It is important to recognize that you may have a lot of emotional needs and feelings around things you are addicted to. These needs and feelings may come from your negative life experiences and hurts, which are often learned from your parents and family, who may have had similar problems with addiction. These have to be taken into account and dealt with effectively.

Hypnosis, focusing, guided imagery and parts therapy are all useful techniques for putting yourself in touch with the feelings around your addiction. You may have parts of yourself which are in conflict over your addictions, one part considering the addiction to be absolutely necessary while other parts find it disgusting. One of our patients was afraid to eat less and lose weight because then he would be attractive and have to face his fears about sexuality. When he worked with the part of himself who was afraid of sex and released his limiting beliefs, he stopped eating compulsively and lost weight easily. Another patient used alcohol to overcome her anxiety about her work. Through learning relaxation, meditation and to take her work as less of a life and death situation, she was able to gradually give up her dependence on alcohol. We have helped many people to overcome limiting beliefs and to recognize the original intention One very powerful technique for doing this is called reframing, from Neuro-linguistic Programming, which uses reframing to either substitute a less harmful set of behaviors which satisfy the same need as the addiction or to choose a new context in which the addictive behavior is acceptable or less harmful.

Abstinence by itself is rarely effective unless the underlying needs and intentions are acknowledged and satisfied, or truly released. Sometimes the benefits of abstaining in terms of removing the pain and problems caused by your addiction are so compelling that the addiction is released for good. But, most often it is necessary to use abstinence as an opening for working on your feelings and changing behaviors until the addiction is no longer relevant to your life. Many people find that getting in touch with their spiritual side and surrendering to God or a higher power, as in the twelve step movements, is very useful in helping them overcome their addiction. The reason for this is that the pleasure and intoxication of communion with the Divine is far stronger than any addictive pleasure in the outside world. Also, feeling that you have the help of a will which is stronger than your own can give you inspiration and faith that you can in deed survive the release of your addiction and go on to have a better life. The support of relatives, friends, a counselor or members of a support group can be extremely helpful in

providing love, help and the validation to get help you get past your addiction.

Homeopathy, herbs, nutrition, vitamins, fasting and cleansing can all be very effective in helping to free the body form the need for addictive substances, reducing physical and emotional withdrawal symptoms and releasing the cumulative effects of long-term toxicity. We often use a coordinated program of withdrawal and detoxification, emotional release work, hypnosis and behavior change has often been necessary very successfully to help our patients rehabilitate their body and mind from long-term addiction.

Ultimately, the most important factor in controlling desire and overcoming addiction is loving yourself enough to want to be free and to stop hurting yourself. It usually isn't easy, but you've got the power to do it and will feel great when you've licked it!