Therapy for Addiction

      Vicious Circles, Hypnosis and the Ripple Effect

      Most people, at some time in their lives, wonder why they do the same unfulfilling thing over and over, especially when they know better. Perhaps they are overeating, overworking, attracting the wrong relationships, spending every free moment on the Internet or playing solitaire. Unaware they are caught in a vicious circle, they complain they are in a rut at a dead end. They feel compelled to work, get a relationship -- any relationship or drink, drug or eat. A heroin addict may resort to crime to feed his vicious circle, while the overeater may hurt only himself. Yet these seemingly different people are stuck in same vicious pattern that definitely leads to ever increasing negative events. Some people who don’t stop the downward spiral of vicious circle will die early, die isolated or end up locked up in a prison or a mental institution. Others only become depressed and isolated. The workaholic needs to take the same steps as the alcoholic to end this behavior because the vicious circle is at the heart of all addictions, repetition compulsions, and dead end ruts. 

      Consequences of Vicious Circles

      A vicious circle has progressive long-term negative consequences, and eventually interferes with our thinking. Our energy and motivation diminishes. Our bodies break down. Our social world shrinks. Being in the downward spiral of repetitive negative events eventually takes a huge toll on the quality of our lives and increases our painful emotions, often fear, depression and anger. And the irony is that we get trapped in the vicious circle because we want to avoid those painful feelings and threatening emotions to begin with. The first step in the vicious circle pattern is the immediate gratification of pleasure or relief from pain. Eating is very sensual and satisfying. Drinking loosens us up and makes us feel good. Work is productive, safe and satisfying. Drugs give us an immediate escape from pain. The second step is that there is always a negative consequence with time in a person’s life. We get fat, drink or lose friends. Then the third and final step, this pain from the inevitable negative consequences compels us to get our immediate gratification again, in spite of knowing better. Unfortunately, if you play, you pay, …eventually. Over time, imperceptive at first, the damage and negative consequences progressively grow in a person’s life. And with it the desire for short-term relief. The person and his situation become out of control, unable to stop. The problem has become huge and unmanageable.

      It is like the elephant story. Five scientists were blindfolded and asked their expert opinion about an object they touched. The first said it is a hairy creature. The second said it was cold, hard and smooth. The third said it was dry, rough and cracked. The fourth said it was dry, rough and smooth. The fifth said it was hot, moist and soft. They were all correct from their own point of view. What they had touched was an elephant. The first touched the tail, the second the tusk, the third the hide, the fourth the hoof and the fifth the underside of the tongue. None saw the creature in its entirety. This is often the problem with our understanding and treatment of vicious circles and addictions.

      Vicious Circle Behaviour is Multi-dimensional

      A tremendous percentage of the people trying to stop their vicious circle pattern of behavior fail to realize that the extent of the damage of vicious circle behavior is multi-dimensional. Short sighted like our scientists, they don’t realize that their short term solution has a long term negative effect upon the following dimensions of their life: their thoughts, their feelings, their body, their spirit and their social world. 

      Like most people, most therapeutic perspectives even with hypnosis, treat only one of these dimensions. For example, cognitive therapy helps people change the way they think. Analysis opens the emotional baggage of our past in order to feel better. Family and Systems therapy helps change relationships and social world. Physicians focus on the body while the clergy helps strengthen our spirit and motivation to lead a good life. Yet, the rising tide of drug, alcohol and other vicious circles makes it obvious that these single dimensional approaches have a high rate of relapse and are not doing well.

      Most people agree that to lose weight you must go on a calorie restricted diet, and change your life to include exercising. Usually nothing else in their life changes. Then when they go off their diet and stop exercising, they (surprise, surprise) go right back to the weight they were, then become very despondent and this further fuels the vicious circle, and then, unfortunately, usually gain even more. If you stop drinking without changing anything else, once you have had that one drink, you eventually go back to your last drinking level or even get worse. The same is true with cigarettes and drugs. But if you stop a vicious circle by making small changes in the five major dimensions of your life your likelihood of success increases. 

