Understanding Addiction

Here come two posts, the first one is more of an idea, the second a suggestion for practicing what the idea is about. My question for today: How can we (who struggle with addiction) reconcile our radically different self-narratives, some of which seem so ugly, and arrive at self-acceptance and self-compassion? We know that self-anger, […] (Read the rest.)

I seem to have become a movie critic.  A month ago I posted on Ben is Back and yesterday I watched A Beautiful Boy on a flight home from San Francisco. And what I get at the end of each movie is a big fat nothing. There is no conclusion, no understanding, no ground from […] (Read the rest.)

…by Eric Nada… This remarkable guest post dives back into the controversy surrounding the rigidity of the 12-step approach. ……………………………….. I left 12-step involvement after 20 years of committed membership. It was surprisingly difficult. Of course, it was difficult to stop shooting heroin too — so difficult that I eventually stopped trying to stop. By […] (Read the rest.)

Yesterday I watched “Ben is Back” — a recently released feature film about a heroin-addicted young man (Lucas Hedges) and his heroic and tenacious mother (Julia Roberts) who tries her best to keep him “clean.” Ben is around 20 years old (at which age I too was also shooting heroin). He scams a trip home […] (Read the rest.)

The word “substance” may have a double-meaning when it comes to addiction. The basic meaning is obvious: the substance is a chemical that we want badly and pursue relentlessly. But the second meaning of “substance” is suggested by a well-documented phenomenon: the parallel between substance addictions and behavioural addictions. The feelings, actions, and brain changes […] (Read the rest.)