Addiction- When to seek counselling


Addiction signifies to a difficulty to control certain repetitive behaviours which have dangerous upshots such as consuming drug or alcohol.  People are addict to the alcohol or drugs due to intense desire or compulsions to use excessively to avoid disturbing emotions/situations. In simple way, addiction is an obsessive and maladaptive dependence which has severe psychological, physiological, sociological, and legal magnitudes.


In majority of cases, addicts do not sense that they are habituated, and are ignorant of harmful consequences of dependence. People are addict to certain things including drinking alcohol, taking drugs, eating, gambling, having sex and using the Internet. Basically, addictions begin with doing these activities and they feel emotionally and physically comfortable. Later on, such activities become so repetitive that people cannot leave. A physical addiction is a dependence on a substance or any specific activity to get pleasure and emotionally comfortable.

Symptoms of addiction:

People who are addict to some substance are incapable to limit use of a substance or activity. As a result, they exhibit signs of physical impairment. 
Addicts have strong cravings and compulsions to use the substance or activity.
They show psychological symptoms like irritability, anxiety, poor focus, the shakes and nausea if they attempt to withdraw from the drug or activity.
Addicts do not hold responsibilities and important activities in everyday life, including school/work.

When to visit to addiction counsellor:

Though some people may be able to recover from an addiction without any help of counselling technique, it is sturdily believed that addicts require counselling of specialists. Addicts must seek help for addiction when they experiences a crisis, either as a result of a major life consequence or when the addictive substance or behaviour is suddenly taken away.

It is well documented in psychological researches that counselling is a major part of drug abuse treatment for many people. Counsellors offer treatment for addicted people and their families because they get special training in behavioural treatments for addiction. Counsellors teach their addicted patients about addiction, embolden them to transform their lives, applause them when addicts try to improve behaviour and support them when they have problems.

Effective treatment for addiction is cognitive behavioural because it helps patients to identify and correct problematic behaviours through applying easy to use skills. This technique also helps to address original problems that often co-occur with an addiction.

Specific behavioural counselling approaches that are applied for addicts to improve behaviour are as under.

-       Improve motivation for recovery.
-       Teach skills to stop taking drug and alcohol and avoiding relapse.
-       Counsellors must use positive incentives to boost treatment participation and reward progress.
-       Counsellors must involve family members in treatment activities.
-       Encourage participation in recovery support group.

It is imperative for counsellor to create therapeutic alliance with addicts in order to bring positive outcome. Strong therapeutic alliances can be developed by ensuring patients that counsellors are really interested in their wellbeing, attentiveness during sessions, understanding and communicating the foundational issues at play in recovery.

Counsellors also have relapse Prevention Plan. These plans will be developed according to the needs of each patient. Counsellor must consider certain factors like prepare history of the patient’s experience with substance abuse including previous relapses, warning signs and how patients can best manage them, a detailed list of family, friends, and counsellors that can be used as a support network, an emergency relapse plan, specific lifestyle changes that patients can do to prioritize their wellbeing.

Gist of above facts are that addiction counsellors offer good support to people gripped in any kind of addiction such as eating disorders, drug and alcohol issues, gambling addictions, and other behavioural issues. They build friendly relationship with their patients, and provide the support, resources, and guidance that patients explore ways to recover from addiction.


Important: This article is developed through environmental information, academic experience and/ or personal view of writer. Writer is not responsible for any disagreement

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