|
Treatment
.
Deciding
on which clinic to attend is one of the most important decisions
you will ever make.
Addiction
is defined as the continued use of a substance such as drugs or
alcohol, or the continued participation in a behaviour, even
when it is clear that the substance or behaviour is causing you
harm.
The
World Health Organisation define addiction as ‘the repeated
use of a psychoactive substance or substances, to the extent
that the user (referred to as an addict) is periodically or
chronically intoxicated, shows a compulsion to take the
preferred substance (or substances), has great difficulty in
voluntarily ceasing or modifying substance use, and exhibits
determination to obtain psychoactive substances by almost any
means. Typically, tolerance is prominent and a withdrawal
syndrome frequently occurs when substance use is interrupted.
The life of the addict may be dominated by substance use to the
virtual exclusion of all other activities and responsibilities.
The term addiction also conveys the sense that such substance
use has a detrimental effect on society, as well as on the
individual; when applied to the use of alcohol, it is equivalent
to alcoholism. Addiction is a term of long-standing and variable
usage. It is regarded by many as a discrete disease entity, a
debilitating disorder rooted in the pharmacological effects of
the drug, which is remorselessly progressive. From the 1920s to
the 1960s attempts were made to differentiate between addiction
; and "habituation", a less severe form of
psychological adaptation. In the 1960s the World Health
Organization recommended that both terms be abandoned in favour
of dependence, which can exist in various degrees of severity.
Treatments
Available
Cognitive
Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
is an umbrella-term for psychotherapeutic approach that that
deals with cognitions, interpretations, beliefs and responses,
with the aim of influencing problematic emotions and behaviors.
CBT is
widely accepted as an evidence-based, cost-effective treatment
for many disorders and psychological problems. It is often used
with groups as well as individuals, and the techniques are also
commonly adapted for self-help manuals. One of the objectives of
CBT typically is to identify and monitor thoughts, assumptions,
beliefs and behaviors that are related and accompanied to
negative emotions and to identify those which are dysfunctional,
inaccurate, or simply unhelpful. This is done in an effort to
replace them with more realistic and useful ones.
A twelve-step
program is a set of guiding principles outlining a
course of action for the recovery from addiction, or other
behavioural problems. A twelve-step program usually and
symbolically represent human structure in three dimensions.
These are physical, mental, and spiritual. The original Twelve
Steps as published by Alcoholics Anonymous are.
1. We
admit we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become
unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves
could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn your will and life over to the
care of God as you understood Him.
4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of
ourselves.
5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human
being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects
of character.
7. Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
8. Make a list of all persons we had harmed, and became
willing to make amends to them all.
9. Make direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Continue to take personal inventory and when we were
wrong promptly admitted it.
11. Seek through prayer and meditation to improve our
conscious contact with God as you understood Him,
praying only for knowledge of His Will for you and the power to
carry that out.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these
steps, you try to carry this message to alcoholics, and to
practice these principles in all your affairs.
|
