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Archive for the ‘Addiction’ Category

Life is never a flat road and also never be a whole straight one, for one to live his / her life fully, she / he should go through many ups and downs, many times when things do not feel right even a bit then many times when you feel like you own the world, and to make a wrong turn whether once or twice is not a sin, there is even a song for that!

Even though it is also true that some mistakes cannot be fully fixed because it will surely leave scars while the others might be passed even without anyone remembering them but that does not ever mean that you do not have the second chance to start your whole life all over again if you fell or took a wrong turn in the past and ended up with many scars such as taking the addiction temptations. As long as you are still breathing and living it will be never too late to fix your life and start a new phase, there will always be chances! Whatever addiction type you are in, alcohol abuse, cocaine, or even opium.

Remember that life consists of many ups and downs, falling into addiction temptations might be one of your downs and thus you have to make your recovery as another up! Take the recovery program whether with opium detox or holistic program or substitution drugs programs and with experts help together with your beloved persons support it is an obvious thing that a new path will be opened up right in front! The key is the willingness you should have to face the fact that you already fell and now you should get back up to your feet once again, the fact that you were wrong and it is the time now to make things right!

Whether our addictions have to do with alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling, emailing, or shopping, the addictive behavior is often preceded by some triggering event that sets off a flurry of uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations, leading to cravings and urges to engage in the addictive behavior. An important part of recovery is being able to recognize our triggers and how cravings and urges manifest in our bodies and minds. The practice of Mindfulness gives us a unique tool to slow time down and bring awareness to the thoughts, feelings, and sensations associated with the triggering event while it is occurring.

As soon as we bring awareness to the moment, we have stepped out of auto-pilot, giving the choice over our behavior back to us and in turn giving us the ability to gain back control of our behaviors and our lives. Often, cravings and urges are our longing for things to be different than the way they are in the moment. Dr. Alan Marlatt, the Director of the Addictive Behavior Research Center at the University of Washington, defines a craving as the desire to experience the effects of engaging in the addictive behavior, while an urge is a relatively sudden impulse to engage in an act such as drinking, shopping, or gambling – feeling the high.

Urges and cravings often feel like they strike without warning, but with a mindful lens, we can develop a sensitivity to the internal and external cues and an openness to the present-moment experience that counteracts our addictive behaviors. Dr. Marlatt proposes a few ways urges and cravings can be triggered. The first is through a lack of insight into the body-feeling state such as sadness, anxiety, or guilt that manifest as physical sensations in the body. The second is through defensive and distorted styles of thinking, such as denial, rumination, or catastrophizing. The third is through our automatic negative interpretations of events such as attributing a relapse to personal weakness. In practicing mindfulness, we are not trying to get rid of or avoid these difficult experiences, but instead instill an openness and curiosity about them, learning how to acknowledge them and relate to them differently, breaking the cycle of relapse. Take a moment right now to bring awareness to how your emotions, distorted thought styles, and automatic interpretations of events, can feed into cravings and urges.

In terms of emotions, a growing amount of research is pointing to an unquestionable connection between negative emotions and relapse. The internationally acclaimed Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks to the importance of being aware of our difficult emotions and even approaching them with compassion rather than suppressing them. It is the natural course of emotions to come and go as it is for thoughts, physical sensations, and just about everything else. Think about if you have ever felt the emotion of sadness or joy. Did the feeling eventually pass? However, with uncomfortable emotions we often try to ignore or avoid them. It is in this struggling and avoidance where we find our greatest suffering and in turn, our greatest triggers, cravings, and urges. Mindfulness gives us the ability to become aware of our emotions and as soon as this happens, we move from auto-pilot to the present-moment and regain the ability to be in control. As we do this, we increase our awareness of the impermanence of emotions, reduce cravings and urges, and become less fearful and more confident that we can do it again the next time without resorting to addictive behavior.So what do we do, how can mindfulness help?

