Is It Possible To Get Past Addiction Without The Help Of A Therapist Or Recovery Groups?

Question: "Any addiction would seriously interfere with a marriage as someone's relationship with their addiction always comes first." This is from a therapist's answer to an earlier question. After the breakdown of yet another relationship I am realizing that my addiction is a problem. In the beginning of a new relationship I am highly motivated by strong feelings of desire but as soon as the relationship gets comfortable I shut off from my feelings and focus on other things. My girlfriends invariably become frustrated and eventually leave. Is it possible to get past addiction without the help of a therapist or recovery group?

Answer (1) Addictions, amongst other things, are preoccupations with usually self defeating ways of temporarily changing how we feel, that have nothing to do with human relatedness and intimacy. We come to pay an awful price for constantly distracting ourselves from facing up to reality and having to deal with our problems. I presume you want to hear that yes, it is possible to get over an addiction without going to see a therapist or attend a group. However, this is just trying to fix things on your own, outside of a relationship yet again, so as to avoid any committment and work, in the same way as with your girlfriends. Unabated addictions often create secondary problems that can destroy ones' health, reputation, job, friends and family. This is serious enough in itself but it is your pattern of avoidance and disengagement that must be broken, if you really want to be capable of sustaining any meaningful relationship in the future.

Answer provided by David White, Psychotherapist

Answer (2) You have made a first step in admitting to yourself that addiction comes ahead of enduring intimacy. I wonder if you would now warn others at the outset of a new relationship that you only briefly escape your addiction until their novelty wears off? And that over numbers of relationships your first loyalty has remained your addiction?

Your next step may be to admit to wanting help; to seek appropriate help and to do both genuinely. That's no easy task for any addiction that can do the the talking. A therapist I could heartily recommend is one who has worked more than five thousand hours directly with clients who struggle with the substance or activity addiction that you harbor. Having honestly worked with their own addictive process can also be a recommendation for a therapist. That is because, broken open to health by the power of their addiction, sharpens a person's crap detector into a tough love instrument for confronting themselves and their clients. Same goes for accepting a sponsor in a recovery group. You don't want a sponsor to be a nice guy who looks after you, rather someone who you respect when they call you on your self-deception and not care if they hurt your ego in the process.

With all due respect to those of us who work with our client's and our own addictions (myself included and sober for many years) the therapy and recovery industries are major supply lines for relationship addicts (also see my answer to the dependence question). We can avoid naming our underlying core dependency and its accompanying frozen need in whatever addiction we currently manifest, for as long as a lifetime and through many heart broken lovers and hard working therapists as well. We can postpone our moment of truth for an eternity by going to the next best recovery group; by trying out therapies like a tourist; by acting dumb with throw away lines and by 'seriously committing' to the latest fad cure for our addiction. There is an impressive supply of expert alternatives to a simple, honest naming of what truly ails us and dealing with that as our own problem.

Working with addiction is more likely effective when it includes an adversarial approach to the cunning, persistent siren of addiction. It is hard work. If yours is a typical recovery, you will find totally believable reasons why you should give up on getting well and will find others to support you in that belief. How confronting is your crap detector with your increasingly familiar bag of tricks? Can you do it alone? A typical core issue in recovery from addiction is security - if I give up my drug or activity what else can I rely on? The words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh b. 1906 - 2001, have been like a beacon to me: 'The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now. Relationships must be like islands, one must accept them for what they are here and now, within their limits - islands, surrounded and interrupted by the sea, and continually visited and abandoned by the tides.'

Answer provided by Peter Fox, Clinical Psychologist

Answer (3) Many people self-cure and there is nothing to stop you trying this approach. You could conduct a Google search, for example, "alcohol addiction" and sift through the resulting websites for information to help you. You might decide that getting help could increase your chances of success. Certainly, information, techniques, and availalble sources of support can make us feel less isolated and powerless to change. Individual therapy is one-to-one, professional, private and confidential. Self-help groups like Gamblers Anonymous are facilitated by someone who has succeeded in overcoming their addictions and meetings are open to new members at any time. Both individual and group settings serve to help those with problematic behaviours understand that such behaviours are not unique and that people can change when they really want to.

The choice of individual or group options is often determined by personal comfort. You have not specified your addiction, but there are counsellors, private and agency based, for alcohol, substance abuse, gambling, sex and food addictions, to name only a few areas. Searching the Good Therapy directory will help locate a therapist. You can also ring LifeLine to get telephone numbers for help agencies. If you choose an individual counsellor, you are entitled to ask about their experience and training in the area of addiction and dependence. Specific experience in your particular type of addiction is sometimes a help.

Answer provided by John Hunter, Counsellor

Answer (4) It is of course possible to recover alone but the statistics are against you. It is a hard task - I'd take all the good help I could get. Group work such as AA has a relatively high sucess rate. Generally the longer the addiction has been happening the more determination and effort required to recover. Often it takes several serious attempts before people recover from addiction. A personal therapist who can help you get clarity while building compassion would be a good resource if you can afford that. Best wishes.

Answer provided by Fiona Halse, Psychotherapist