Addiction

For a few years, I worked as a community chaplain in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside where the greatest population of people suffering from this disease in Canada tend to congregate. My understanding of the disease of addiction is heavily influenced by the teaching and writing of Dr. Gabor Maté, an internationally recognized expert in this field who was also working in the same neighbourhood of Vancouver when I was.

I believe Dr. Maté’s claim: “The source of addiction is not to be found in genes, but in early childhood environment.” In his book In the Realm Of Hungry Ghosts he draws on cutting-edge science to illuminate this point of view and calls for a more compassionate approach toward the addicted person. To this issue I bring a wide range of psychotherapeutic tools to help you or your loved one find a compassionate lens through which to look at the deep inner source of addiction rooted in past experience, and together we can chart a gentle healing path into freedom from addiction. This path requires time, patience and a growing openness to the healing essence of deeply compassionate, non-judgemental curiosity and care.

One of the best videos I've seen on the topic of addiction which speaks to these points is found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao8L-0nSYzg.

All those caught in the devastating cycles of addiction need support in moving away from the isolation this disease causes into widening circles of care and wholeness. The person with the addiction needs the solid medical care of their doctor and will be greatly helped by peer groups like AA, NA, GA, SA, etc. In addition, using appropriate psychotherapeutic tools, I can offer assistance in finding the root cause of the addictive Behaviour and deepening the compassionate relationship to the addictive Behaviour, so the individual can be freed from the addiction to make healthier, more creative, life giving choices.

Tools

The tools I would offer as I accompanied you on this journey could include;

1. Effective talk therapy to assure you someone understands what it is you are feeling. Talking also helps us begin to understand, to the best of our ability, the roots of your addictive Behaviours. Observation is 98% of the healing process.
2. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, to help you develop a full list of the gifts, skills and values that you already possess, though may not be able to fully celebrate and consistently put into action yet because of your brains thought patterns.
3. The Genogram; to get an overview of the dynamics of your family of origin and the key relationships which were part of your early psychological development.
4. An introduction to mindfulness meditation: the power of having our attention on following your breath to the core of your being.
5. The energy-psychology of Emotional Freedom Techniques to free up frozen emotions from past trauma.