Coaching drug and alcohol addiction after 9 days after detox
Number one, this is an acupuncture session, we were in detox facility.
The acupuncture
The step towards healing and self care is signaled to the self, just by taking this initial step into detox.
I needle the NADA points, and then the nervous system reset protocol, which acts like a light switch to put the body in rest and digest immediately. Anxiety points are also selected.
To the client the effect of CNS reset won’t be noticeable just yet, due to his chronic fight or flight baseline. At the end point of session he will notice that he feels very calm in a way that he is not used to.
The Session:
We talked about meditation and started a mindfulness session, he lasted less than 5 minutes, and then we switched gears. An introduction to somatic meditations, this brings us to the awareness that he is unable to be still for several minutes, and that he has to move around his body.
Understanding that the body is a direct reflection of the mind, I let him know that the busy body is indicative of a busy mind, and the movements of his body help him release anxious energy.
He fidgets, and he notices that his mind is racing. We got a notebook and started to sort through the racing thoughts.
The thoughts were primarily centered on self hatred, fat shaming and shaming over the many failures that he perceives to have had.
Beginning with fat shaming, we go over truth, vs lie, vs personal truth, really sticking with the idea that someone out there right now is loved in spite of their larger body type. I introduced the concepts of subjective truth vs objective truth. Together we searched our minds for examples of men with a similar body type as his who appear to be in a happy loving relationship, who appear to be loved as they are. He laughed at this idea, a happy realisation that there is no one truth regarding what someone finds loveable or beautiful, and that when you love someone they simply become beautiful to that person. We then talked about becoming beautiful to ourselves in our own eyes, and developed an exercise for making this discovery. he will do the exercise for less than one minute per day. We developed this idea, until he had a comfortable release of tension around the subject of his body shape. He was given an autosuggestion to use when the racing thoughts go to the topic of body type. He was introduced to the difference in feeling when a healthy body was the approach to dieting and exercise, vs when shaming was used as a way to control his underlying sense of helplessness, shame and depression. We will continue next week, with checking in on his daily work.
The next topic worked on was racing thoughts in general. The idea that he is the one who is allowing the thoughts to have free play because he was never taught that he is the one who can control his thoughts was never introduced to him, ever in his life, and this is a brand new concept for him. His message throughout life has been negative and shaming. He has no memories of positive messages given to him about himself. All his negative thoughts are centered around shaming.
He is a fast thinker, he is creative, and very fast at grasping these brand new concepts. His thoughts are displayed in a fidgeting body, and he needs to move a lot, hands, legs, feet etc. We started the process of becoming in control of his thoughts and not letting thoughts be in control of him. These are all new concepts so going slow, but at the same time, he is a fast thinker so going fast enough to create interest and minimize boredom.
He will honor his fidgeting habits by, first of all noticing when he is fidgeting, and making the connection of “busy body busy mind”. Just making the connection is an important step. He might even say to himself out loud, “I am having a busy body so I am having a busy mind.”
We talked about the need for approval being the same need as addiction, it is that the soothing is going to come from an external source, but even if he has a six pack, right now he would still be beating up on himself, and engaging is self hatred, and this proves the falseness of “being fit means loved and approved”. He will from now on begin to learn to be the one who approves himself and not demanding approval from anyone else. Looking for approval from outside is always a step towards helplessness and feelings of self hatred, even if there is approval from outside because it creates a dependency on something that can not be trusted to always be there, in fact it will not be there. The approval has to be self approval primarily and we will work on making this shift. I introduced him to the “PEMDAS” in self love, concept where “PE” equals self approval and self love. If the self love does not come first the answer will always be wrong.
(PEMDAS Parentheses exponents multiplication division addition subtraction, where PE equals self love and addition and subtraction equals putting others first. Putting others first always leads to the wrong answer.)
He will take some time to think about different things that he does to fidget, he smokes for this reason for example, and he will notice which fidgets are particularly satisfying. We are connecting his mind to his body. He will deliberately reach for his favorite fidget when his racing thoughts cause anxiety. His mind needs variety, because it is quick, intelligent, creative and jumps from topic to topic. Over the course of the week he will find additional ways that he uses his mind, that are not negative self talk. Today he identified that he likes to watch comedy, so he has one thing that he is aware of enjoying to do with his mind. We will continue to find more mind-liking things, to create a toolbox full of ideas, concepts, and thoughts, and mental activities to move between when his negative self talks starts, and to switch to when he becomes bored with one topic. We also created an auto suggestion around this, and he will use the auto suggestion before he switches form negative self talk to the mental activity that he enjoys. After the auto suggestion he will take one deep inhale and exhale, and shift directly into the enjoyable mental activity.
(An auto suggestion in this context is not the same as an affirmation, it is an authoritative statement made just once, as the thought pattern is interrupted and redirected.)
So this is an example of a very freshly detoxed case, only 9 days clean, and the goal is to never reach for relapse as a tool again, and to recover to the point where he is fully recovered, and drugs are something that he would never consider reaching for as a tool, again, that it will be such a distant memory that he won’t even consider himself a recovered addict. That he will think of himself in terms that are positive, confident and self approving. That he will never need to reach outside for approval, and that he will always prioritize himself above everything and everyone else.
We will introduce more and more mind tools over time.
I instilled a calm sense in him, introduced the idea that has not failed, but in fact, right now is succeeding, I gave him the concept that he is perfect as he is right this very moment with no improvements to his body, to himself, and that we are not looking to change anything, but rather we are looking for self approval every step of the way. I gave him thought pattern interrupt tools to grab the running thoughts, stop them, and turn them around to a place where he takes back control over them, changes them, and redirects the thoughts to a completely different path by using an auto suggestion. When the session was over he felt a sense of calm that he was unfamiliar with, and he liked it. I explained that this is an effect of the acupuncture, and that this is a feeling of a baseline relaxed nervous system.
The above is an idea of how to use mindfulness, acupuncture, and mind hacking techniques from NLP, and LOA to alter the course of a life that has spiraled out of control. There are very simple step by step instructions for how to reclaim your life, and for taking back the power that has been relinquished. None of this has to be left to chance, because every bit of help is available to discover these tools.
Dr Anna Bäck Healing Center 