Notes on Dealing with an Addiction  

The following was written for a client who presented with the request to address their addiction. The following notes explain Bower Place Addiction Programme:

• Dealing with an addiction is fairly simple in one way but complicated to make happen. 
• What gets you into an addiction is most often not a useful guide to how to get out of that addiction. 

• Equally, understanding why you use a substance is not all that helpful in working out how to stop using that substance 

• As humans we are designed to be addicted to something even if we haven’t found that something yet – addiction is a fact of life not an abberation. 

• How come some people end up addicted & others don’t is probably more related to bad luck & circumstances than it is to genetics or psychology. 

• Any addiction involves an endless repeating action & set of feelings & thoughts you can’t escape from – it’s an endless repeating pattern that takes up residence ‘inside’ your head & on the ‘outside’ in your daily interactions with people 

• Secrecy is central to most addictions – most people who are addicted are addicted to something & they are addicted to the secrecy that goes with that something and how you use it. 

• To break an addiction you have to break that person’s addiction to the substance + break that person’s addiction to secrecy 

• If you don’t break that person’s addiction to secrecy then the secrecy required for the addiction to flourish remains in place & available for the substance to return 

• To deal with an addiction requires a deeply nuanced understanding of that persons addiction to secrecy & that addiction to secrecy is usually more complicated & complex than their addiction to the substance – they become hardwired for the substance & they become hardwired for secrecy 

• All of this is made more interesting & complicated if the addiction to the substance involves injecting & with injecting comes another order of secret ritual & fetish 

• So you end up having to give up a substance, you have to give up injecting, you have to give up the very specific & secret rituals & fetishes that go with injecting that substance & you have to give up secrecy itself – your own internal hard wiring has to change & the  hardwiring of all of your relationships must change 

• This is the reason I’m insistent that secrecy is the glue that binds the addiction in place & why calling a halt to secrecy is  as important as calling a halt to the substance itself 

• It’s extremely important to grasp the fact that an addiction of this nature is both an inside-internal experience and also an outside-external experience so whatever approach is used must deal with both the inside & the outside together – where to start is the issue 

• The ‘inside’ here is your internal neurobiology focused on the nervous system & the brain & this internal world  that is you becomes hard wired for this substance & for secrecy 

• The ‘outside’ here is your interactional and relational world of family & people you are attached to & other relationships & this external world that is you becomes hardwired for this substance and for secrecy 

• A substance of this nature and the way in which you use it by injecting in particular means that your internal inside world is privileged and given priority over the outside – the substance and these practices or completely unbalance you so that your internal experience becomes more significant than your experience in the outside world 

• When the inside world is privileged over the outside world then secrecy begins to make sense as it acts to protect the truth of that inside world no matter what the truth looks like or what is about 

• A substance of this nature creates very particular & specific internal experiences they are impossible to replicate elsewhere or with any other substance – those experiences are often intensified when you do not have the accessibility  or desire for the substance 

• This is made particularly poignant when you do not use m- that’s when the rats begin to gnaw & scratch inside your aorta – only the substance & it’s practices will stop this 

• In my opinion any intervention used with an addiction of this nature must take the secret inside experience and put it on the ‘outside’ 

• This is a long-winded way of setting out the  approach I use with addictions 

• Fundamentally this approach takes the ‘inside’ & puts it on the ‘outside’ & doing this restores balance 

• I take the ‘inside’ internal preoccupation & rumination & self absorption triggered by substance use of this nature & put it on to the ‘outside’ & into your relationship with me – & to achieve this I make you accountable to me twice daily minimum – by text or by voice – I call a 100% halt to all the secrecy & privacy in relation to the substance & the rituals & the fetish & the persistent & intrusive thoughts about injecting & random encounters with people & cravings & all kinds of other feelings in your body – nothing must be held on the ‘inside’ – every single thing must be put on to the ‘outside’ & into this relationship – in that way these experiences & thoughts etc that fester in the darkness see the light of day & usually become lighter & easier to manage 

• I get you to construct a mantra & I ordinarily construct a ritual you use with this mantra in the morning & several times per day 

• Success comes one day at a time 

• And I do this first for 7 days then 30 days then 100 days & from then 100 days periods until we’ve completed this process over 1000 days – that’s how long it takes to deal with addiction of this nature  

• I put in place particular rituals, processes & other structures designed to keep you in one piece – what do is walk the walk with you until you no longer need me to walk with you 

• I also take random hair follicle samples – my testing is done in the US – this produces another level of discipline & accountability into this process 

• We’ll do a weekly 30 min skype session 

• In this process I do very little conventional therapeutic work with you & I’m more than happy for you to do other therapeutic work with other practitioners if that’s what you wish to do provided they do not undermine this process 

• I know you believe you should be mentally strong enough & have the willpower to deal with this addiction 

• This is something I definitely don’t agree with you about 

• Dealing with an addiction like this bears no resemblance to strength training & being a strong man 

• Dealing with addiction like this is more about being smarter than the addiction & out-witting the addiction & out-thinking the addiction rather than being strong enough to defeat the addiction 

• If you pit yourself against a substance or an addiction you will almost certainly fail 

•  I really want you to get your head around this because it is the number one fallacy in dealing with addictions & one of the key reasons why people fail 

• I don’t want you to put yourself in a position where the risk of failure is extremely high 

• This is not about willpower 

• This is not about how powerful the inside of your head & heart is 

• This is about willpower on the outside of your head 

• This is about how powerful the people are around you are & how powerful the relationship between you & those people is 

• This is about how open and transparent & honest the relationship between you & the people around you is 

• In my opinion it takes a small village to defeat an addiction of this nature 

• A small village in these terms is two or three or four people 

• In that village you should be 100% honest with zero secrecy about anything at all to do with the substance or the addiction or anything connected to the substance or the addiction 

• And that honesty with that small village means zero secrecy and zero deception and zero lying and zero avoidance about anything connected to the substance or the addiction 

• This is about willpower on the outside of your head rather than conventional willpower  on the inside of your head