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Addiction
Understand the experience of addiction from the InSync framework
Everyone has the intrinsic and beautiful urge to feel blissful and fulfilled. Therefore, when we feel unsettled in some way, it is natural to seek something to help us feel better. For one person it may be alcohol, for another sex, and for someone else 'comfort' food. However, when a person learns to associate a particular substance or behaviour with feeling good, and this association becomes deep-seated, an unhealthy dependence (an addiction) may develop. Then, although the behaviour or substance may have brought some pleasure in the short-term, the dependence upon it ends up increasing unsettledness in the body and mind.
As a simple example; a man may feel stressed after a hard day at work, and have a glass of wine when he gets home. On some level he feels better, more relaxed. Over the next few weeks work continues to be stressful and he gets into the habit of drinking more wine in the evening. However, even when work pressure eases, the drinking continues. It starts to interfere with his daily life, his relationships and he feels unable to relax in the evening without alcohol. His natural desire to feel at peace has been channeled into a destructive behaviour, over which he has lost control. He feels increasingly disconnected and a victim of his own behaviour.
As serious addiction often leads to personal and relationship difficulties, the following InSync programs may also be helpful.