Tag Crawley West Sussex

How to help somebody who is recovering from an addiction: praise and why sometimes this can have a negative effect.

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We must apologise for not put in a blog up since the beginning of the year, Ewhat price can be a bad thingleos counselling has undergone a revamp of its website, which has taken us away from blogging, we intend to rectify this right now with this blog, hope you enjoy.

 

Recovering from any form of addiction can be hard, we have already discussed in another blog post how one of the overarching feelings that a person has when he or she is recovering from addiction is shame.

Recently while reading a book completely unrelated to counselling, I  was to find an interesting quote in the book  “the practice of practice”(Harum, 2014).The author quotes research carried out by Peter Gollwitzer into the subject of motivation; motivation is certainly one of the key ingredients that someone who is recovering from a substance misuse difficulty or behavioural problems such as gambling, needs.

 

Often what will happen is, that the person who is recovering, will not feel particularly encouraged by their support system ( the same people that encouraged them in the first place ). Often, a few months into their sobriety or change of habit a recovering person feels de-motivated as encouragement dies down, as people think that they are over their problem. In fact, this is often the hardest part of their recovery, and when relapses happen the most.

What often happens, the recovering person will state their goal to their support system which is often family and friends and people who wanted them to give up drinking, using drugs or number of other things such as, overeating, under eating, using drugs, or any number of negative patterns of behaviour. What in fact Gollwitzer says is that people need “ advance praise”, If we again return to the subject of shame and compare it to praise. Praise can be seen as the opposite of shame, so why wouldn’t a person in recovery want praise instead of Shame, with its added feelings of condemnation and judgement.

Unfortunately looking for “advance praise” can have a negative effect on recovery. Often a recovering person will gush about their goals, to others, and they would often be praised for setting such goals. The reason why a recovering addict would do this is that praise feels good, it fulfils their desire to identify as someone who is recovered, rather than in recovery. What Gollwitzer says is that our imagination is good at hamstringing the, a person who wants to change.

In fact, when somebody has been recovering, a short time their imaginative brain takes the praising which falls on them and tricks them into believing he or she have already done what he or she said he or she would do to recover;They believe that in fact  have fulfilled their goals by staying sober or making change into their negative behaviour but, unfortunately for some people, this can take many years. Moreover, it can also take many years to recover the trust that they had lost when they were indulging in negative behaviours.

 

Reference

 

Harum, J. (2014). The practice of practice. New York: Sol Ut Press.

 

 

 

Pre-marriage counselling, before you get married

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Before getting married many couples have different expectations about what marriage actually is. Each member of a couples expectations, are frequently never spoken about. Often, as a result, conflict becomes inevitable when those assumptions about marriage often collide. So it is wise that you both talk about your assumptions and understandings before you end up in a divorce court. Psychologist Archibald Hart asked the following questions of couples who come to his consulting room.eleos counselling blog_wedding preparation

  1. If I had never been introduced to the person you’re preparing to marry and had to be dependent on you to give me a description of who that person is, what would you tell me?
  2. If you could think of one thing that you would like to see you fiancé stop doing what would it be?
  3. What are the five or six main aims you have established for you as a couple in your first year together?
  4. Have you both discussed money together, and how finances will be handled?

These indeed asked tough questions, but if there is no agreement on them before you’re married certainly cannot argue about them after, you’re married. Since 50% of all marriages today end in breakup and divorce, you best be sure you know the answers. One of the biggest misgivings you can make is supposing that the future with your husband or  wife will be inevitably be better as a consequence of marrying you.

Often it is best for a couple to have pre-marriage counselling as a way of airing these expectations. It is certainly cheaper to pay a marriage counsellor for a series of pre-marriage therapy than it is to pay a divorce lawyer. As a result of pre-marriage therapy one can decide if you have common goals, often you both do, but how they are achieved is seldom talked about before the marriage.

Is it time to rethink addiction treatment protocols in this country?

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A recent article in the Daily Mail, newspaper, has raised the profilealcohol-black-and-white-eleos counselling of treatment for alcohol-related addiction. The article highlighted the case of one woman, in Liverpool who has had several bouts of rehab, and now has stopped drinking due to her deteriorating health.

The story is so so familiar and typifies, how one can easily slide into an addictive behaviour, as a way of coping with life’s pressures. The person in question went from having a few drinks night, to help her fall asleep to a full bottle of vodka and finally to drinking from the moment she got up, in the morning.

It is estimated that treatment for alcohol-related problems cost the UK taxpayer 3 ½ billion pounds last year. Experts have stated that there is an epidemic of binge drinkers in the UK, which is putting the NHS and recovery agencies under enormous stress. One hospital in Liverpool is quoted as saying that they see 20 to 30 people in various stages of alcohol-related health problems, such as oral cancer and liver disease.

One interesting fact to come out of this article is there is little known about the socio-economic effects of so-called binge drinking. It is estimated that binge drinking is costing the UK taxpayer £550,00 an hour.

There are no quick fix solutions in answer to this epidemic, but education at an early age could be one thing we do as parents and adults. Showing young adults and younger, the effects of binge drinking could pay dividends in the long run.

Of course over stressed drug and alcohol agencies have little or no time for such educational, Yet proactive work. Nevertheless, Could it be possibly be a time to rethink our treatment protocols in this country. Incorporating so-called withdraw drugs as well as psychotherapy /counselling, could be one of the ways of helping people on the road to recovery. My own total evidence would suggest that people often want to talk about, and come to terms with some of the damage that they have done whilst they’ve been in the depths of their addiction, unfortunately counselling/psychotherapy is really offered, to help people deal with these fallout effects.

Counselling and psychotherapy can play a large part in the recovery process, unfortunately locally this has to be paid for by the person with the addiction.

My question is, could it be that some of that money (£550,000 an hour) would be better spent helping people in a different way rather than offering at NHS bed in a drying out Ward.

Sending trained professionals into schools to help young adults understand exactly what a unit of alcohol is, and looks like, the effects binge drinking, and the effects of drink -related diseases.

 

Eleos counsellor has been working on a new program,to help children manage their anger. This will be rolled out for the new academic year. We hope in the future to be involved with more educational work, such as helping young people have a healthy attitude to alcohol.

If you have problems with drinking you may like to go to our website

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