Steve Bishop – Addictions

Dealing with Addiction – How it works.

Belief

Constructing memories about the future holds the same power in your mind as those of real memories in your past. Your brain is able to access these new ‘memories’ to help you create decisions that are made below your conscious level of awareness. This is exactly how athletes improve their performance so efficiently

Self Sabotage

Believe it or not, all addictive behaviours have a positive intention behind them. To uncover them and resolve them we may need to dig deep. By removing the positive benefit of an addiction it then releases the struggle. And when that conflict is resolved you are then able to make logical decisions.

Triggers

Cravings are the result of powerful chemical reactions in your body that can sometimes remain a long time after the drug, behaviour or addictive stimuli has gone. The triggers start a sequence of events in your brain that result in an unreasonable and illogical need to feed the addiction again. Even when the substance has left the body the brain creates the effects and needs. Remove the triggers and their instantaneous responses below conscious awareness and the addict then realises the effects of the anchors, positively.

Inner Truth

Being in denial is food for an addiction, which is why we need to be brutally honest. Your unconscious mind doesn’t have access to the reality of what is feeding the addiction, what the agenda is or what is needed to let it go. By coming up with an inner truth in a private and self empowering way the addict can then, and only then, listen openly and realise that resistance is no longer an issue.

Commitment

Every addict wants to stop doing what they do even though they understand there are terrible consequences of having the addiction. They want more than ANYTHING to stop the addiction and keep to their promise but the internal conflicts stop them from keeping their commitment. Removing and resolving those conflicts and then creating the power of an unconscious switch in their minds allows them to stay committed.

De-hypnotizing

There is power in the AA 12 step process but only in that it promotes failure. By getting you to believe that you are powerless and diseased keeps you on the verge of relapse. Being surrounded by failures and others who are struggling will only compound the problem. Immersing yourself in misery and pain will only further the belief that addiction is hard to get over.

Choice and Freedom

Hypnotherapy creates new pathways in the brain which stimulate its responses for success. The biological reaction of these newly formed memories creates a positive chemical response that affects things at the cellular level by changing the receptors in the cells. This is how the brain and body then make the change to that of a non-addicted person.