(This blog was originally posted on May 24, 2016)
 |
| Photo by Rick Hustead |
The “addictive
curve” is a model to describe the formation and perpetuation of addictions. For
example, a person takes heroin and gets a “rush.” He then starts coming down,
going lower than the state where he started, which creates a new “bottom.” Most
people shoot up again as soon as they start to come down, which triggers the
addiction. However, if the person waits to take the drug until just before
reaching the level he normally should be, he will get even “higher” with this
dose and then come back to normal.
A person can
take any substance that has an
addictive property—including coffee—and never become addicted to it if the
individual doesn’t fall into the addictive curve. “What makes a heroin addict a
heroin ‘addict’ is the feeling of coming back down,” Hypnosis Motivation Institute founder John Kappas, Ph.D., explained. If you
avoid the addictive curve (usually 12 hours) and wait to take the drug until
you are back at that normal level, you won’t become addicted to it, he added.
Dr. Kappas
demonstrated how he would help a client overcome a heroin addiction during one
of his clinical case history sessions. The process entailed taking the
individual off the drug “cold turkey,” then having him experience all the
symptoms of withdrawal very quickly during hypnosis. Meanwhile, the
hypnotherapist had the client release the feelings and go back to homeostasis
while giving the hypnotic suggestion that the person did not need heroin. Dr.
Kappas’s complete hypnotherapy-treatment strategy entailed taking the client
from the homeostatic state back to an artificial high, then bringing him back
down to experience withdrawal symptoms again, for 14 days.
“We can
duplicate in hypnosis any feeling you can get from any kind of drug, from
heroin, marijuana, cocaine, etc. many times we duplicate that feeling
artificially so we can get the client down here to create artificial
withdrawals,” he said. After the therapy program described above, however,
“there’s no feeling (addiction) for heroin at all.”
A caveat: while
alcohol addiction follows a similar pattern in terms of the addictive curve,
hypnotherapists do not deal with alcohol addictions. “The alcoholic is much
harder to deal with than the drug addict because alcohol is an accessible
social drug, and there’s too many ways to cheat on alcohol. It’s a way of
life,” Dr. Kappas said. The physical dependency on alcohol also tends to be
stronger than the physical dependency on drugs, he added.
As I have explained in previous essays, the Business and Professions Code 2908 limits the scope of hypnotherapists’
professional practice to helping people achieve vocational and avocational
self-improvement goals. Hypnotherapists must also seek a referral from licensed
mental-health and/or licensed medical professionals when there may be a
physiological or psychological origin of the client’s discomfort, which is outside
of the scope of hypnotherapy. Hypnosis and hypnotherapy are great tools to help
a person follow Alcoholics Anonymous/Narcotics
Anonymous, etc. guidelines during rehabilitation from a substance addiction.
However, when I work with an individual to help break this addictive
curve I usually ask that the person continues to receive support from a sponsor
and/or 12-step program during this process.
Sara R. Fogan, C.Ht. is a certified hypnotherapist based in
Southern California. She graduated with honors from the Hypnosis Motivation
Institute in 2005. For more
information about Calminsense Hypnotherapy® and to set up an
appointment, please visit http://www.calminsensehypnotherapy.com/.
© 2018
