Can Hypnosis Help During Addiction Recovery
Hypnosis is an alternative care approach. Not many rehab facilities offer it. However, the ones that do frequently see good results. How does hypnotherapy work? An experienced hypnotherapist helps you relax your mind and body, and following their guidance puts you in a suggestive state. The therapist now makes positive reinforcement statements about long-term recovery.
While hypnotherapy can help in recovery, its not a treatment that can stand alone. It works best when combined with a full treatment and recovery plan.
Does It Work For Everyone
Although hypnosis works for many addicts, not everyone responds in the same way.
And, for it to work, the person being hypnotised needs to be sober or free from any substances in order for the process to be effective. Patients must also concentrate and not resist the treatment.
Its important to remember that, although hypnotherapy can help addicts to overcome their addiction, it is not an instant or long-term cure. Once a suggestion has been implanted, the patient still has to follow through with it.
Ultimately, hypnotherapy will only work for those who are open to change and ready to implement it in their lives.
How Hypnosis For Drug Addiction Work
When someone is under the effects of hypnosis, theyre more passive and compliant with the therapists suggestions. People are more open to fantasy, sometimes can access long-forgotten memories, and become more imaginative. Thanks to this, they can adopt a different perspective on their addictive behaviors. Suddenly, what seemed impossible, like quitting an addictive substance, seems achievable and desirable.
One study found that of all participants that received hypnotherapy, 90% completed treatment. After six months of completing treatment, 100% of them were still clean and sober. After the two-year mark, almost 78% of those in the study remained abstinent. These results position hypnotherapy as a useful tool for addressing long-term drug and alcohol recovery.
While this study was done on a small group, it shows the potential of hypnosis for drug addiction treatment. When incorporated with other evidence-based therapies like , hypnosis can help:
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Hypnosis May Enhance The Effect Of Other Treatment Methods
In addition to treating addiction directly, hypnosis may be useful in addressing some of the factors that contribute to addiction. These typically include mental health issues, such as major depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, and others, trauma, and dysfunctional relationships–in addition to genetic factors, which, unfortunately, weâre stuck with for the moment. Insofar as hypnosis can help improve these issues, it can help your chances of long-term recovery success too.
Hypnosis For Drug Addiction: What You Need To Know
Substance abuse is often a result of attempting to cope with complex emotions. Our brain is wired in a way that its reward system gets triggered by drug use. When one consumes any type of drug, and their brain responds by releasing dopamine the feel-good hormone it can make people quickly addicted. Heres how addiction works.
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How Hypnosis Can Help You Quit Cocaine
Hypnosis has been used successfully to help people quit addictions that include cocaine, marijuana, alcohol, smoking, and other types of drugs or stimulants. Unlike other treatments, hypnosis gets to the heart of the addiction by changing the mental habits that lead to the use of cocaine. By putting in new suggestions and creating new habits, hypnosis can alter the persons perception of the effect of cocaine which in turn helps them to break the addiction.
Altering perception lies at the heart of how hypnosis helps many thousands of people deal with a cocaine addiction. It provides the proper perspective, addresses the cravings experienced by the body and the mind, and can be taught so that future events that bring back the urge to do cocaine again can be successfully stopped.
As part of a full treatment routine, hypnosis can be the lynchpin of how you can rid cocaine from your life. By changing the way you perceive the drug, helping you to stay in control, and mitigating many of the cravings that occur, hypnosis offers a simple, yet powerful way to regain control of your life.
How Hypnosis Can Help With Different Forms Of Addiction
Studies show that hypnosis is a powerful force in the overcoming of drug addiction because it enables the therapist to:
When hypnosis is combined with other more traditional treatments, the success rate for beating addiction is very encouraging.
In one study with heroin addicts, 100% of participants who completed the treatment remained clean after 6 months, while 78% remained clean after 2 years. Results like this are possible because of the nature of hypnosis.
Typically, a hypnotherapist might use hypnosis in order to:
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Woman Uses Hypnosis To Beat Cocaine Addiction
One study in particular shows that there might well be more than one way to use hypnosis in the fight against addiction.
A case report by Roger A. Page Ph.D. & George W. Handley, both of Ohio State University, tells of a female in her twenties with a $500-a-day cocaine habit.
In an attempt to wean herself off the drug, she got hold of a commercial weight-control hypnosis tape. She used the tape to stop smoking cigarettes by mentally replacing the term weight-loss with smoking. It had the beneficial side-effect of helping her come down from a cocaine high.Realizing this, she tried using the tape to overcome her cocaine addiction. According to Page & Handley, she listened to the tape 4 times a day every day for 4 months. At the end of that period, she was cured and had remained clean for a 9-year period lending up to the time of the report.
