Help with Addiction

Addiction and dependency affect more people each year, actually what is a more accurate is that more people seek help for dependency and addiction each and every year.  As the stigma of getting help and being in ‘therapy’ is removed, they know that it’s OK to get help. About 30% of adults in Britain have used drugs at some time, but the size of addiction and dependency is far greater than this when you consider other things that we can become addicted to or dependent on:
  • Recreational, street drugs, for example
    • Cocaine, Heroin
    • Ecstasy, LSD
    • Mushrooms, Cannabis
  • Prescription or OTC (over the counter) drugs, for example
    • Tranquillizers, Anti-depressants
    • Painkillers, Sleeping tablets
    • Slimming pills, Anti-histamines
  • Legal substances, for example
    • Alcohol
    • Caffeine
    • Solvents
As well as becoming addicted to substance we can also become addicted to activities.  Some of the more common activities include:
  • Shopping
  • Gambling
  • Sex or destructive relationships
  • Exercise
  • Stealing
  • Work
These lists are by no means exhaustive.  Information on Eating Disorders and Alcohol is available by clicking on the links, because of the specialised nature of these.  And I’m sure that even as you read that you had thoughts along the lines of, “well I do that, do I have an addiction?”  

So what makes it an addiction or a dependency?
The simple but blunt response to this is “If it is causing you or others around you pain”.  If the substance or activity is taking up more and more of your time, money and attention then this it is a problem.  A classic response this denial, but this isn’t you speaking, it is the addiction – and the addiction will do anything to survive.  And this is one of the destructive characteristics of addictions.

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