Post by judyb on Apr 7, 2007 7:23:34 GMT -5
HOW DO I COPE WITH AN ADDICTION?
Let us assume that you have decided, at least for the time being, to stop or cut back your addictive behavior. In either case,
you are now faced with several problems:
1) How to maintain your motivation through what could be a gradual and at times difficult process of self-improvement.
2) How to cope with urges.
3) How to cope with problems using methods other than the addiction.
4) How to get the benefits of addiction, or as much of them as possible, without giving up the benefits of stopping or cutting
back.
5) How to interrupt unconscious habit patterns (like lighting a cigarette without knowing it) if they exist.
6) How to resolve problems brought on by previous addictive behavior (e.g., relationship problems, legal problems, drug
debts, etc.).
7) How to develop a new life style that is not centered on the addiction.
Here are some guidelines for each of these problems:
1) Motivation is fundamental, because if you maintain motivation you can persist past any temporary obstacles. In most cases,
the simplest way to establish and maintain motivation is to have an accurate and complete Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back
list, and to revise this list to reflect the changes that are occurring as progress and setbacks occur. From this list make a
shorter Major Benefits list, the benefits which are the primary reasons you are stopping or cutting back. A Major Benefits list
may be easier to remember than the entire original list. If these benefits are important enough to you, remembering them (and
perhaps picturing them) regularly will be your motivation. As in learning any new skill, setbacks and rough spots should be
expected, and made the most of as opportunities for learning. Do not allow setbacks to become distorted evidence for
incorrect beliefs. Any skill can be improved upon with time, consistent practice, and good coaching.
2) For many individuals, the crucial problem is coping with urges. In order to cope well with them, it is usually necessary to
understand them accurately, rather than in the distorted manner of many addicts. Some common distortions about urges are
that urges are excruciating or unbearable, that they compel you to use or act, that they will drive you crazy if you do not use or
act, and that they will not go away until you use or act. Some individuals are confused enough about their own thinking that they
have a difficult time identifying distinct urges, and simply think of themselves as behaving a certain way "because I like to." In
actuality, urges can be uncomfortable but they are not unbearable unless you blow them out of proportion; they do not force
you to do anything (there have probably been many instances where you had an urge but did not act), they have not driven you
crazy yet (and will not), each urge will go away if you simply wait long enough, and there are periods between urges which
become increasingly longer if you stop. Although during the initial days or weeks of abstinence or moderation, especially after a
long period of daily addictive behavior, you may experience many urges of strong and even increasing intensity. Recovering
addicts of all types report that urges eventually peak in frequency, intensity, and duration, and then gradually, with occasional
flare-ups, fade away. How long it will take for urges to peak, and how rapidly they will subside, depends on many factors,
including the specific addiction, the length of the addiction, how successful the program of abstinence or moderation has been,
and the strength of the developing alternative lifestyle. However, as a very broad guideline, within six months to one year most
addicts will report only feeble urges (for instance, one a week, lasting a few minutes, a 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale).
It is also crucial not to take responsibility for the occurrence of the urge, but only your response to it. It is normal for any addict
to experience urges, and just because on Sunday you decide to stop does not mean that on Monday you will not have urges.
The fact that urges occur does not indicate that your motivation is weak, but that your addiction is strong. Because all habits
have unconscious components, of which the urge is one, it will take time for these to die away. What is within your control,
however, is how you respond to the urge. An analogy could be made to someone knocking at your front door. All sorts of
individuals might knock at your door, but it is up to you to decide with whom you will talk. Their knocking is not your
responsibility, but to what extent you choose to speak with them is.
Specific techniques for coping with urges include the following. When an urge occurs, accept it, but keep it at a distance.
