Drugs and addiction have accompanied humanity since before the birth of civilisation. Most peoples have their own forms of drugs that they take. In the Americas these consisted of tobacco, the coco plant and tobacco. In the Pacific and Melanesia, kava and betel-nut juice are prevalent. Even nomadic horse tribes had their own alcoholic beverages.
However, despite humankind’s long history of using various forms of drugs we have failed to either accept addiction or respond to it in a positive way. Addicts in the past have been seen as outcasts from society and have been demonised. In the present day, with a prevalence of drugs – addicts are not so much abhorred as feared – with an increase in crime associated with drug abuse.
Society, therefore, has a strong need to respond to the drugs endemic effectively and current initiatives designed to fight drug abuse seem ineffective. Furthermore, many of the drug abuse programmes seem only semi effective.One of the most startling stories I heard about recovery from drug addiction was about a teenager. He came from a good, caring, middle-class family and when he was about 13 years old started taking drugs. His parents were concerned about this and his mother took an unusual approach. Instead of lecturing him or banning him from hanging out with his friends, she started telling him she loved him. He responded by saying he didn’t care. This continued for a couple of months.
One day she told him she loved him and he broke down crying. With a lot of support from his family the teenager was able to make a full recovery and although this happened many years ago, has never relapsed.The story demonstrates an interesting point, that the pseudo-religious zeal of anti-drugs groups in many ways acts as an impediment to recovery. Many people who are addicted don’t want to be on the drug themselves but are compelled to take them by cravings and desire.
They don’t need to be told that it is harmful or to be further isolated from people who can help them – what they need is something else. This is where groups like Alcoholics Anonymous are useful. They provide support in a non-judgemental environment, which can help people recover from their addictions. Unfortunately, the success of the AA programme is limited for although it provides people with support – it does not provide people with the tools to be able to recover from the addiction. This is particularly the case because a large part of addiction is environmental.
When people undergo surgery in hospital they often receive large quantities of painkillers, which would normally be sufficient for people to become addicted. When the patients leave hospital they go cold turkey on the drug and don’t even notice it’s absence, apart from an increase in pain. Many US servicemen returning from Vietnam were addicted to heroin. On reaching the USA 90-95% stopped taking heroin entirely. The ones who did were still living in the jungles of Vietnam suffering from trauma.
When we change the environment, we can usually overcome addiction easily – without even noticing that’s what we are doing.With this understanding Dr. Richard Grey established a new type of drug addiction programme, called the Brooklyn Program, in New York(USA). The purpose of this programme is to teach people tools and show people opportunities so the need or desire to take drugs is removed.
One of the first things which Dr. Grey teaches is a process called anchoring. Anchoring is basically physiological association and was discovered by Dr. Pavlov who was working with dogs. Dr. Pavlov discovered that if he rang a bell when feeding dogs – soon they began to slobber even if he only rang the bell. This can be applied to drugs, when someone experiences a high they can anchor the experience and then later re-access the experience without the need to consume more of the drug. This is a useful skill.
The next step in this process is to develop other interests in the patient. If someone becomes passionate about something the need to take a drug diminishes dramatically and this is clearly demonstrated by research. One of the best ways of overcoming addiction is to fall in love or to find work which is fulfilling. The brain releases oxytocin into the system which works as a system reset.
Another important step in the Brooklyn Program is helping patients develop goals and develop some purpose in their lives. When people take drugs, part of the brain closes down. This part of the brain is the orientation association area, when it shuts down people experience a blissful state. This state can be achieved several ways. Taking drugs is a very simple way of achieving it but it can also be achieved through meditation and interestingly enough through being happy. So teaching people to be happy is one of the keys to help people overcome addictions.
A lot of research has now been carried out into happiness and we know that the part of the brain responsible for happiness is also responsible for goal setting. The best way people can achieve happiness is to have purpose in their lives and be on the path to achieving those goals.
The final phase in the Brooklyn Program is a series of mental techniques, which are used to help change the mental associations and the psychological causes behind addiction – these are mainly NLP techniques.
The Brooklyn Program is the most effective drug rehabilitation programme in the United States. The system developed and implemented by Dr. Richard Grey makes use of recent research into the cognitive aspects of addiction and so the programme works not only for various drug addictions but for other forms of addiction including compulsive eating disorders, addictions to particular food and beverages, and to other social problems such as sex addictions.
To start your recovery, book your consultation with Peter today .
© Peter Campbell, NLP Master Practitioner, www.cogniscientNLP.com.
A common misunderstanding is that the best way to deal with a traumatic experience is to talk about it. The idea is that this gets it ‘out of the system.’ Although this is correct to some extent, it is important to understand that some ways of discussing issues can cause trauma and not heal it. There are two types of conversation which are typical when recalling traumatic experiences; one is regressive, the other progressive.
The way we think about events can be altered and changed by how we talk about them. Talking is a way of trying to work through events and understand what that event means to us. However, if we focus on the event as a very real experience which continues to control and threaten our lives, we will often start to feel the symptoms commonly associated with trauma.
Fortunately, there are other techniques which are more useful and safer for people to use. These techniques which are based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) approaches avoid focusing on the event itself and deal with how the recollection of the event is remembered. This technique has been used successfully around the world in trauma cases involving Vietnam veterans, victims of the September 11 attacks in the USA, and genocide and terrorist victims in Bosnia and Russia. The advantage of the NLP approach is that it is a simple method which gets people to mentally rehearse the event in a way that is without the emotional content. By using this technique we can remove the trauma associated with an event, thus making it emotionally neutral and safe.