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Food addiction operates similarly to other addictions, which explains why some people can’t control themselves around certain foods — no matter how hard they try. Enlist the help of friends, co-workers and family sober house for some extra support. Some NIH-funded research is exploring whether certain medications can help to disrupt hard-wired automatic behaviors in the brain and make it easier to form new memories and behaviors.
So, consult with your doctor to choose the best addiction treatment for you. If your friends try to force you into using drugs or drinking with them when you are trying to get sober, be honest and straightforward with them. Good friends will assist you in reaching your goal rather than put you back. There are several places to get help for addiction; however, having a strong support system is crucial in any treatment method you choose.
Each person who leaves Olympia House Rehab is asked to create an aftercare plan to outline their goals for recovery and the future. They are also invited to continue their journey with us by attending free tune-ups. “There is no depression buster as effective for me than exercise,” says mental health advocate Therese J. Borchard. Not only will you improve your overall health and well-being while working up a sweat, but you’ll also feel endorphins being released naturally.
Here at Meta Addiction Treatment, we offer 3 different tiers of outpatient recovery programs for precisely this reason. After attending one program, our patients can participate in our subsequent recovery programs and clinical services until they feel fully empowered and equipped to take charge of their own recovery. We believe that time is a recovering addict’s best friend. In our experience, finding success in rehab isn’t all that different from troubleshooting Wi-Fi when the internet goes down. You can’t immediately assume that one thing is the cause of the outage. You have to troubleshoot each part of the system and the process.
It’s also common to feel uncomfortable and conflicted about quitting your drug of choice, even if you know it’s causing mental, physical, and social issues in your life. Recovery from addiction takes time, will, and support, but you can overcome your addiction by making a commitment to change. Addictions take time to break, although the exact time varies from person to person.
Remember that there is no fixed timeline for how long it takes an addiction to develop. Depending on the substance in question, addiction can take hold in anywhere from a few weeks to over the course of several months or years. Finding the right goal for cutting back is one thing; actually doing so is another.
The approach works for some (lucky) people, but it’s not the best call for most of us. Detoxing makes sense if you have an addiction to a dangerous substance, but we consume sugar every day in one form or another, so you’re never truly cutting it out of your diet. In fact, researchers have found that sugar lowers both opioid and dopamine receptor availability in our brains.
You may come up with solutions such as taking a walk around the block when you’re bored at work or texting or calling someone directly when you’re curious about what your friends are up to. Clients who have completed our PHP offering or similar can transition into our Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) in Massachusetts, our second-highest level of care. As clients experience more autonomy and independence, they also benefit from continuity in care and staff.
And the brain’s reward centers keep us craving the things we’re trying so hard to resist. They’ve studied what happens in our brains as habits form. They’ve found clues to why bad habits, once established, are so difficult to kick.
Signs of Drug or Alcohol Addiction
Loss of energy or motivation. Neglecting one's appearance. Spending excessive amounts of money on the substance. Obsessing about the next dose, ensuring a consistent supply of the substance, and worrying about the next source of the substance.
That might mean allotting times of the day or days of the week when you don’t use your phone at all, such as before and after work. It may also mean leaving your phone in the other room, keeping it out of your bedroom or putting everyone’s phone in a box outside of the kitchen during dinnertime. If more than four to five of the symptoms on this list apply, it could mean there’s a deeper issue. Food addiction involves the same areas of the brain as drug addiction. Also, the same neurotransmitters are involved, and many of the symptoms are identical (2).