Usually when addicts decide to let go of their addictions they exert their own personal force of will to make necessary changes in their lives. For some this works, as long as their faith and willpower both hold up. The many 12-Step programs available are all very helpful. These utilize a connection with Source or God along with community support and the strong force of personal will over the old behaviors.

While these and other addiction cessation programs work successfully for many,  for others it is not enough to put effort into conscious intentions when their own subconscious mind is shut down to allowing such new actions. I’ve run across so many people who are addicts or past addicts who have inner subconscious beliefs that:

· they don’t deserve to have a good life,
· they don’t deserve to have health or wealth or love,
· it is dangerous to make any changes,
· they will die if they revisit the pain they are covering up with their addictive behavior,
· and even many who have a subconscious belief that God doesn’t want them to change or live a good life.

Force of will alone will not dislodge the negative emotional energy stuck in the electro-magnetic field around an addict’s body, which forms his or her limiting beliefs. And, as long as the person has these heavy or negative emotional vibrations in their energy field, with the attached subconscious limiting beliefs, he or she will automatically stay stuck in addiction, negativity, and limitation rather than what the conscious mind intends and clearly asks for.

I have utilized many energy therapy modalities for the last twenty-five years, and the meridian-based modalities are the ones that I have seen make the most dramatic changes to easily and painlessly clear away the underlying negative attractors so that my clients can attract what they consciously most desire… rather than what is running in the background of their subconscious. Classical acupuncture, acupressure, and the newer meridian tapping techniques all work to clear out the hidden saboteurs from the subconscious… without pain or any negative side effects!

Personally I benefited greatly through acupuncture in the 1980’s, seeing great changes in my stress level and my own personality and self-esteem after just a month or two of weekly visits to a practitioner. I have practiced Neuro Emotional Technique/ NET as a trained facilitator since 1995 with great success, and when I desired a tool I could use on myself I discovered Emotional Freedom Technique/ EFT which is becoming more accepted and popularly used by many coaches, physicians, therapists. My own practice now incorporates a blend of these latter two potent modalities which I label Neuro- Emotional Freedom Technique/ N- EFT. I currently work with clients who present with addictions, trauma, loss, dark night of the soul, anxiety, re-occurring negative cycles, among other things.  My work is focused on clearing the underlying causes of why people are suffering from these conditions or states of mind, and I’ve seen miracles in all kinds of cases – including the easy and complete termination of addictions.

In working with addictions and past addicts you might note that although many people have wonderful success giving up an addictive habit such as smoking, drinking, drugs, other, often these addictions transfer to some other kind of addictive behavior in the life of the addict. The reason for this is that addictions cover up that inner angst, anxiety, fear, clawing in the pit of the stomach that causes a person to feel like he or she might literally jump out of his or her skin. When one “cover-up” addiction is terminated, then often there is a transfer to another addiction. An example is when many ex-drinkers transfer to become smokers, etc. To completely clear the addictive behavior (there is no such thing as an “addictive personality” – there is always an underlying cause) the emotional energetic must be cleared from the energetic field around the body. Then the person will be free to create the life he or she desires.

One client approached me to help her stop smoking. She also was a drinker and I realized that she had some powerful underlying causes of her two addictions. In one lengthy session using energy psychology and Neuro- Emotional Freedom Technique, we cleared the causes of her addictions. During our session I didn’t ask her to tell me the “story” involved in her underlying pain because that was too painful. We approached her issues gently and applied meridian tapping whenever an emotion came up so that she did not have to dwell on the story or feel any pain. I helped her clear out some life trauma and feelings of guilt, fear, unworthiness, sensitivity to judgment by others, low self-esteem, and ultimately that “inner itch” that had caused her pain for most of her life.

She later told me what we had cleared. She was one of twelve children in her family, and growing up she had felt neglected and unworthy of her busy mother’s love. We had first cleared this basic foundation and then focused on another more recent trauma that had even more supported her addictive habits. Years before, one night she had come home to her husband to find him drunk and high on drugs. He was out of his mind and started throwing her through the sliding glass doors. Unable to fight him off physically, she had grabbed a gun and shot him in self defense. She killed her husband of ten years and was devastated. She immediately turned herself in and was not charged but placed on strict probation. Within a few years she was so haunted by this event that she had become an addict and asked to be sent to prison, where she stayed for several years. For many years she was haunted by this event and the judgment of others around it. In one long session using energy psychology tools she cleared it away and felt peace of mind for the first time – maybe in her whole life. After that, clearing away her addictions entailed basically letting go of bad habits, and willpower served her easily to do this.

I hope this information is helpful for better understanding of how the cause of addictions must be cleared in order to provide freedom from future addictions and transference to new addictions. While most people can clear bad habits easily, for those who have deep-seated causes for their addictions, an approach to clear subconscious blockages is required in order to successfully let go of addictive behavior.

Author's Bio: 

Dr. Anne Merkel is known internationally as Coach Alchemist and Energy Psychologist with The Ariela Group of Wholistic Services.
She specializes in using N-hanced EFT (Neuro- Emotional Freedom Technique), an energy clearing modality combining NET and EFT for conscious life and business transformation, wellness, and release of trauma. Anne invites you to learn how you may clear inner blocks, self-sabotage, and pain by visiting her EFT Coaching site and receiving her new e-guidebook, Ten Keys to Pure Potentiality.