Addictions
In our society these days the number of people experiencing an addiction seems to be ever increasing. The indications of an addiction are:

• Ever increasing need for the addiction
• Withdrawal symptoms
• Feelings of having no control around the addiction
• Disregard for consequences of doing the addiction
• Addiction is disruptive to a successful life

Examples of typical addictions are alcoholism, addiction to drugs such as cocaine or heroin, addiction to perscription drugs, sex addiction, gambling, and internet addiction. The list is almost endless.

Is An Addiction a Disease?
In 1956 the American Medical Association (AMA) declared alcoholism to be a disease. We believe that in erroneously doing so, the AMA did this country a great dis-service. We believe the AMA made this declaration without any empirical data to back it up. Declaring alcoholism to be a disease has led to almost any condition being declared a disease. Have an addiction to talking too much on the phone? The AMA would probably label that as a disease. We are against this belief because it removes any sense of personal responsibility from the addict. Furthermore, declaring a condition a disease, opens the way for the profit driven pharmaceutical companies to get large grants from the government to study the alleged disease and to make money providing pills for the alleged disease.

By responsibility we do not mean blame or shame. Responsibility means the ability to adequately respond. When you become ill with the flu, you did not cause it to happen so there is no reason to feel blame or shame. However, you do have the ability to respond. You can get rest, drink a lot of fluids in response to having the flu, or you can go out partying. Its your choice as to how you respond. In the same way with an addiction, we believe you do have the ability to respond to the situation you may find yourself in and there is no cause for feeling blame or shame.

Are 12-Step Programs the Only Way?
Currently, 95% of addiction treatment programs involve a 12-step program. 12-step programs are based on the original 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The Alcoholics Anonymous approach, developed in 1935, was a very good first step for its time. In view of more modern therapeautic ways of dealing with addiction, we find many problems with this approach, not the least of which is that they have a very low success rate. Some estimate it to be between 3% and 5%. Many in-residence programs are hugely expensive, in the neighborhood of $18,00 to $60,000 per month. Our main disagreement with the 12-step approach is that it goes against many well established principles of a modern day therapeutic approach.

In a 12-step program you are encouraged to identify with your addiction, even to the point of always introducing yourself as an addict. "Hello, my name is Joe and I am an alcoholic." Our experience in hypnotherapy is that success depends on breaking someone's identification with their problem and encouraging a more positive identification with positive goals and values. Connected to this is that addicts are told they will always be (as in identification) an addict and that they will always have to attend meetings. To us, that is not a solution. It seems more like a substitution of addiction to attending meetings for the original addiction.

Many times in a 12-step approach, participants are told they can not hang out with "normies", that is to say, normal people without an addiction. This flies in the face of even common sense. What better way to learn surfing, for example, than to hang out with surfers. And what better way to learn to deal with the common ups and downs of daily life than to hang out with normal people who function without an addiction. We know of one example of an addict who was told she could not be with her normal boyfriend, who just happened to be a therapist with experience in helping people with addictions.

In a 12-step program, addicts are told that they are powerless over the addiction. In working several of the 12 steps (such as to take a fearless moral inventory) the addict feels huge amounts of shame and blame and incrimination. We say this is most definitely not the way out of an addiction. Modern hypnotherapy provides a much more positive orientation to solving the problem of addiction.

There are many more examples of why we think that in view of more modern approaches to therapy, the 12-step program is not the best way to deal with addictions.

The Hypnotherapy Approach to Addiction
The modern hypnotherapy approach to addiction is characterized by:

• Belief in the positive resources within the person
• Addiction is not identity.
• Work to increase positive values and goals for a successful life
• The addicts brain can change under hypnotherapy

Modern therapeautic procedures recognize that the way to change behavior is to focus on the positive. Jeffrey Schwartz, M.D., a leading brain researcher and professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine states in his book, "The Mind and the Brain: NeuroPlasticity and the Power of Mental Force", that by "focusing the attention away from negative behaviors and toward more positive ones" the brain can actually be re-wired. The ability of the brain to re-wire itself is called neuroplasticity.

Prochaska, Di Clemente and Norcross in their book, "Changing For Good" found in their research that the key element to change is that the person comes to value something more than the problem behavior and that devaluing the problem behavior is a result of the change work not the source. To us, this indicates that we should not waste time on pointing out the negatives of the addiction, but that we should work on the positive aspects of a healthy life without the addiction to the point that the person values the positive approach more than the addiction.

In other words, the way out of addiction is to massively change the way you think. You change your thinking and focus of attention away from the addiction and towards all things positive. In our hypnotherapy approach to addiction we start at the very beginning, the core by working on self-love and feelings of "deserving to get better." With that as a base we work on positive orientation to beliefs, values, desires, relationships, work, and self.

We offer a program that includes 3 intensive hypnotherapy sessions per week for 4 weeks. It includes homework assignments between sessions as well as hypnosis CDs to listen to that strengthen the new learnings and new brain re-wiring that was begun in the sessions.

For further information about the hypnotherapeutic approach to addiction we invite the reader to call us, as we are always open to discussing hypnosis.