Experience it as you would a passing thought, one which "comes in one ear and out the other". Detach yourself from it, and
observe and study it as an outside object for a moment. Then return your attention to what you were previously doing. If the
urge is intense, remember (and perhaps picture) your benefits of stopping/cutting back (which can be carried in your wallet or
purse). Recall a "moment of clarity", a moment when changing your addictive behavior seemed almost without question the
right course of action. Think your addictive behavior through to the end: When an urge is present, you tend to think only of the
Benefits of the Addiction, but completing the image to include the negative consequences that follow will give you a more
accurate view of the whole scenario. If the urge is very intense, engage yourself in a distracting activity, one which you have
enjoyed before and which will take your mind off the urge, or use a specific distraction technique, such as counting things (e.g.,
leaves on a plant, books on a shelf), doing arithmetic (e.g., continually subtracting 7 from 1000, 993, 986, etc.), or focusing on
alphabetical/verbal games (e.g., saying the alphabet backwards, reading signs backwards, searching book titles or license
plates for the alphabet, etc.). Any simple activity conducted at high speed can fill up your attention, thereby allowing no
attention for the urge. Any thought or activity on which you completely focus your attention is all that is needed, because if no
attention is paid to the urge, then it will no longer exist. Although another urge may come along at any point, that urge also can
be dealt with in a similar fashion. Over time the urges come less frequently, as already stated.
To summarize these urge coping techniques, all urges should be accepted. Low level urges can be observed but kept at a
distance. Attention can then be re-directed to whatever one was paying attention to prior to the urge. More intense urges can
be "counterargued" by reviewing in some fashion the benefits of not engaging in the addictive behavior, and the facts about
urges mentioned above (e.g., all urges go away eventually; they are uncomfortable but not unbearable unless I blow them out
of proportion;). Very intense urges can be dealt with using some form of distraction, repeated as necessary. All urges
eventually go away.
To help discover for yourself some of the basic facts about your own urges, it is helpful to keep an "urge log", a record of all of
your urges. Record the date and time, the peak intensity (on a 1-10 scale), the duration, what seemed to give rise to the urge
(e.g., feeling down, fight with a co-worker, just came out of the blue, etc.), and, if you engage in the addictive behavior, to
what extent you did so, and your reactions to this (e.g., I hated myself, I felt good at first but bad later, I was confused, etc.).
Reviewing this log is often a significant part of early psychotherapy sessions. The information on what gives rise to the urge can
be used to identify "high risk" situations (which are discussed more below).
To keep yourself in practice for coping with urges, it is useful to "bring out urges" deliberately, rather than waiting for them to
occur. By remembering past good times with your addictive behavior, or by being around certain individuals, places, or things,
you can probably bring out an urge, and then practice coping with it. Because you will have some control over how strong an
urge you bring out, you can, for instance, attempt to have a 5 (on a 10 point scale), which you are confident of coping well with,
as preparation for dealing with 8's, 9's, and 10's, which you may be less confident of coping well with. If you bring out urges
daily (even hourly) you may also tend to weaken any particular urge, just as someone who is eating five or six times per day
has less opportunity to develop strong hunger than someone who eats only once or twice. Ultimately you can gain confidence
that you can cope with any urge, but in the initial stages of developing this confidence it is easier to cope with many smaller
urges you bring on yourself, rather than waiting for bigger urges which arrive on their own.
Although it may be useful to avoid certain places, persons, or situations at first, as you are gaining confidence in your ability to
cope well with urges, ultimately avoidance is not a useful strategy. You can avoid everything that you think is risky, but
nevertheless still experience urges which seem to come "from out of the blue". To avoid much is also to restrict your life in ways
which are probably not helpful to your overall goals in life. Avoidance is at best a temporary (though perhaps useful) crutch.
Similarly, some addicts attempt some sort of substitution, such as eating celery (low calorie) every time you get an urge to
overeat (high calorie). Although the substitute may seem like a safer addiction than the original one, nevertheless you are still
reinforcing the original urge, and essentially living in fear of it. Typically the substitute breaks down eventually, with no gains in
urge coping skills having been made. If the substitute addiction is maintained, it may present substantial costs itself (smoking
marijuana instead of smoking coke). If the substitute is strong enough to satisfy the urge (as perhaps in the marijuana
example), then there may be no substantial improvement in your overall situation. If the substitute is not strong enough (as
perhaps in the celery example), you will end up needing to cope with urges anyway.
3) Another key issue for most recovering addicts is coping with problems previously coped with by the addiction. These can
include problems worthy of psychotherapy in their own right. The list includes all the problems mentioned or hinted at above
(in the Benefits of Addiction list). Often the majority of addiction treatment, once the cost/benefit analysis is conducted and
urge coping is taught, is focused on learning how to cope with these problems. In many cases one or more problems pre-exist
the addiction, and are a predisposing factor for it. Thus they may be "bigger" problems than the addiction itself. On the other
hand, having made a decision to stop, and gaining confidence in coping with urges, often gives an addict such a boost in
confidence that other problems are attacked with new vigor and enthusiasm.
