Understanding and treating compulsive addictions

There are many sorts of addictions. Addiction to alcohol and chemical substances is a well understood problem and there are many approaches to treatment, some more successful than others. The important part of any addiction treatment is that the patient has got to understand that they are addicted in the first place, and secondly that they have to truly commit themselves to going through the trauma of withdrawal while undergoing treatment.

If we take the relatively minor addiction to smoking one sees and hears of many people trying and wanting to quit smoking and yet relatively few are successful without support. The reason for that is not that nicotine creates a massive dependency. Its prolonged absence in a hardened smoker does cause some distress but one that is not unmanageable. But it is the habit of having something to do with one's hands and the psychological prop that smoking provides which is the hardest part to break. These are the aspects that are likely to make an ex-smoker relapse and start smoking again long after the residual craving for nicotine has faded away.

Interestingly enough the cures from drug and alcohol addiction treatment appear to have higher success rates. This is largely because both of these are treated like true addictions and the treatment is not only that of weaning one off the physiological dependency but massive efforts are made to address the entire milieu of the addiction itself; To understand and address the reasons one became dependent in the first place and then to provide the necessary support without which recovery is extremely difficult.

There is an addiction treatment center in Arizona that has 35 years of successful work in these fields. Staffed by dedicated professionals it adopts a holistic approach to cure the spirit and mind as well as the body.

But it has found that there is a need for and has had success in treating behavioral addictions as well. sexual addiction treatment is just one of these, there are others such as eating disorders, compulsive gambling, Bipolar depression and chronic anxiety. Just because no physical substance detrimental to one's health is entering the body does not mean that there is not a real problem.

Sexual addiction for example has become more serious in recent years and addictive behavior may include an addiction to watching pornography on the internet, or making premium rate phone calls to sex lines. These and the constant dreaming about sex tends to destroy current relationships as well as lead to some extremely risky behavior. Associated with this is a sense of shame or guilt and a low self image.

In order to overcome this compulsive behavior many issues at the base have to be addressed. Firstly of course the patient has to acknowledge that he has a problem and show the willingness to confront and overcome the issues that led to the problem in the first place. This of course requires lots of counseling and also requires the patient to overcome some of the behaviors and justifications that they had hitherto used to explain the obsession.