What is an Addiction or Substance Abuse problem?
Addictions typically classify a group of recurring behaviours that have adverse consequences on one’s daily functioning. This may involve affecting one’s school/work, sleep, physical health, relationships, etc. There are several types of addictions, some of the more common ones being: food addictions, exercise addictions, sex addictions, gambling addictions.
Most often, we must include four elements to classify patterns and behaviours as addictions:
– The first is the craving or the strong desire for a substance or for a certain behavior.
– The second is the loss of control (the inability to stop using a substance or repeating a certain beheaviour) or amount of frequency of use (increase in use and act over time).
– The third is the compulsion, or the urge to use/ act in a certain way. This urge can be so strong that one cannot focus on anything else that is important or that one feels should be important at the time.
– The fourth component is use/ act despite consequences. This means that the addiction takes over one’s ability to see the negative or adverse affects of the substance/ behaviour on one’s life/ others’ lives around them. Most addictions or substance abuse problems are characterized by harmful consequences and loss of control.
Symptoms of an addiction or substance abuse problem include:
– harm to self (physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually)
– feelings of anxiety, irritability or depression
– difficulty thinking clearly
– relationship issues
– impulsive and irrational spending
– financial and legal issues
– feelings of hopelessness and emptiness
Addiction Counselling / Substance Abuse Counselling
It is important to better educate yourself about the type of addiction you may have, in order to understand its role in your life and within you. Often, we want to detach the addiction from our current identity. The addiction becomes a large part of who we are, what we do, who we surround ourselves with, and what our lifestyle encompasses. It is important to change our lifestyle in order to identify risks for us falling into these addictive behaviours.
In addiction counselling, we will work together to understand your thoughts and emotions are part of your addiction and behaviour patterns. We can work together with a harm reduction approach, which means managing behaviours by reducing the harmful consequences of an addiction. With drug and alcohol addictions, where I can educate you with resources that will assist you in safer use and in eliminating the severity of abuse of substances.
Your first session involves initial assessment of your well being and a thorough intake of your personal history and background. Subsequent therapy sessions are 50 minutes in length, and are unique to each individual treatment plan.
Addiction Counselling in Mississauga; Substance Abuse Counselling in Mississauga.
Services offered at Balanced Mind and Wellness Inc. include: addiction therapy, counselling for addictions, counselling for substance abuse, and substance abuse therapy.