A useful way to identify what these problems may be is to identify your high risk situations. These are the situations, places,
persons, moods, activities, or conflicts that you suspect will give you difficulty in your plan to abstain or cut back. Most addicts
are very able to specify what these are. Rather than using this information in a pessimistic fashion ("I know I won't be able to
pass up a drink if I'm out with Joe"), use this information as an opportunity to develop the additional coping skills you need to
get through the difficulty. Other individuals you know are able to cope with these experiences, and you can learn from their
example, or with the coaching of your psychotherapist. It is also important to remember as you work on developing these
coping skills that even though they are not yet fully developed, you can use your urge coping techniques nevertheless. For
instance, suppose that arguments with your spouse are a high risk situation for you, and the two of you are still working on
preventing and moderating them. Even though you have a terrible fight, and are very upset about the fact that these fights are
still occurring, you can nevertheless cope effectively with the urge that the fight gives rise to.
4) For many individuals, getting the benefits of an addiction even though stopping it, is synonymous with learning the coping
skills described in #3 above. However, there may be benefits of the addiction that are not based on its ability to help you
cope. These benefits might include enjoying certain rituals surrounding the behavior, companionship with other addicts, the
"high", or the sense of power or self-confidence, if these benefits are enjoyed for their own sake, and not as a direct means to
cope with some problem.
Experience has shown that cognitive distortions may be a significant factor in these perceived benefits of addiction, which, once
no longer experienced, are often perceived to have had only the appearance of what was desired, without much of the
actuality. For instance, the companionship of other users at a crack house is often considered highly valuable to the crack user,
but rarely to the recovered crack user, who recognizes in retrospect that he or she had confused others' interest in getting high
with an interest in him or her. The recovered user also recognizes what the addict may not, that rituals, companionship, a rush
of good feeling, selfconfidence, and other addiction benefits that are enjoyed for their own sake can also be experienced from
a number of other sources and activities. Even if the intensity of these benefits is at first less than what was experienced with
the help of the addiction, with practice these benefits exceed the intensity of the addiction benefit, because they are the "real
thing", not a deceptive substitute with major side effects.
5) Interrupting unconscious habit patterns is typically not difficult, and can usually be accomplished by putting a barrier
between oneself and whatever one uses for the addiction (food, credit cards, gaming devices, etc). In the process of
overcoming a big enough barrier, there is enough time to experience an urge, which can then be coped with using one of the
methods already described.
6) The problems that have arisen from the addiction may not go away just because the addiction is stopped or under control.
These problems are also a legitimate focus of attention in psychotherapy.
7) Ultimately, the development of a lifestyle filled with positive addictions is the best safeguard against a return to strong
negative addictions. The Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back list can provide initial guidance for which positive addictions to work
on. For instance, if one of your Benefits is "physical health", you could now consider other habits which could contribute to
obtaining this goal. You may wish to exercise more, sleep more, or eat better. As new health habits become more deeply
woven into your life, you may also find yourself getting from them the benefits you previously sought from your addiction (e.g.,
feeling good about myself; having more energy).
In addition to helping yourself get the Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back by developing new habits, this is also a time to consider
what is most important for you to experience in the finite ut uncertain period that is your lifetime. There is no better time than
now to begin moving toward what is most important. As you take small steps toward your ultimate goals--and there is rarely
any other way than by small steps--you will also be building positive addictions, and safeguarding against the return of
negative addictions. How could a negative addiction again ake hold if I am actually pursuing what is most important to me?
Just in case this last question confuses you, consider the difference between means and ends. If someone states that "what is
most important to me is using heroin", follow-up questions will reveal that using heroin is actually a means to an end, such as
"feeling calm and at peace". It is the feeling calm and at peace that is most important, not the heroin use, and the heroin user
can discover ways to accomplish that end by other less costly means. It is not the end that is the problem, but the means. In
fact, all of us (including every addict) should give himself or herself credit for pursuing noble ends, and get to work on finding
better means.
Thus, this question could be rephrased, how could it happen that a more costly way of getting what I truly want could actually
replace a less costly way? Perhaps the only way this could occur is if you believed that your addiction were the only way, or the
fastest way, or the only way for you to achieve your goal. With luck you are recognizing that such a belief is highly questionable.
practicalrecovery.com/coping.htm
Let us assume that you have decided, at least for the time being, to stop or cut back your addictive behavior. In either case,
you are now faced with several problems:
1) How to maintain your motivation through what could be a gradual and at times difficult process of self-improvement.
