“How to Win Friends and Influence People,” “Think and Grow Rich” and “The Secret” are all titles of popular self-help books.
If self-help books work for relationships, finances, career prospects and the power of attraction, why can’t self-help replace addiction treatment?
We live in a proactive society with infinite knowledge at the click of a mouse or a conversation with Siri. We are strides ahead of past generations, with enough innovation to make your head spin.
As of Dec. 2, 2016, a simple online search for “drug addiction help” yields the following article titles:
— Drug Addiction Help | Assist Someone with Recovery Treatment
— Drug Addiction — Parents: How to get help
— Overcoming Drug Addiction: A Guide to Recovering from Addiction
With this flood of information featuring tips and strategies for addiction treatment, shouldn’t you be able to treat addiction from the confinements of your own home as you would a broken heart, an overdrawn checking account or a rough case of social anxiety?
Unfortunately, addiction treatment, alcoholism treatment, mood disorder treatment and a handful of other treatments involving egocentric disorders (which cause the sufferer great difficulty with differentiating fiction and reality involving the self) require an external intervention. Effective addiction treatment — and alcoholism treatment, in particular — require a combination of detoxification, individual therapy, group therapy and aftercare support to address physical dependency, trauma, absence of connection and long-term abstinence, respectively.
Self-help methods are only effective when the participant can approach treatment logically, articulate the problem, dedicate time and mental energy to achieving the desired outcome and share the results with others.
The obsession and compulsion of addiction and alcoholism prevent the necessary qualifications for effective self-help, making it impossible to use this method for addiction treatment.
Here’s why addiction treatment is best left to treatment centers:
[See: 7 Health Risks of Binge Drinking You Can’t Ignore.]
The addicted mind is not logical.
The Red Ribbon Week slogan “Drug Use is Life Abuse” has merit when examining the biological impact drugs have on the brain. Drugs interfere with the communication system of your brain, hindering the performance of your neurons, which essentially tell your body what to do. The result: Your decision making is impaired and you lose control of normal mental functioning.
The addicted mind is irrational and impulsive, making self-help addiction treatment very difficult. Physical dependency on drugs and alcohol cause the “next fix” to be highest priority regardless of the consequences.
Home detoxification has low success rates and often leads to relapse simply because the impulsivity of the addicted brain runs rampant, eventually causing the sufferer to choose the drink instead of the physical symptoms and overwhelming obsession.
At New Method Wellness, the addiction treatment center where I work, we utilize medical-assisted detoxification. This means each client meets with a general practitioner, psychiatrist and nurse to determine the “easier and softer” way to detox the body with tapering medication and 24-hour surveillance.
Self-help addiction treatment is essentially asking the sufferer to fabricate logic.
[See: How to Find the Best Mental Health Professional for You.]
Addiction has many layers.
Addiction treatment is a process of peeling back layers of hopelessness, trauma, rejection, self-hatred and more. These layers harden and build over time, creating a tough exterior and leaving a very sensitive and raw center. Without the help of an experienced professional, the exposure of one’s raw self can be extremely overwhelming to face. Debilitating, even.
Self-help addiction treatment often ceases once the sufferer internally accepts the wreckage and chaos they have caused themselves and those around them, turning to the drink when the pain is overwhelming.
The support from therapists and fellow addicts who can empathize with these overwhelming emotions is the most powerful aspect of professional addiction treatment.
Physical removal from your environment is often necessary.
The layered, illogical brain that plagues an addict often — if not always — requires a physical removal from the current environment.
Since we’re in the midst of the holiday season, think about all of the Hallmark Channel Christmas movies you have in your queue. The plot usually goes something like this: man/woman has to go home to family for Christmas, family lives in a small town, man/woman stuck in old way of thinking for a few days, man/woman has a change in perspective and it changes their life.
There’s something more to the plot than pure cheese: Our way of thinking is largely determined by our environment. A temporary or permanent environment change does wonders for addiction treatment, primarily because a change in environment often leads to a shift in perspective. You escape from the negativity, the drug connections, the “bad influences” and the same unhealthy routine.
[See: 14 Ways Alcohol Affects the Aging Process.]
Addiction prevents connection.
If you haven’t had the chance to watch the TED Talk ” Everything You Think You Know about Addiction is Wrong,” I highly recommend taking the time to watch.
The host, Johann Hari, explains that the lack of connection or the lack of the mental capacity to connect to others, which is present in all addiction cases, only pushes the sufferer deeper into his or her addiction.
Self-help addiction treatment lacks the foundation of recovery: connection to others. In a self-help scenario, the addict relies solely on the self and the presented tools for recovery.
A major component to the mastery of a particular subject is the ability to teach others.
Self-help is particularly successful in relationships, finances and career issues because the desire to share helpful tools and life-changing solutions with others is very powerful.
Sharing success with others requires the existence of basic connection. Addiction blocks connection; it’s isolating by nature, not only by stigma, but often by process of elimination as the addict tends to burn bridges.
At New Method Wellness, we emphasize the power of one person helping another in recovery. This can be as simple as debriefing with a fellow addict after individual therapy, hugging someone who seems to be having a bad day or sharing your story with a new client.
Addiction treatment requires an army composed of the sufferer, the therapists and counselors and like-minded peers.
While self-help is a powerful tool in many different areas of life, self-help addiction treatment is a liability for the addict, potentially pushing him or her into a downward spiral.
Professional addiction treatment provides the logical approach, the emotional support, the physical escape and the connection necessary to make a lasting impact and lead the addict onto a road of long-term recovery.
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Why Self-Help Doesn’t Work for Addiction Treatment originally appeared on usnews.com
