Awesome Trauma-Informed Addiction Treatment Approaches

Trauma-Informed Addiction Treatment

Addiction is a complex issue that is often misunderstood. It is not just a personal failing or weakness, but rather a symptom of deeper emotional issues, particularly post-traumatic stress. Trauma can leave emotional residue that fuels addiction, causing individuals to turn to substances or behaviors as a means of numbing or dissociating from the pain. Trauma-informed approaches to addiction treatment recognizes this connection and addresses the underlying emotional causes in order to achieve lasting recovery.

Addiction as A Coping Mechanism for Trauma

But overcoming addiction, managing it continuously or making too much of an issue of it can be a dead-end. Instead, managing addiction has a role in starting to contain the addiction before starting to work on the deeper emotional issues. Addiction can help you to survive, to cope, through dissociation, but when you start to address and process the underlying emotions, addiction starts to lessen.

How Addressing Underlying Emotions Can Lead to Addiction Recovery

It's important to recognize that people of various cultures may have different character traits and ways of suppressing emotions. For some, the fear of dealing with anger can be a barrier to moving away from addiction. But processing anger can be a powerful tool in breaking the cycle of addiction.

Trauma-Informed Addiction Treatment & How Society Promotes Addiction; 

The mindset of addiction is often characterized by the constant search for the next shot of dopamine. But addiction can manifest in many forms, from substance abuse to compulsive shopping or gambling. Society even promotes addiction through entertainment, making it even harder to recognize and overcome.

But by understanding the underlying emotions and trauma that fuel addiction, we can start to break the cycle and move towards healing and recovery.

Ben and I met up to talk about Trauma-Informed Addiction Treatment Approaches .

We went into:

1. How addiction is a symptom of Post-Traumatic Stress and how emotional residue fuels addiction;
2. How overcoming addiction, managing addiction continuously, and making too much of a an issue of addiction is a dead-end;
3. How managing addiction has a role in starting to contain the addiction before starting to work on the deeper emotional issues;
4. How addiction has helped you to survive, to cope, through dissociation;
5. When you start to address and process the underlying emotions, addiction starts to lessen;
6. How people of various cultures have different character traits and suppression of emotions;
7. The fear of dealing with anger and how processing anger can help with moving away from addiction;
8. The mindset of addiction and how we look for the next shot of dopamine;
9. How everything can become and addiction and how society promotes addiction through entertainment;

Have a look at Ben's trauma-informed addiction treatment approaches:

Ben's website: www.drunkenbuddha.net

Toolkit: https://www.drunkenbuddha.net/emotional-regulation-emotional-sobriety-toolkit

Suggested reading: When Society becomes an Addict by Anne Wilson Schaef

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