Of the Addicted and the Depressed

I recently wrote a blog on this, highlighting some things that I feel should be made available to people who are suicidal or addicted, which aren't, given what I have been told, currently available. In a nutshell they are:

1. Addiction is a symptom of some deeper cause. One needs to find the cause to sure the addiction.
2. Too much symptom hiding medication in many contemporary treatment programmes.
3. No teaching of detachment - one cannot solve a problem when one is identified with, i.e. thinks that one is, the problem.
4. Inpatient methods teach tools that might only be usable in the safe inpatient environment.

Re: Of the Addicted and the Depressed

Darkchanter invited me to post here given my personal experience in this field. I'm not sure I can be much help, but:

I'd like to quote from his blog:

Firstly, none of the people whom I spoke to was ever told that their addiction was a symptom of some deeper cause. People drink and take drugs to escape something in their lives.

I'm stunned. My first meeting with a psychologist was in England, I was 18, and bulimic. The psychologist was unable to take me on as she was moving into teaching, but she heard my 'story' and most definitely suggested a deeper cause. I knew this already, having done a bunch of my own research on addictions, particularly bulimia. Lots of research on this regarding escaping someting in one's life ( over dominating mothers for example ).

Now I did not follow a 'normal' path - I saw healers, clairvoyants, bodyworkers, nutritionists, therapists who did not work within 'the system'. Everyone of them included the deeper causes.

Secondly, there is too much of a tendency to medicate whatever the problem is.

Again, because I did not follow a conventional path, I did not experience this. The only time I did was when I was  in my early 30's, in dire emotional straights, and I was interviewed by one of Canada's most highly thought of psychotherapists - again, another person who could not 'take me on' (thank god). She suggested, quite rightly, that I had over-developed coping mechanisms, and would have ( should have, in her view) been hospitalised and medicated.
I ran a long mile. However, she also included deeper causes in her analysis.

Thirdly, there is no teaching of detachment.: e.g. explaining to someone who is suicidal that they are not their pain and that their solution is to kill the host of the pain.

Again, I'm sure this is true of most conventional methods of addiction/depression treatment. I chose a different path. In particular I went to Paul Lowe, a spiritual teacher  along the Osho advaita non/duality lines who absolutely taught detachment. I was lucky, very lucky.

Fourthly, I'm not so sure about this inpatient method: what do the patients go back to and how can they expect to be able to apply tools learnt in a “safe” environment in a dangerous one?

Agreed. And btw I have one friend who did the fast track to heroin treatment (The “rapid opiate detox process). No post treatment care. He went back on heroin.

My healing from bulimia was a slow, personal process. The first step, as I believe for all addictions, was to see that it was no longer serving me.

Only then can there be any movement. And this seems to be something that you can't force - you can't get someone to get to this place. Maybe I'm wrong.

For certain, programs which include deep inquiry  on all levels would assist the de-addiction process.

My process began with seeing a woman who 're-told' me my life (she was the 'clairvoyant') in a positive light. I had had a different perspective, not a good one. she then suggested I read Krishnamurti. I did, and felt I wasn't alone for the first time in my life. Then I did a bunch of hands on stuff, but the main thing was grace.

Before all this, I got very ill (unrelated to bulimia) and for reasons too long to explain here, I was not able to have access to my 'drug'. My body detoxed all by itself, and I no longer had the 'chemical' addiction part. The deeper meanings had not been addressed, but I had a completely addiction free few months, and this was such a drastic change ( from eating and throwing up several times a day) that I was able to see how completely I did not want the addiction in my life when it started again.

Hence the rest - It took some years, and other layers and levels uncovered once I was no longer bulimic, other 'addictions' ( eg co-dependent relationships ).  All related largely to the original 'wounding' in childhood.

Assistance came in the form of spiritual teachers, and good friends.

It's a long process, and I would say it is the same process many  (all?) of us are on here, just that some of us have chosen to add this extra add-iction bit.

Not sure if this addresses your questions at all, darkchanter! Feel free to ask anything more specific about my journey.

Re: Of the Addicted and the Depressed

Thankyou, Sandra. It's good to know that there is some realisation of cause-to-effect. There doesn't seem to be much of it here, though. Perhaps I should overhaul the South African social support system…

Re: Of the Addicted and the Depressed

I just wanted to add - I remember sitting in front of one of my first therapists (non conventional) and she asked me what I felt in that moment. I couldn't answer her. I thought it was a stupid question.

Years later I can now see how much I had lost - cut - the connection to my actual present moment feelings. (for obvious, necessary reasons - as a child the actual present moment feelings were unsustainable, dissociation was simply a necessary form of defense. Unfortunately the defense was no longer useful in adulthood).

Body work of all kinds has deeply support the reconnection and I would place such methods very high up on any addiction healing programme.

I have also offered my sound meditations (group vocal harmonics and tones)  to a group of people in addiction rehabilitation. One woman, who had been on drugs of various kinds for most of her life, told me that during the meditation her body felt good, and this was the first time she had experienced this - ever. In a way it broke my heart, but the experience told me that there are many ways to heal, many ways to reach out to others, and we should never give up hope.