2) How to cope with urges.
3) How to cope with problems using methods other than the addiction.
4) How to get the benefits of addiction, or as much of them as possible, without giving up the benefits of stopping or cutting
back.
5) How to interrupt unconscious habit patterns (like lighting a cigarette without knowing it) if they exist.
6) How to resolve problems brought on by previous addictive behavior (e.g., relationship problems, legal problems, drug
debts, etc.).
7) How to develop a new life style that is not centered on the addiction.
Here are some guidelines for each of these problems:
1) Motivation is fundamental, because if you maintain motivation you can persist past any temporary obstacles. In most cases,
the simplest way to establish and maintain motivation is to have an accurate and complete Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back
list, and to revise this list to reflect the changes that are occurring as progress and setbacks occur. From this list make a
shorter Major Benefits list, the benefits which are the primary reasons you are stopping or cutting back. A Major Benefits list
may be easier to remember than the entire original list. If these benefits are important enough to you, remembering them (and
perhaps picturing them) regularly will be your motivation. As in learning any new skill, setbacks and rough spots should be
expected, and made the most of as opportunities for learning. Do not allow setbacks to become distorted evidence for
incorrect beliefs. Any skill can be improved upon with time, consistent practice, and good coaching.
2) For many individuals, the crucial problem is coping with urges. In order to cope well with them, it is usually necessary to
understand them accurately, rather than in the distorted manner of many addicts. Some common distortions about urges are
that urges are excruciating or unbearable, that they compel you to use or act, that they will drive you crazy if you do not use or
act, and that they will not go away until you use or act. Some individuals are confused enough about their own thinking that they
have a difficult time identifying distinct urges, and simply think of themselves as behaving a certain way "because I like to." In
actuality, urges can be uncomfortable but they are not unbearable unless you blow them out of proportion; they do not force
you to do anything (there have probably been many instances where you had an urge but did not act), they have not driven you
crazy yet (and will not), each urge will go away if you simply wait long enough, and there are periods between urges which
become increasingly longer if you stop. Although during the initial days or weeks of abstinence or moderation, especially after a
long period of daily addictive behavior, you may experience many urges of strong and even increasing intensity. Recovering
addicts of all types report that urges eventually peak in frequency, intensity, and duration, and then gradually, with occasional
flare-ups, fade away. How long it will take for urges to peak, and how rapidly they will subside, depends on many factors,
including the specific addiction, the length of the addiction, how successful the program of abstinence or moderation has been,
and the strength of the developing alternative lifestyle. However, as a very broad guideline, within six months to one year most
addicts will report only feeble urges (for instance, one a week, lasting a few minutes, a 1 or 2 on a 10 point scale).
It is also crucial not to take responsibility for the occurrence of the urge, but only your response to it. It is normal for any addict
to experience urges, and just because on Sunday you decide to stop does not mean that on Monday you will not have urges.
The fact that urges occur does not indicate that your motivation is weak, but that your addiction is strong. Because all habits
have unconscious components, of which the urge is one, it will take time for these to die away. What is within your control,
however, is how you respond to the urge. An analogy could be made to someone knocking at your front door. All sorts of
individuals might knock at your door, but it is up to you to decide with whom you will talk. Their knocking is not your
responsibility, but to what extent you choose to speak with them is.
Specific techniques for coping with urges include the following. When an urge occurs, accept it, but keep it at a distance.
Experience it as you would a passing thought, one which "comes in one ear and out the other". Detach yourself from it, and
observe and study it as an outside object for a moment. Then return your attention to what you were previously doing. If the
urge is intense, remember (and perhaps picture) your benefits of stopping/cutting back (which can be carried in your wallet or
purse). Recall a "moment of clarity", a moment when changing your addictive behavior seemed almost without question the
right course of action. Think your addictive behavior through to the end: When an urge is present, you tend to think only of the
Benefits of the Addiction, but completing the image to include the negative consequences that follow will give you a more
accurate view of the whole scenario. If the urge is very intense, engage yourself in a distracting activity, one which you have
enjoyed before and which will take your mind off the urge, or use a specific distraction technique, such as counting things (e.g.,
leaves on a plant, books on a shelf), doing arithmetic (e.g., continually subtracting 7 from 1000, 993, 986, etc.), or focusing on
alphabetical/verbal games (e.g., saying the alphabet backwards, reading signs backwards, searching book titles or license
plates for the alphabet, etc.). Any simple activity conducted at high speed can fill up your attention, thereby allowing no
attention for the urge. Any thought or activity on which you completely focus your attention is all that is needed, because if no
attention is paid to the urge, then it will no longer exist. Although another urge may come along at any point, that urge also can
be dealt with in a similar fashion. Over time the urges come less frequently, as already stated.
