Addiction: It's a familiar word within our societal lexicon, including in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL).
It's also a condition that's been with us for as long as we've had recorded evidence of things that reward or alter the mind. Writings dating back 9,000 years documented the existence of fermented drinks in China, Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as the social problems that attended them.
The range and potency of sources of substance abuse have only grown in their power and availability. With complex roots of origin, substance abuse is a powerful force that can affect different people in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville.
It also is a condition that can be managed and healed through mindfulness. Freedom from substance abuse begins with understanding why it exists and how we can retrain our mind to free ourselves from the addiction's demands.
A substance abuse disorder is a compulsive or chronic relapsing condition that causes a dependent mental or physical need for a habit-forming substance such as alcohol or narcotics. Withdrawal or abstinence from the substance can often produce harmful or distressing physical, social or psychological effects.
The addiction advances by starting as a soother for a personal problem and then evolving into a survival mechanism. The substance gains command of the self by rewiring the brain with new neural pathways that create a trap in a circuit.
As it begins, the addiction is a give-and-take exchange that eventually tips the balance to take more than it provides.
| Substance Use: Give | Substance Use: Take |
| Stress, pain or boredom relief | Increasing anxiety, stress and depression |
| Current calm or pleasure | Less ability to feel pleasure or calm naturally |
| Bonding in social settings | More conflict, relationship strain, social isolation |
| Sense of confidence, energy, control | Cravings and dependence, loss of control |
| Escape from reality | Return to a harsher reality |
| Feeling of being free, exciting or fun | Diminishing sense of self and purpose |
Depending on the addiction, other issues can include financial, legal and health problems; increasing fatigue and worsening sleep; and the need to lie and manipulate.
Healing from a substance abuse disorder is difficult because it calls for more than willpower alone. The return to freedom and peace is guided by changes in our emotions, our thought process and, in some cases, our environment and relationships.
In the U.S. as well as in Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville, addiction can be common because of biological, social, cultural and economic factors.
We make this internal accord with our dopamine, a key neurotransmitter in our brain that motivates and reinforces how we feel, act and learn.
When we engage a substance for pleasure or escape, we flood our brain with dopamine. When we flood our brain with dopamine, we prompt it to adjust (raise) its fill line. The higher the fill-line goes, the more of the substance we must have to reach it.
As we increase our substance use for our climbing dopamine quota, naturally positive dopamine sources such as good relationships, volunteering, learning new skills and enjoying a hobby cannot meet the measure. Our cravings start to become greater than our self-control.
Understanding a substance abuse disorder includes recognizing its common connection to trauma.
Our painful or negative past experiences can establish thought and behavior patterns that form an inner critic, the voice that judges or reprimands us within, often harshly. Its condemnations can cause great feelings of inadequacy that drain us of our hope and joy. We might consequently engage an addiction to help quiet the voice.
However, as we've seen at Empowered Life Therapy, even the most challenging trauma-based substance abuse cases be healed. The individual can go on to embrace a healthy, peaceful and productive life. Mindfulness is a major part of that transformation.
Mindfulness therapy focuses on present-moment awareness. It keeps us attuned to the movement of current existence instead of mentally trapped in the past, the future or the worries and stress of the day.
We achieve mindfulness by establishing an anchor that slows our mind and connects us to the "now." Examples of anchors can be meditation, yoga, deliberate breathing and centering more consciously on our senses (e.g. sound, sight, touch).
The core principle of mindfulness is to occupy the moment without judgment, prediction or analysis. Rather, we perceive and experience feelings, sensations and thoughts as they arise in us.
Mindfulness helps to clear our mind and return us to the beauty of being alive right where we are. This becomes especially meaningful in the context of a substance abuse disorder, which locks us into a manufactured temporal state.
As we become more spiritually mindful, we discover we can respond to a compulsion or stressor in ways we haven't before. Rather than dash to our addictive source for relief, we can identify and process our feelings and thoughts as passing phenomena that visit us before we perceive them moving on.
Through spiritual mindfulness, we also initiate restorative roadwork on the addiction's misdirected neural pathways. In time, this lets us gain greater control of our thoughts and reactions. We learn to postpone gratification through patience and, in doing so, weather difficult emotions with strength and confidence.
It should come as no surprise that the areas of the brain affected by an addiction's cravings and relapses are the same ones influenced by mindfulness training. Mindfulness training and therapy empowers an individual with an addiction to:
Empowered Life Therapy believes in living as the authentic self with balance, peace and resilience. If you or someone you care about struggles with substance abuse and you'd like to learn more about how to change, heal and grow, we welcome you. Simply contact us at (630) 842-6585 to connect with a "counselor near me" for Oswego, Aurora, Plainfield and Naperville (IL).
Kasey Huff
