Well, I've finished The Heart of Addiction and am now reading Breaking Addiction by the same author. You may not need both; a lot of the information is the same, but the first is more informative and the second more practical.
The gist is that addiction is a result of displaced helplessness over some issue which is very important to us. This could date back to childhood, but doesn't have to -- adults can also have powerful experiences. When we first have thoughts of drinking (or whatever), that's the time to look at what's going on with us. When we get to the "fuck it" point where we decide to drink, we're doing something even though it's not the right thing.
The Sinclair Method broke my addiction to alcohol, but I still have a propensity to addictive behavior. Exploring this may keep me from being one of the 20% who are cured at the one-year mark but readdicted at the three-year mark.
For those keeping score at home, I'll go over the breakdown again:
10% not helped by the method at all
20% ditch the method or do it so improperly that it doesn't have its effect
20% are cured at the one-year mark but choose to return to the addiction
50% are cured at the three-year mark
I want to be in that 50%. I want to be aware of thoughts of drinking without naltrexone and deal with them instead of giving into them. At this point it seems impossible that I would ever drink without naltrexone again -- why on Earth would I want to do that? -- and yet a fair number of people do exactly that.
I want to be prepared in advance for that "fuck it" moment which leads people to drink off of naltrexone.
No comments:
Post a Comment