“Are addicts powerless over their addictions? Can Focusing be used to help heal addiction?”
Philip Seymour Hoffman, a great actor with most of his career still before him, died this week at age 46 of a heroin overdose. When something like this happens so publicly, we are freshly confronted by the tragedy of addiction.
Are addicts powerless over their addictions? Can anything be done to help?
Nearly 20 years ago I challenged myself to use Focusing to end my addiction to alcohol. With the help of my colleague Barbara McGavin, I learned from my own process what Focusing had to become in order to help me transform this serious problem.
This week I’d like to tell you the essence of what I learned.
Inner Relationship Focusing with an Addiction
The pivotal insight is that the addiction process is an inner war between a part that want to do the addictive behavior and another part that is extremely worried but powerless to stop it.
So when working with a person who wants to bring Focusing to an addiction I would start by suggesting that they invite “the part that wants to go out and buy the _____” into awareness, as a starting place.
The invitation is issued by the person as Self-in-Presence, and of course Self-in-Presence is key to healing addictions because we need to not take sides; we need to sincerely listen to each of the sides with empathy and compassion.
The part that wants to do the addictive behavior comes into body awareness, and the person senses it, just as it is, describes it, acknowledges it…and then sits with it to get to know it better.
In a recent session like this, the Focuser said with surprise: “It is just SO tired!”
I said, “Let it know you sense how tired it is.”
The Focuser said, “It’s like it’s never before been acknowledged for any reason…and now I feel my whole body relaxing.”
Addictions can be serious and there is no “quick fix,” but this approach is one that doesn’t involve will power – which doesn’t work – or self blame and shame – which also doesn’t work. Being the large Self and allowing a process to unfold opens up true possibilities…and that is what we want.
