Are your clients caught in a downward addiction spiral causing helplessness and frustration? While there are many reasons for addictive behavior, certain emotions such as anger can fuel the addictive cycle. This in turn increases the intensity of the emotion and amplifies distructive behavior resulting in an out of control moment.
Here are some examples. It starts with a painful event such as the loss of a job, the betrayal of a close friend or the disappointment of a missed opportunity. Each of these episodes can spark anger directed at another person or self-directed for failure to handle it properly. The feeling of anger is uncomfortable so they counteract it with a desire to escape or find pleasure. They turn to the addiction of choice: alcohol, drugs, gambling, smoking, spending money, porn, excessive exercising, soap operas, adrenaline, sugar, or video games. Other people in their life don’t like the addiction so they become angry withdrawn. The addict is now confused by the response because they were just trying to avoid being angry. This results in yet another painful event such as a fight, loss of respect or distrust. And the cycle repeats.
[For more of this story, written by Christine Hammond, go to http://pro.psychcentral.com/ex...-addictive-behavior/]
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