Addiction and compulsive behaviours

Addiction can also take many different forms and has a sliding scale in terms of its severity. People can become addicted to alcohol or drugs, gambling, sexual encounters, or any other form of compulsive behaviour. Some people seem able to keep their lives otherwise on track, others become increasingly dominated by their addictions. At the more serious end, I would advise clients to think about specialist programmes such as the 12 Step Programme advocated by Alcoholics Anonymous. These provide a tried and tested structure for tackling addiction. However, part of this involves tackling the underlying feelings that lead people to addictive behaviour in the first place, and this can also be done through therapy. Often people with addiction problems have underlying issues of insecurity, resentment or anger, some of which can be deeply buried and might take time to understand properly. Therapy can help tackle these feelings, as well as break into self-destructive cycles of addictive behaviour, and provide the emotional support needed to confront this problem.

Advice on alcohol addiction can be found at the Alcoholics Anonymous website:
http://www.alcoholics-anonymous.org.uk/

Advice on gambling can be found at the Gamblers Anonymous website:
http://www.gamblersanonymous.org.uk/

Advice on sexual addiction can be found at the BBC website:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/probs_sexaddiction.shtml

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