In concert with the fundamental principle of impermanence found in mindfulness literature, Dr. Marlatt developed a technique called “urge surfing” which uses mindfulness and breath-focused meditation to help us ride out the urge. An urge to engage in an addictive behavior can be seen as an ocean wave in that it starts small, gets bigger, crests, and finally subsides. Urge surfing teaches us to use the focus of our breath as a “surfboard” for riding the wave of uncomfortable thoughts, feelings, and sensations rather than struggling or giving in to it. Although ideally it is best to be guided through this, here are a few steps you can try to get started: First do a brief practice where you sit, stand, or lie down and notice your breath coming in and out of your body. You can think of it as keeping your breath company. This is good initial practice so when an urge comes you’ll be more likely to remember to do this. As you have the urge, you can bring awareness to the breath and let it surf the wave of the sensations associated with the urge. Noticing the physical sensation of the impulse as it changes and intensifies in the body. You may notice sweating, salivating, tightening of the muscles, or constriction of the chest. Be aware of any thoughts that arise in the mind and also be aware how they come and go as well. Many people can testify to the idea that an intense urge only lasts about 20-30 minutes, so notice the urge as it eventually falls like a wave in the ocean. As I mentioned earlier, it helps to be guided by a live person or a CD, but this is a good start.

May you be well, may you be at peace, may you be healthy, may you be free from suffering!

I wanted to talk to you about how you can fight your gambling addiction. There are a lot of people out there that have a problem with gambling and I know a lot of you think that cutting it cold turkey is the way to beat it. You’re going to relapse that way because all you’re essentially doing is forcing yourself not to do it. In reality, you don’t ‘just’ gamble. Something inside of you gives you an urge or a reason to do it. There is something in your mind that give you permission and there is also some sort of psychological pay off for doing it. Cold turkey won’t help you during a weak moment. This is why I wanted to show you how to fight your gambling addiction.

The root cause of this is that you get a psychological pay off for doing it. It is this pay off that allows your mind to give you permission to do it. Your job is to figure out what the pay off is. You don’t do things for no reason. There is always a reason. A lot of gamblers have sour or failing marriages. It’s not due to the gambling, but they end up gambling to create another problem other than the marriage. Or maybe you’re someone that just likes the rush of winning at chance. Whatever it is, you have to identify it.

If you want to fight your gambling addition you have to cut cold turkey, while giving yourself that pay off. If your gambling problem is just to cloak over another problem, than you have to go confront it and fix it. If you’re looking for the rush of winning, you might have to take up some hobby or sport to get that feeling. You can’t just cut cold turkey, you have to fill the void with the same psychological pay off.

Rule # 1- Forget Will Power, Your will is what got you where you are!

Our addictions are such a powerful and relentless force that no one person can conquer it on their own. As soon as we accept this fact, and believe me it is a proven fact, then we have given our selves a realistic chance of finding recovery and overcoming the bondage of self will. If we try to kid ourselves into thinking that we can kick our addiction with our own will power then we will remain sick in our disease and continue to make the same mistakes over and over again, never remaining clean for any substantial amount of time. It is essential to realize that it is “our own will” that led us to our addiction and our own will that kept us suffering. Left up to us we will continually search for different ways to use “successfully”, but this is nothing more than an illusion. This is the voice of our disease speaking to our weakness, telling us we don’t have a problem or we need our drugs just to function or “stay level”. Our disease wants to keep us sick; it is far to powerful for us to try to fight it alone. It takes us from our family’s, our friends, and in many cases it is so powerful it even takes us from our children. Who in their right mind would give up the ones they love so very much over drugs, alcohol or any addiction? The answer is simple: nobody in his or her right mind would. When we are sick in our addictions however, we are far from being in our right mind; in fact our mind is no longer controlled by us, but by our addictions. The drugs are calling all the shots; they rule our day, our thoughts, and our every decision. We are not in control of our lives and we are caught up in an endless circle of sickness and despair. Surrender your will and miracles will begin to happen, I can promise you that first hand.

Rule # 2- You don’t have to do this alone. There are people who want to help you!

