threatens to overwhelm you, you might reassert control by:

  • Taking a big breath, then another.  Slow down enough to become conscious of your breathing.  That alone will calm you.  Make yourself mindful of your feelings, of your body.
  • Delay reacting badly and help to defuse the situation by going to a place where you can cool down: slip away to your room or go for a walk, where nature can soothe you or the urban bustle can distract you.  Identify your feelings and get out of your own head by becoming aware of what’s going on around you.
  • Seek out an AA or Al-Anon meeting; there’s almost always one being held nearby.  People in Twelve Step Programs, including official “sponsors” from those groups, can offer the experience, strength and hope to get you through a tough moment.  Another option: you might feel more comfortable with either a clergyperson or a therapist, who might be able to connect you to someone else who’s been in a similar situation.  Or you might arrange in advance for a friend to be “on call.”  It needn’t be your best friend, just someone who can act in your own best interest—by picking you up so you don’t need to drive to escape a tenuous situation; or by lending a listening ear.
  • Practice self-care. If you begin to slip into self-pity, ask yourself: what am I wishing I had, and can I give that to myself?  Chances are, what you really want, deep down, will feed you, rather than your addiction.
  • Cultivate gratitude: be aware of and appreciate what you do have instead of resenting what you don’t have.  Viewing your circumstances from an attitude of gratitude is bound to brighten your outlook.

All these suggestions are intended to help you become aware of your feelings, your triggers, and your boundaries; to accept your feelings and the situation as they are; and to act not in reaction but to reassert control.  Just as on the highway, you can escape an annoying tailgater by changing lanes or even pulling over, so too you can escape a triggering situation by practicing self-care to de-escalate, calm down, and regain agency over your behavior.  In that way, you can control the things you can, let go of those you can’t, and show that you have the wisdom to know the difference.

With these tools in hand and the commitment you’ve worked hard to maintain during the rest of the year, you can enjoy the holidays with good mental health, filling your heart and soul with the love and good will that will leave you richly satisfied.

Filed Under: addiction

August 28, 2014 by Virgil Roberson

How You Can Overcome Your Addictions Through Counseling

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.

Overcome Your Addictions through Addiction Counseling

The Cost of Addiction

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.

Getting at the Roots of Addiction

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.

Acquiring the Tools Needed

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.

Question Beliefs

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.

Making Healthy Choices

Addiction counseling makes it possible to actually find what you are looking for, clearly determine and define what that is, and discover how to make the right choices. A centered, loving, healthy, secure, peaceful state of mind is the goal that can be accomplished in addiction counseling. Counseling for addiction helps you choose for yourself, rather than against yourself, away from pain, rather than towards it, opening the way for the peace you deserve and realizing the power of your own decisions. An aspect of that decision making comes into play with actions taken to break the chains of addiction.

Addiction counseling may be effectively supplemented by joining an appropriate support group –

  • Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)
  • Alanon
  • Gamblers Anonymous (GA)
  • Overeaters Anonymous (OA)
  • Debtors Anonymous (DA)
  • Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)
  • Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA)

It may involve finding a group in which to do the 12 Step program, choosing a sponsor, attending more than one group at times – for example, when it applies – AA and Alanon for what is referred to as the “double winners.” The addiction counselor may suggest supportive resources in the form of reading material and books.

The Ultimate Goal

Addiction counseling helps you work through the feelings that underlie all addictions – while encouraging you not to become identified with your addictions – nor to live identified with the addiction as you proceed through recovery. New healthy relationships are fostered to replace the old unhealthy ones whether they were with substances, things or people. Finally, addiction counseling teaches you to find real peace by learning to recognize the triggers that would spur a relapse. Through support via individual and group therapy along with attending 12 Step programs, cultivating hobbies, interests and healthy relationships, addiction counseling ends the vicious cycles, breaks unhealthy habits, renews your strength and faith in yourself and helps to heal your mind that thought it was helplessly imprisoned and controlled by your addictions.

Photo credit: Viktor Hanacek

Filed Under: addiction, depression, individual therapy

Virgil Roberson, NY Licensed Psychoanalyst

Are you ready to make a difference in your life?

Make an appointment today!.

TAKE CHARGE of the changes that will lead you to the fulfillment you seek.

Call (212) 581-5428

Email me to make an appointment today
  • Email
  • Phone
  • RSS

Contact Info

Virgil Roberson, L.P., M.Div., NCPsyA
180 Pondfield Road
Bronxville, NY 10708
Phone: 212-581-5428
virgil@virgilroberson.com
Copyright © 2021 Virgil Roberson | Web Development :: EqualServing.com