Process Addiction Treatment
When you think of adjectives for addiction, the first words that usually come to mind are alcohol and drug. Okay, you can probably add smoking to that list, and maybe food. These are substance addictions. But there are other mood-altering behaviors and activities out there that do not appear harmful on the surface. Called process addictions, these can include:
- Gambling
- Shopping or spending
- Exercise
- Sex
- Work
- Video games, the Internet and cell phones
Just looking at this list, you can readily see that these behaviors are not harmful when used in moderation. They become a problem when you have the urgent need to continue the activity despite the consequences. That’s when they turn into full-blown addictions. Adding to the problem is the fact that many people suffering substance abuse are also addicted to another substance or behavior. Or they develop a process addiction while trying to resolve their drinking or drug issues.
When we get involved in a behavior with the purpose of masking pain or stuffing our feelings, we are using that behavior as an addiction. As long as we’re involved in that activity, we are not taking responsibility for our feelings.
Morningside Recovery in Newport Beach, California, has comprehensive programs to help you deal with process addictions either on their own or in the context of a co-occurring disorder.
We view process addiction as a primary illness and we believe it can be as debilitating as drug or alcohol addiction. As a result, we treat process addiction every bit as seriously as alcohol and drug addiction. There are factors in play and we have a comprehensive approach for developing a plan for it. In fact, we are one of the few treatment centers in the country that provide inpatient treatment for process addiction.
Many people in the early stages of recovery from chemical dependency begin to have problems with process addiction issues. It’s that whole thing about people who manage to get sober, but then they gain 100 pounds. Or they start going to the casino and losing money. Process addiction is something that can be a part of chemical dependency, or it can seek to replace chemical usage following a period of abstinence from the substance. Or it can be completely independent of uses of psychoactive substances.
Morningside Recovery’s treatment program for those suffering from process addiction is much the same as the regimen undertaken by those attempting to recover from substance abuse.
The same way people come into treatment need to abstain from drugs and alcohol, process addiction people must abstain from their addiction. The notion of addiction treatment begins when clients explore when it was that this activity started to become problematic. Then we look at what are the trigger points for the usage of that process addiction. After that, we begin to discover and deal with unresolved and underlying emotional issues that led to problematic process addiction use.
For example, those with a gambling addiction often have underlying and unprocessed anger issues. What we do is stop doing the gambling, but beyond that provide a strong anger management program so they are not at risk with gambling addiction. We explore and resolve the emotional and psychological issues in hopes of securing long-term abstinence from the addiction.
Unresolved issues are a platform to springboard into acting out with compulsive behavior and process addiction. We seek to dismantle the psychological issues that allow that behavior to exist.
Morningside recognizes that each process addiction has its own unique factors. Those factors – including underlying psychiatric issues – are different for those with a shopping addiction as for those, say, with an Internet pornography addiction. As a result, a different set of clinical interventions and programs might be used to resolve each addiction.
What Morningside offers is an interdisciplinary staff that is knowledgeable and experienced in process addiction. If you or a loved one has signs of process addiction, call us at
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