To summarize these urge coping techniques, all urges should be accepted. Low level urges can be observed but kept at a
distance. Attention can then be re-directed to whatever one was paying attention to prior to the urge. More intense urges can
be "counterargued" by reviewing in some fashion the benefits of not engaging in the addictive behavior, and the facts about
urges mentioned above (e.g., all urges go away eventually; they are uncomfortable but not unbearable unless I blow them out
of proportion;). Very intense urges can be dealt with using some form of distraction, repeated as necessary. All urges
eventually go away.
To help discover for yourself some of the basic facts about your own urges, it is helpful to keep an "urge log", a record of all of
your urges. Record the date and time, the peak intensity (on a 1-10 scale), the duration, what seemed to give rise to the urge
(e.g., feeling down, fight with a co-worker, just came out of the blue, etc.), and, if you engage in the addictive behavior, to
what extent you did so, and your reactions to this (e.g., I hated myself, I felt good at first but bad later, I was confused, etc.).
Reviewing this log is often a significant part of early psychotherapy sessions. The information on what gives rise to the urge can
be used to identify "high risk" situations (which are discussed more below).
To keep yourself in practice for coping with urges, it is useful to "bring out urges" deliberately, rather than waiting for them to
occur. By remembering past good times with your addictive behavior, or by being around certain individuals, places, or things,
you can probably bring out an urge, and then practice coping with it. Because you will have some control over how strong an
urge you bring out, you can, for instance, attempt to have a 5 (on a 10 point scale), which you are confident of coping well with,
as preparation for dealing with 8's, 9's, and 10's, which you may be less confident of coping well with. If you bring out urges
daily (even hourly) you may also tend to weaken any particular urge, just as someone who is eating five or six times per day
has less opportunity to develop strong hunger than someone who eats only once or twice. Ultimately you can gain confidence
that you can cope with any urge, but in the initial stages of developing this confidence it is easier to cope with many smaller
urges you bring on yourself, rather than waiting for bigger urges which arrive on their own.
Although it may be useful to avoid certain places, persons, or situations at first, as you are gaining confidence in your ability to
cope well with urges, ultimately avoidance is not a useful strategy. You can avoid everything that you think is risky, but
nevertheless still experience urges which seem to come "from out of the blue". To avoid much is also to restrict your life in ways
which are probably not helpful to your overall goals in life. Avoidance is at best a temporary (though perhaps useful) crutch.
Similarly, some addicts attempt some sort of substitution, such as eating celery (low calorie) every time you get an urge to
overeat (high calorie). Although the substitute may seem like a safer addiction than the original one, nevertheless you are still
reinforcing the original urge, and essentially living in fear of it. Typically the substitute breaks down eventually, with no gains in
urge coping skills having been made. If the substitute addiction is maintained, it may present substantial costs itself (smoking
marijuana instead of smoking coke). If the substitute is strong enough to satisfy the urge (as perhaps in the marijuana
example), then there may be no substantial improvement in your overall situation. If the substitute is not strong enough (as
perhaps in the celery example), you will end up needing to cope with urges anyway.
3) Another key issue for most recovering addicts is coping with problems previously coped with by the addiction. These can
include problems worthy of psychotherapy in their own right. The list includes all the problems mentioned or hinted at above
(in the Benefits of Addiction list). Often the majority of addiction treatment, once the cost/benefit analysis is conducted and
urge coping is taught, is focused on learning how to cope with these problems. In many cases one or more problems pre-exist
the addiction, and are a predisposing factor for it. Thus they may be "bigger" problems than the addiction itself. On the other
hand, having made a decision to stop, and gaining confidence in coping with urges, often gives an addict such a boost in
confidence that other problems are attacked with new vigor and enthusiasm.
