Multi-phasic

Several parts/stages/states Addiction is said to be multi-phasic. It affects you physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. It affects more than one part of a person’s life.

Euphoria

A sense of well being. A feeling of being high on life.

Hard wired

Habituated, hooked. The concept that the brain develops neural pathways that become embedded in the thought process of the addicted person.

Cilia

Small, fine hair that lines the nose, throat and lungs that filter and collect smoke, dust, dirt and other foreign substances.

Paradigm

A patterned thought, belief, or perspective. The way we look at the world and the way we function within that understanding.

Dysfunctional family system

Many families do not work well. Since families are systems this means every member of the family is at risk. If dad is alcoholic then the whole family suffers.

Co-dependency

Co-dependency is the underlying condition, which produces addiction. Co-dependence is a by-product of abuse and loss of identity. When children live with people who are not dependable, they never learn to depend or trust themselves or others in healthy ways. They depend on things outside of themselves and inappropriate people. They allow people to depend on them or they isolate but appear independent.

Primary ego defense system

“The difficulty lies in the fact that the denial system that has to be broken is the primary ego defense system” John Bradshaw is describing here the dilemma facing the addicted person. Every person has an ego defense mechanism which allows us to function and protects our identity from threats and confusion. Denial is a core function of this protective process. This is problematic because unless we can move beyond denial we will not recover.

Culturally Induced Disease. (Dis-ease)

Addiction can be traced to the culture in which someone lives. If the culture you live in provides tobacco you will employ this drug in your survival strategy.

Addiction is not only a physical disease, it is the absence of ease, in one’s life.

Core transference device is the traumatization of the child

When a child suffers a trauma in the family or elsewhere it often triggers the need to medicate the emotional pain. This causes the child to pick up tobacco and thus the transference from one generation to the next occurs.

Denial is the bottleneck in the recovery process

While denial is often a survival tool for the child it holds us back from recovery as an adult.

The Integrated Addiction Model

IAM incorporates into one whole experience the process of how we became addicted and how we recover from tobacco addiction.

Core Attachments

What are the primary areas of our life directly linked or dependent upon the smoking of tobacco.

Psychic Lethargy

A lack of interest and energy. Feeling down or depressed.

Core Identity

As we develop from childhood to teens we build a core identity which refers to the main way we see ourselves and as others may see us as well. Often this is the underlying reason we smoke. Our identity becomes rooted in the fact that we are smokers.

Integral Role

Tobacco becomes a necessary part of the whole of a smoker’s life. When we accept that, we understand that addiction and recovery has many parts.

Recidivist Rate

Relapse. The rate at which people return to smoking.

Support Matrix Chart

Assemble all the supports information into one chart to establish an overall sense of what areas of your life might support or endanger you recovery

Model and Bond

Family therapists suggest that we model the parent of the same gender and bond with the parent of the opposite gender.

Decommission the success/failure dynamic

Remove the pressure that the success/failure approach to stopping smoking has over your clients.

Debrief

The review of what happened in the counseling session. This allows any issues that remain unsettled to be addressed so that clients will leave feeling grounded and complete.

Unconscious cross-transference

A counselor is affected unknowingly by the nature of a personal disclosure of a client. The fear or trauma that the client expresses is absorbed by the counselor on an unconscious level. If left unresolved it can lead to burn out.

Recovery continuum

The process of recovery is seen as a continuing unfolding event. This helps unhook from the idea that we are either successful or failures.

Issue identification

We bring to our immediate awareness the issues that are most important to focus upon in our recovery.

Reframe

Reframing is a counseling technique that looks at a situation in a new way so that a client can learn from their situation and move forward.

Neurobiological Effects

Primarily anchored in the brain but also refers to effects the drug has on the on the nervous system as well.

Epidemiology

This is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of individuals and populations. This branch of medicine studies the causes, distribution and control of diseases within and between different population groups.

Pharmacological interventions

Prescription and non-prescription medications used to aid smoking cessation such as nicotine patches, inhalers, lozenges, and gum.

Transference

In the context of addiction, it is the switching of one addiction to another. For example, from tobacco to food. This is referred to as changing the medication for your emotional pain and implies that a true recovery is not functioning.

Intergenerational Transference

In the context of addiction, it is the passing on to the next generation the need to medicate one’s emotions. The emergence of addiction from one generation to the next.

Copyright, PSI, Murray Kelly, 2011 psi@igs.net