Our disease wants us to think we are alone, but we are not alone at all in reality, there are millions of addicts just like us and we need each other to beat this horrible existence. Millions of addicts have found recovery and they live wonderfully happy lives today. Don’t dare believe the old clich

Addiction to drugs or other mood altering substances is one of the biggest social evils that is eroding the persona of the young generation in today’s modern society. There are several rehab programs running all over the world to provide complete relief from alcoholism or drug addiction. Among all these rehab programs, it has been proved that the faith based rehab programs have reported better success rates in rejuvenating the addicted person psychologically as well as physically. One such faith based program is the Christian rehab program. It is a rehabilitation center that is based on a combination of Christian philosophies and traditional method of drug treatments. This rehab center gives power to the drug addicted person to repel their addiction for good.

People of all faiths are welcome at these rehab centers. It is true that those people who have submit themselves totally and believe blindly in the healing power of God benefit from these rehabs but that doesn’t mean that these rehabs hold no advantages for those who have no faith. Christian rehab is a place where all drug addicted individuals can wean off their addiction successfully by adopting and implement this specific form of treatment. These rehab programs are considered to provide most effective treatments to those who are searching to get through a drug addiction. Many people considered Christian drug rehab programs as the first step of recovery.

Drug addiction is a kind of problem that can change an individual from the inside out completely. It causes gradual and extensive deterioration of the personality of the individual having issues with dependency. It becomes literally hard for the serious drug addicted people to see the light because they feel darkness from the insides of their soul. It is believed that a mood altering drug is just like a devil’s candy and it can completely turn the life of a person upside down. Christian rehab centers devise and implement several kinds of programs that combine both Christianity and conventional drug rehabilitation methods. This is the winning advantage that these rehab programs have over conventional drug rehab programs. These programs are developed with the specific aim of instilling traditional Christian qualities like patience, perseverance, and forgiveness.

It is the core belief of Christian drug rehab programs that faith plays an important role in fighting off addiction or drug dependency conditions. These rehab programs involve various types of methods such as reading of scriptures, group discussions or other religious activities so that a drug addicted person can overcome his/her addiction. The main aim of these rehab programs is to put emphasis on a spiritual transformation rather than a physical treatment. Christian rehab centers employ a holistic approach to treat the drug addicted individual. It is the common school of thought that these programs offer spiritual rejuvenation so that the individual is rebuilt from the inside and is instilled with a renewed set of priorities that enable him/her to lead an enriching life.

These Christian drug rehab centers are also known as mental treatment centers because these programs help in treating persons psychologically. In this way, these programs help drug addicted person to get rid of drug addiction completely. Ultimately, Christian drug rehab program is a way to treat a person suffering from drug dependency issues via principles based on Christian philosophy and if you know any person who is suffering from this problem then, you can suggest a good Christian drug rehab center without much thought.

There is an old adage “a shiker is a goy” (only gentiles are alcoholics); this profoundly biased and inherently wrong saying has been the progenitor of an almost cultural imperative that the diseases of alcoholism and addiction have bypassed the Jewish culture without even sullying the perceived holiness of the “chosen people”. Nothing could be further from the truth. Yet this self inflicted delusion has kept may Jews who suffer from this very real and terminal disease from ever getting help or even having proactive referrals from their Rabbis and spiritual leaders.

The fact is that this “shanda” (shame) factor is responsible for the deaths of perhaps thousands of Jewish addicts who kept their secrets sublimated and ended up in the grave.

There is also a misconception in the general public that alcoholism and addiction are not medical diseases, but rather a question of moral character and will power. This idea has helped to reinforce the widely held cultural belief that Jews are immune to the ravages of this deadly affliction. Addiction is a disease that can be diagnosed by the disease model criteria held by the AMA (American Medical Association). It is not the addict or alcoholics fault that they have this disease (the same way diabetics are not to blame for their ailment), yet it absolutely the addicts obligation to recover. Alcoholism and addiction like diabetes is an incurable, eventually terminal disease that can be treated, and with vigilance be arrested for a lifetime.

Some 76 million Americans have experienced some form of alcoholism or addiction in their families according to the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse.