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Essay on Psychological Causes Of Addiction
Essay on Psychological Causes Of Addiction
Explanations of addiction- biological, psychological, and sociological
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During the abstinence exercises for my Addiction Recovery and Social Work Practice course, I learned how to mentally abstain from my desires. During the weeks of abstaining, I decided to abstain from sodas, sex, cigarettes, and social media in order to understand the equivalence of individuals who have an addiction for drugs or alcohol. While abstaining from my desires, I found healthier ways, and activities to keep me focus on the assignment; for example, during my social media exercise, I decided to stay away from all social networks and spend time with family, and going on dates to work on my communication skills. Overall, the learning experience for the abstinence exercise has taught me that I have more mental power than I expected and …show more content…
Around the time of the exercises was also the time I was focusing on fitness, watching my food portions, and positivity. Mentally, the exercises helped with my confidence, and created room to be social and love myself. When the class initially was given the abstinence challenge, I felt it would be easy to give up something you desire but overall it was a huge challenge giving up some things. I decided to abstain from my desires because I wanted to see a difference in my body, and also my stability to maintain from unneeded …show more content…
The book states “ As we experience living clean with its ups and downs, miracles and struggles, dead ends and open doors, we see the world more clearly and better understanding of our place in it”. It is important to remember that it is not where we have been that counts, but where we are going. We learn from out experience and we should use it to help others. The wisdom grows as we learn to see ourselves; without judging to conclusions. During the assignment I gained faith in myself to conquer over any obstacle. Growing up around drugs and alcohol was not important to me because my family never allowed children around while adults participated in their actions. Stability is important for us to thrive, but there is a difference between being stable and being stuck. Once our addictions takes over our time, mind, and value, we lose ourself. This assignment was needed because I picked up signs that helped distinguish serenity. I learned not to judge others, be ungrateful, and agitated with people with personal issues. Obstacles gave me a chance to challenge myself during the assignment. When we set goals for ourselves, we move toward them a day at a time, knowing that when we’re doing the rights things, the right things tend to
Alcohol Anonymous (AA) is a fellowship worldwide consisting of over one hundred thousand men and women who are alcoholics, banded together in solving a common problem and in helping fellow alcohol users in their recovery from alcoholism. A.A.'s twelve steps are considered a list of principles which are spiritual in their nature, and if practiced as a way of life by members, can help significantly in expelling a member’s obsession to drink, and enable a holistic awareness. Step one is when the member admits they are powerless over the use of alcohol, resulting in an unmanageable life. No one wants to admit defeat, but admitting powerlessness over alcohol is the first step in becoming liberated. Step two is having a belief that the almighty power can restore their sanity. Step three is making the decision to turn their will and life over in the protection of the almighty God, which is the key to willingness of change as noted by the Twelve Steps of recovery. Step four is...
...nd stages of addiction a little better. The first step is start accepting thing were cannot change. This is something I say to myself on a daily biases because it reminds me that I cannot be on control of everything all the time. I have to allow my higher power to guide me through life. The Serenity Prayer reminds us to have courage to change things we can. I am in control of my life and my happiness and I need to make changes in order to keep it that way. Having the wisdom to know what I can change and what I cannot is helpful because it allows me let things go. The Serenity Prayer has been adopted by AA groups but should be adopted by everyone because it is so helpful in my life. Reading this book “Being Sober” by Dr. Harry Haroutunian was an eye opener when it comes to helping families understanding addiction and how everyone needs to surrender to the same words
It is imperative for a counselor to identify these qualities and know how to navigate an addict through these phases. Addiction has psychological, neurological, and spiritual elements that are important to understand in order to provide quality counseling. Psychologically, an individual suffering from addiction will often practice various methods of self-deception: denial & repression, rationalization, hiding, delaying tactics, breakdown, and collusion. Habits are formed in three stages. During stage one, a person learns that a specific behavior either provides pleasure or pain relief. Stage two is when a person actively seeks the effects of that behavior in everyday life, causing the formation of the habit. Finally, in stage three, a person is now dependent on the effect of the behavior and develops feelings of distress when the behavior and feeling are not easily
Although we are given free will and choice it is the choice to relinquish ourselves to God and His grace. May (1988) argues that addiction attempts to gain control over the behaviors that lead to shame and guilt. This book may be implemented into counseling to help those struggling between release of addiction and increasing spiritual growth. Ultimately, May (1988) argues that there are three simple ways in stopping addictive behavior results in “don’t do it, refuse to do it, and keep refusing to do it” (p. 178). When clients are able to face the truth of addiction, in their abilities, and longing for God they can begin to fall in love with themselves and the desire to love
In the book, Addiction & Grace: Love and Spirituality in the Healing of Addictions, May explores how addiction develops and can be treated from a psychological, physiological, and spiritual standpoint. This theme is clearly shown throughout the text as it shows addiction from a whole person's perspective. The book covers the development of addiction from desire through the experience of addiction. The key focus is on looking at the matter of addiction from multiple stand points then broken down by explaining how addiction is an issue psychologically, physiologically, and spiritually. By focusing on these three areas, the author is able to present the reader with a clear understanding of addiction from all sides of the problem.
PO showed up on time and moderately participated in the group activities that include: learning the importance of changing addictive thinking patterns that create painful feelings and self-defeating behaviors; identifying personal addictive thinking; learning healthy whys and strategies to manage and change them. PO demonstrated an understanding of today’s topic as evidenced by identifying and sharing how her distorted thinking has created problems in the past and current life. PO shared in the discussion openly and appropriately, and appears to be in the maintenance stage of change.
Capuzzi, D., & Stauffer, M. D. (2008). Foundations of addictions counseling. Boston, M.A: Pearson Education.
In the article, “More Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus,” as seen on page A21A of the September 16, 2011 issue, author Morgan Smith tells her readers about new programs being introduced in West Texas to tech teenagers about not only abstinence, but additional how to practice safe sex. The article explains how teenage pregnancy rates in West Texas continue to spike despite the effort to push abstinence on teens. It explains in detail of a new sexual education program where teens are encouraged to choose abstinence but are educated in effective contraception as well. It covers schools in Midland, Texas and how endeavor to switch policy’s is embraced by the majority of community members as an active approach to decrease teen pregnancy. (Smith 1)
Coming into the substance abuse meeting the student nurse was scared and nervous. She was scared of the reaction of the consumers and feared all the stereotypes she heard about typical alcoholics. Innervison gave the student nurse a new outlook on these types of consumers. She no longer looked at them as people who were just drunks and wanted to use AA as an excuse to make it seem like they are getting help. She never really looked at alcoholism as a true addiction; it seemed like more of an excuse to escape life’s problems. Sitting in and listening to these consumers gave the student nurse a dose of reality. The student nurse now understands alcoholism better and AA helped her realize recovery is truly a process that takes one day and one step at a time.
A big challenge that I will face is deciding which side I will take on a big debate in substance abuse counseling. Some people say that addiction is purely physical, while others disagree and believe that addiction is mostly psychological. Those who believe that it is psychological believe that it usually stems from abuse or as Jane Adams (2003) thinks an over dependence on parents. This side also says that addiction is operant conditioning and that cycle has to be broken (Silverman, Roll, & Higgins, 2008, p. 472). The other physical side of addi...
Despite how hard one works to overcome a substance addiction or those who have even mastered their sobriety; a negative stigma generally haunts them throughout their life. For individuals coping with addiction and the day to day difficulties, which addiction presents, they often feel many negative sentiments from society. Together with the task of managing their symptoms, low self esteem, a fear of relapse, depression and the negative stigma from the general public can only be seen as a bleak road to recovery.
After reading about the abstinence experience assignment, giving up the daytime show “The Young and the Restless” came to mind. However, my immediate answer to myself was “no way.” I attempted to think of something else that would be more difficult. I find it odd that dieting did not come to mind during my pre-contemplation stage. I kept trying to come up with something other than giving up my favorite show. I attempted to minimize the impact that missing the show would have on me by telling myself that the Young and the Restless show really is not be a big deal ; I needed to find something else that would give me a true feel for what a person who is attempting to abstain from drug use would experience. However, I decided that giving up the Young and the Restless Show would be very difficult for me. After all I have watched the Young and the Restless show since I was in the 6th grade. I remember lying on the hallway floor and hiding beside my grandparents couch to secretly watch the show. My parents and grandparents did not allow children to watch these types of shows. I debated for several days and changed my start date twice. Finally, I began the abstinence experience on July 10, 2010. July 10, 2010 is a Saturday; I usually watch any shows that I missed during the week on Saturday’s.
In this paper I will be comparing and contrasting the Psychoanalytic formulations of addiction and the Cognitive models of addiction. According to Dennis L. Thombs, “people tend to get psychoanalysis and psychotherapy mixed up. Psychotherapy is a more general term describing professional services aimed at helping individuals or groups overcome emotional, behavioral or relationship problem” (119). According to Thombs and Osborn, “Cognitive refers to the covert mental process that are described by a number of diverse terms, including thinking, self-talk, internal dialogue, expectations , beliefs, schemas and so much more” (160). I believe these two factors play a major part in an individual’s life that has an addiction.
So, it is clear that addiction is all around us and can attack anyone of us at any given time. Even studies conducted show that people neglect to speak around their dependency for two primary reasons. Foremost, because people do not comprehend, or they bear a total misconception to their addiction, that they do not realize that addictions can be critical to their overall wellness. Moreover, second, many people believe being an addict will never happen to them, but, in reality, most addictions start off as simple little habits. Such as starting with one drink after dinner and before you know it you are drinking several drinks a day. However, one does not opt to be addicted to a substance, because addictions are physical defects in the brain, a disease, and not one’s choice.
Abortion is the operation to end a pregnancy by removing a fetus or an embryo from the womb. This topic has been one of the most prominent controversies in the United States. A human’s life is special in all stages and should not be taken away for any reason. The robbing of someone’s life at any point is morally wrong and is a crime according to religion and the law regarding murder. If one cannot assume the responsibilities of taking care of a human until they are able to survive on their own, then intercourse is not recommended.