      The Ripple Effect and Hypnosis

      By making a small change in a single dimension of our life we can create a "ripple effect." What this means is that all the dimensions of our life are interconnected and effecting one effects all. Imagine that a person consists of four parts: the mind, the body, the spirit and the emotions. Visualize each of these quadrants as a separate piece of geography interconnected within a larger circle, the person’s social life. A small positive change in one will necessarily cause changes throughout the entire system. Making a small change in your life leads to larger changes, as Milton H. Erickson said. Now, if you make changes in all the dimensions, all these circles will change and the resulting interactions can lead to greater and greater waves of success. A positive circle effect instead of a vicious one.

      According to Milton H. Erickson, trance is a natural state of inward focused attention that anyone can learn to achieve. Just going into trance, a pleasant comfortable state, can offer immediate gratification without any negative consequences. Affording one the wherewithal to take the steps out of the vicious circle. Thus, we receive immediate gratification as well as long-term solutions without any negative consequences.

      Trance is also where the spontaneous healing ability of the unconscious mind is activated. Now if we enhance the unconscious mind with meaningful ideas and suggestions it will help people make the changes in all the dimensions of their lives. This results in alternative responses to the old learned vicious circle triggers of progressive relapse. Practical information on what and how to change are the seeds of change in the fertile unconscious mind. The unconscious mind is the "power tool" of this treatment.

    Create a Ripple Effect

        The following are highlights of changes people can make to create a ripple effect.

      Mental Change

      Descartes, the French philosopher, started a dialog that has lasted for centuries when he said, "I think, therefore I am." I'd like to extend his thought to, "I think, therefore I am whatever I think I am."

      Our thinking develops from simple ideas to complex ones as we evolve. As a teen-ager you may have had a best friend and you and your friend consider everyone else the enemy. You are either for us or against us. We call this black or white thinking, all or nothing thinking, or global thinking and it is typical of vicious circle behavior. 

      A patient who always got great evaluations on her job was upset when the recent evaluation was excellent but mentioned one area where she could show improvement. After two years of perfect evaluations at work, one less-than-perfect evaluation made her believe she was no good. She ruminated on this "failure", became depressed and went out drinking that night. She couldn’t stop with just one drink. This is "all or nothing" thinking and behaving. During that first drink she failed to think that it was a new supervisor grading her. Perhaps this new supervisor did not believe in perfect evaluations and was harsh with everyone, which had very little to do with her. Most important, her all or nothing thinking led her to berate herself and have a drink to block it out. Then she told herself that with one drink her sobriety was lost and she might as well get drunk. People need to realize how pervasive this kind of thinking is and change it to more helpful and accurate thoughts.

      Physical Change

      When we are in the vicious circle, we lose awareness of our bodies. This is true for the drinker, the drug addict, the gambler, the overeater and the workaholic. Bodily concerns fade into the distance, as the power of the vicious circle increases. Anyone in a vicious circle with food can tell you how well food sedates the body and puts it to sleep.

      In the downward spiral it's not just the alcohol that kills the alcoholic, but also the malnutrition of the body that accompanies the final stages of death from alcohol abuse when the drinker stops eating only to drink. The overeater denies the pain of thighs rubbing together and the cocaine addict denies that his teeth hurt because they are rotting. Moreover, he'll rub cocaine on his gums to relieve the pain while doing worse damage to the body, as it feels numb. The more the body is numb the better. People need to become more aware of, and how to care for their bodies.

      Social Change

      Ironically, many people began their vicious circles because they wanted to improve their social life. They joined their friends in that first cigarette or drink. Having a drink gave them the courage to speak more easily to the opposite sex or maybe an authority figure. Indeed, bars are the social centers of many neighborhoods. Food and drink is at the center of most entertainment and social occasions. Breaking bread together is a time-honored symbol of intimacy. People addicted to the Internet spend all of their time "talking" with others who are in the same vicious circle, and they become isolated from everyone else.