A useful way to identify what these problems may be is to identify your high risk situations. These are the situations, places,
persons, moods, activities, or conflicts that you suspect will give you difficulty in your plan to abstain or cut back. Most addicts
are very able to specify what these are. Rather than using this information in a pessimistic fashion ("I know I won't be able to
pass up a drink if I'm out with Joe"), use this information as an opportunity to develop the additional coping skills you need to
get through the difficulty. Other individuals you know are able to cope with these experiences, and you can learn from their
example, or with the coaching of your psychotherapist. It is also important to remember as you work on developing these
coping skills that even though they are not yet fully developed, you can use your urge coping techniques nevertheless. For
instance, suppose that arguments with your spouse are a high risk situation for you, and the two of you are still working on
preventing and moderating them. Even though you have a terrible fight, and are very upset about the fact that these fights are
still occurring, you can nevertheless cope effectively with the urge that the fight gives rise to.
4) For many individuals, getting the benefits of an addiction even though stopping it, is synonymous with learning the coping
skills described in #3 above. However, there may be benefits of the addiction that are not based on its ability to help you
cope. These benefits might include enjoying certain rituals surrounding the behavior, companionship with other addicts, the
"high", or the sense of power or self-confidence, if these benefits are enjoyed for their own sake, and not as a direct means to
cope with some problem.
Experience has shown that cognitive distortions may be a significant factor in these perceived benefits of addiction, which, once
no longer experienced, are often perceived to have had only the appearance of what was desired, without much of the
actuality. For instance, the companionship of other users at a crack house is often considered highly valuable to the crack user,
but rarely to the recovered crack user, who recognizes in retrospect that he or she had confused others' interest in getting high
with an interest in him or her. The recovered user also recognizes what the addict may not, that rituals, companionship, a rush
of good feeling, selfconfidence, and other addiction benefits that are enjoyed for their own sake can also be experienced from
a number of other sources and activities. Even if the intensity of these benefits is at first less than what was experienced with
the help of the addiction, with practice these benefits exceed the intensity of the addiction benefit, because they are the "real
thing", not a deceptive substitute with major side effects.
5) Interrupting unconscious habit patterns is typically not difficult, and can usually be accomplished by putting a barrier
between oneself and whatever one uses for the addiction (food, credit cards, gaming devices, etc). In the process of
overcoming a big enough barrier, there is enough time to experience an urge, which can then be coped with using one of the
methods already described.
6) The problems that have arisen from the addiction may not go away just because the addiction is stopped or under control.
These problems are also a legitimate focus of attention in psychotherapy.
7) Ultimately, the development of a lifestyle filled with positive addictions is the best safeguard against a return to strong
negative addictions. The Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back list can provide initial guidance for which positive addictions to work
on. For instance, if one of your Benefits is "physical health", you could now consider other habits which could contribute to
obtaining this goal. You may wish to exercise more, sleep more, or eat better. As new health habits become more deeply
woven into your life, you may also find yourself getting from them the benefits you previously sought from your addiction (e.g.,
feeling good about myself; having more energy).
In addition to helping yourself get the Benefits of Stopping/Cutting Back by developing new habits, this is also a time to consider
what is most important for you to experience in the finite ut uncertain period that is your lifetime. There is no better time than
now to begin moving toward what is most important. As you take small steps toward your ultimate goals--and there is rarely
any other way than by small steps--you will also be building positive addictions, and safeguarding against the return of
negative addictions. How could a negative addiction again ake hold if I am actually pursuing what is most important to me?
Just in case this last question confuses you, consider the difference between means and ends. If someone states that "what is
most important to me is using heroin", follow-up questions will reveal that using heroin is actually a means to an end, such as
"feeling calm and at peace". It is the feeling calm and at peace that is most important, not the heroin use, and the heroin user
can discover ways to accomplish that end by other less costly means. It is not the end that is the problem, but the means. In
fact, all of us (including every addict) should give himself or herself credit for pursuing noble ends, and get to work on finding
better means.
Thus, this question could be rephrased, how could it happen that a more costly way of getting what I truly want could actually
replace a less costly way? Perhaps the only way this could occur is if you believed that your addiction were the only way, or the
fastest way, or the only way for you to achieve your goal. With luck you are recognizing that such a belief is highly questionable.
practicalrecovery.com/coping.htm