Is Addiction a biological illness or a something we choose to do.
November 11, 2008 5:27 am HealthI often ask clients who are in s residential addiction treatment in Toronto at the addiction facility I work at whether, when they started their addiction, they said to themselves: ” If start drinking or smoking cocaine today at the age of 17 then by the age of 30 I get to go to rehab”. Needless to say the question always gets clients to chuckle. Non of the clients in the addiction treatment within Toronto ever fathomed that they would end up receiving counselling for addiction and in treatment.
Although on the surface the question might seem foolish, it has great relevance to the healing of addiction. I say this because a significant barrier to addiction recovery is the inability to forgive oneself for the havoc their addiction has caused not only to themselves but to others in their lives. Many of the factors that create addiction relate to our experiences in childhood, for example, abuse as a child, peer groups that valued substance abuse, underlying psychological disturbances etc. When those in residential addiction treatment look back, they often realize through their addiction counselling that many if not most of the societal and psychological factors that led up to their addiction were not within their control. In other words, they never asked for their childhood to be this way.
By the time they are truly aware of the destruction their addiction has caused their brain circuitry has been damaged to the point where making healthy choices is extremely difficult. This is not to say that they cannot make a choice but rather that the choice is not easy. The good news is that choice is still possible. In the depth of an addiction one may not be able to choose not to use cocaine if it was placed in front of them, but one can always to choose to reach out and ask for help and not expose oneself to situations which result in addiction relapse.
Healing addiction, forgiveness and moving on to a better life is possible through counselling, psychotherapy and other addiction treatment. There are many resources for residential addiction treatment and addiction counselling in Toronto , Vancouver, Ottawa and other cities in Canada.