The authors in the above study concluded that the females recovery was extraordinary for two reasons:
1. She used only hypnosis and no other therapy or intervention2. She had no support network to fall back on
So hypnosis can be used to overcome addictions, although this is an isolated example.
It may be that not everyone has the willpower and strength of mind to be able to do what she did. But thats what hypnotherapy and related treatments are for, after all.
Even so, why are addictions so difficult to break? And does hypnosis for addiction really work?
What Is Drug Addiction
Also known as substance use disorder, drug addiction is a condition that badly affects the users behaviour resulting in excessive abuse of illegal drugs. When you are addicted to substances such as marijuana, nicotine, hash, weed, cocaine and alcohol or any other drugs for that matter, you may increase the intake continuously despite its harmful causes.
Drug use for the first time might occur as a result of social encounter, usually voluntarily, which later results into addiction where the addict finds it difficult to resist the cravings and hence falls for it badly.
The intake of these drugs can have devastating effects on ones health, throwing him into the pits of anxiety, paranoia, depression, lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, stroke, psychosis and other such mental and physical illnesses.
Such malpractices have adverse effects on the victim as such he might lose his job, turn him into a hostile person, cause harm to closed ones or own self. On the other hand, the family or close friends can feel helpless at the same time, unable to help the addict by any means. And worst of all as an addict you may not recognise that you have a problem to begin with.
Signs that your loved one is addicted
If you have a close family member and are suspicious about his activities of late, the following will help you identify if the person is under the influence of drug abuse or not.
Hypnosis for drug addiction
Giving you back the confidence for life
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Worried About A Friend
If you suspect a friend or family member has a drug addiction, its important to speak to them in a calm manner, with no judgement. Express your concern without being accusatory and perhaps send them any information you think may help .
Remember, people dont become addicted to drugs by choice and there are often lots of underlying reasons and factors contributing to the situation.
Encourage them to speak to their doctor and get professional support where possible. Being there for them and showing your support will help them enormously as they seek treatment.
You may feel frustrated and even alone. There are lots of resources and support groups available to help you connect with others going through similar struggles. Its also important for you to look after yourself and seek professional support where necessary.
Hypnosis For Drug Addiction
Substance abuse is one of the hardest things to stop, so it is understandable if youre now looking at hypnosis for drug addiction treatment.
Drug addiction is a chronic condition, which means it simply cannot be cured overnight. Aside from flushing out bad drugs physically , the addictive behaviors and habits of an addict must also be addressed.
Most patients use hypnotherapy as behavioral therapy to address the emotional and psychological side of this disease. Hypnosis is often included as part of a bigger, longer-term treatment plan that includes rehabilitation, counseling, and sometimes, prescription drugs.
So how effective is it? This post has everything you need to learn about hypnosis as an addiction treatment.
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Will Hypnosis Help You Change Your Behavior
The word addiction refers to long-term ingrained behavior, and changing that kind of behavior can be difficult.
Imagine, for example, trying to stop drinking when you keep getting invited to parties, or at Christmas time or New Years. It can be impossible to avoid situations where alcohol is on offer.
The other thing to remember is that nothing else around you is going to change. Youre still going to be doing the same kind of work, mixing with the same people, and worrying about the same concerns.
Even though you may have decided to try to curb your addiction, the rest of the world will continue to carry on just as before.
Thats where hypnosis could help. A post-hypnotic suggestion could be given during a hypnotic trance, to be acted upon at a later time when youre out of hypnosis.
A post-hypnotic suggestion is a powerful instruction implanted in your unconscious mind to get you to act a certain way.
Itll be a feeling or overwhelming urge to complete some tasks.
For someone trying to give up smoking, the suggestion might be something like this:
Every time you see a stop sign when driving, you will take a deep breath and realize how good the clean air feels in your lungs as you stop the car.
These types of suggestions can work for a number of reasons. In the first place, they define a clear behavior that you want the person to take. In this case, the behavior is breathing in clean air. Its also coupled with the feeling of the clean air filling the lungs.
Who Is Hypnotherapy Right For
Because addiction can be a life-threatening condition, it is important to explore as many options as possible when seeking treatment. However, since dependence is deeply connected with subconscious causes and motivations, hypnotherapy can be an effective solution for people experiencing the effects of substance misuse and other addictive behaviors.
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Hypnosis For Those Trying To Break Free Of Addiction
Hypnosis does not seem to work for everyone, but it can be an effective tool for those trying to break free of addiction. It can be particularly useful for persons in the early months of sobriety and are looking for something to ease cravings. The first few months of sobriety can be stressful this technique can also be effective for helping people cope with this stress. Hypnosis is probably less useful for those currently caught up in addiction, as it requires good levels of concentration.