      If you are in a vicious circle you gradually avoid social occasions where you are unable to indulge and eventually spend more time alone because you can enjoy your vicious circle without the distraction of other people. This desire leads to shame. The shame leads to further isolation. At first you break dates, then you don't even bother to make them. People need to get a new social life.

      Emotional Change

      By its very nature, the vicious circle is based on escape and avoidance of feelings. Notice how a workaholic is too busy to pay attention to anything else but meeting his deadline. The layers of fat around an overeater protect that person from feelings that are too strong, just like a wall or a security blanket would. A woman in a vicious circle of attracting men who hurt her is first caught in the pleasure of the seduction and sex, and then the pain of abandonment the morning after. She must prove to herself again and again that she can attract these men to feel good. After they hurt her she needs another man desperately, because of the pain the last one caused. People need to feel, understand and be flexible with their feelings.

      An acting teacher taught me that in acting as in life we have access to all of our feelings, at any time. This is a skill worth practicing. We experience many feelings at the same time and we choose to focus in on just one. 

      Some people get stuck in one feeling. They feel anger all the time, or guilt all the time, or fear all the time. Anger fuels itself, and self-pity fuels the vicious circle. However, it's impossible to believe that a person can be angry all the time because he never gets what he wants. How can a person be fearful all the time? Could their life be in constant danger? This is when it is important to realize that feelings aren’t facts and that feelings change. Just like flexibility in your body, flexibility in your emotional life is very important. 

      You need to let yourself feel your feelings so you can think about them and change the things that cause the feelings, or change the way you think about things. You don't need to analyze your emotions, just recognize them. (People in analysis for years seem to have limited emotional flexibility. Just look at Woody Allen. The therapy cements their feelings with self-absorbed justification.) Just as it is important that you don't become stuck on one feeling, it is equally important that you don't become stuck in your "feeling" part of the self and ignore your thinking, physical, social and spiritual self.

      Spiritual Change

      We are born to be happy. Therefore, the meaning of our lives is the pursuit of our lasting happiness, whether it's about helping others, or gaining fame and recognition, or raising a family. Vicious circles are really about the pursuit of happiness, too, but only in the short run. Heroin addicts want the ultimate rush now, a quick fix. Sex addicts want the ultimate orgasm. Food addicts want the most satisfying mouthful. Unfortunately, after the ecstasy of the quick fix comes the downfall, almost a mini-death. This is completely opposite of spiritual growth. Traditional spiritual transitions in many cultures have a person prove themselves by difficult tasks. Then they have a rebirth into a new phase of their lives; the boy becomes a man, the student becomes a doctor.

      Zen masters spend years in meditation so they can see what they call their original face. You were the center of the universe when you were born and you still are. All of us need to get to a place where we can feel this kind of self-love and acceptance. If you are working to love yourself, you will strive to do good things for yourself. Self-love allows you to pursue your purpose and discover what gives meaning to your life without hurting yourself in the long run. It gives way to purpose and the meaning of life. These are two places to target spiritual change.

   Maintaining the Ripple Effect

      The more relapses you have, the greater the likelihood you will succeed. This is because the people who succeed never stop trying. All the great inventions are a result of someone with an idea trying again and again to get it to work. Writers love to recall the number of famous novels that were turned down by 27 publishers before they became classics. Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Wolfe, and other literary luminaries could tell us how many times they try and try again until they succeed.

     Mistakes Mean Progress

      Each relapse can be an opportunity to change. By examining the mistake we can target what needs to be learned and which of the dimensions need change. We may make some mistakes along the way, but the nature of all learning is about mistakes. This is why we have erasers and white out and computers that delete and insert. When you were a baby you fell down many times before you learned to walk. I don't recall any babies getting depressed and refusing to try again if they didn't get it right the first time. People who fall down and don't try again, are those who learned early in life to be victims instead of winners. It's easier to just have another cookie or another drink or date another loser and complain that you just can't change anything. This kind of thinking is to be avoided.

      In conclusion, these ideas are suggested to the patient in and out of trance. I usually make a hypnosis CD for them to listen to at home as many times as they need to. Often they reach for the CD instead of their vicious circle and the ripple effect begins.