Hypnotherapy: Can Hypnosis Cure Addiction
The human mind has a remarkable capacity to control the body when we concentrate. Hypnosis or hypnotherapy is a treatment that makes use of relaxation techniques to induce suggestions upon the unconscious mind.
Studies have shown hypnotism to be more effective than simply therapy or a placebo when dealing with substance abuse disorders, behavioral addictions and even chronic pain.
Trance states have been a part of ancient ceremonies and tribal cultures for thousands of years. In 18th century Europe an Austrian doctor named Franz Anton Mesmer introduced the first sizable body of evidence in support of hypnotherapy. At the time he was accused of fraud by the medical community, but we still have the word mesmerized from his last name.
It wasnt until the 1950s when a physician named Milton H. Erickson incorporated hypnosis into his techniques that it was recognized by the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association. Although previous tests by the British Medical Association had suggested it was effective for easing intense pain and bad nerves.
The hypnotic state may be brought about by a trained hypnotherapist using one of many techniques. The patient enters a state in which they feel awake yet completely relaxed. The heart rate and blood pressure may lower and there could be a difference in brain wave activity. In this dissociated state the conscious mind releases and the subconscious mind moves forward.
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Aid For Stress Reduction
Drug detox, combined with continued cravings for the source of addiction can cause a persons anxiety to increase. Further anxiety and stress is likely to complicate the recovery process. Hypnotherapy can help to reduce stress, and when combined with other lifestyle changes such as exercise and nutrition, might be helpful in preventing relapse due to stress.
Some Studies Show Promise In Treating Addiction
Weâre currently on an upswing in scientific interest in hypnosis and a number of studies have found some promising results in using hypnosis to treat addiction. For example, one small study found that treatment that included hypnosis for alcohol use disorder led to an impressive 77 percent sobriety rate after one year. Another small study of people with opioid use disorder found that hypnosis helped all participants remain abstinent from all drugs for six months and 56 percent remained abstinent from heroin for two years. These were small preliminary studies but they suggest hypnosis may be a useful tool for addiction treatment.
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The Realities Of Police Screening
At the end of 2006, police in NSW gained the right to pull over and drug test motorists. They can test for cannabis, ice and ecstasy. This now means if you are a user or abuser, you can be screened at any time.
An initial oral fluid test is taken through the drivers window. If the police find the test positive, you are required to give a second oral sample in a police support vehicle. If you test positive to that second test, your sample will go to a lab to be tested.
If the presence of any of those three drugs is confirmed, you will be required to appear in court, charged with driving with the presence of an illicit drug. Penalties for first offences include $1,100 fine and licence disqualification. Harsher penalties apply for second offences. If you are involved in a road fatality, whilst over 0.05 alcohol or test positive for drugs in your system, you can be sent to jail for 14 years, whether you are responsible for the accident or not.
How would losing your licence affect your life?
Why You Should Try Hypnotherapy For Addiction Treatment
The difference between a person who can overcome their addiction and those who are unable to simply lies in the amount of resources and support available to them. Most addicts want to see positive change, but are often trapped in a never ending cycle of relapse. They may find the necessary tools to cope unreachable whether due to financial constraints or personal problems. Furthermore, the complex workings of addiction also results in stigma that can make addicts feel isolated, neglected and ostracised in society. This can lead them to become more discouraged from seeking proper treatment due to fear of shame. Some people may even go to extreme lengths to hide their addiction from loved ones. Hypnotherapy for addiction treatment can help you address and eliminate unhealthy behaviours and triggers that contribute to your addiction in a safe, controlled space. It is effective in creating sustainable results and offers minimal to no side effects. If youd like to see important outcomes in your recovery, then hypnotherapy is a great alternate solution that lets you work through and overcome your addiction sustainably. If youd like to live life with confidence, free from addiction, hypnotherapy is an excellent treatment choice for your healing. Hypnosis for drug addiction in particular remains a powerful intervention in patients who require rapid yet sustainable improvement.
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Is Hypnosis An Effective Form Of Addiction Treatment
There is plenty of evidence to suggest that hypnosis can help people break away from bad habits such as smokingcigarettes. This technique is also showing some success in the treatment of other addictions such as alcoholism. Hypnosis might not be enough to allow people to break free of addiction on its own, but it does seem to be an effective tool in many cases.
Altering Patterns And Habits In Creating Lasting Changes
Before we get into the details of drug addiction, lets establish what hypnosis precisely is. At the very heart of it, hypnosis is merely a technique to access and alter the subconscious mind. Since this is the part of the brain that holds all of your default thought patterns, there is a lot that can be done by hypnotherapy. By employing a combination of techniques such as those of deep relaxation, positive suggestion, as well as mental reprogramming, hypnosis instils a positive state of thinking. Thus altering the state of your subconscious mind into that desired.
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