Month: March 2018

Teens and Internet Addiction

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| Internet Addiction
Teens and Internet Addiction

Most teenagers today have never lived in a world without the internet. They are often more tech-savvy than adults and they embrace each new technology that develops. This interest in the internet and technology can evolve into an obsession. Teenagers are known for extremes in moods and behaviors, but extreme internet use can cause the everyday living to take a back seat to online time.

Signs and Symptoms of Internet Addiction in Adolescents

The following symptoms might indicate that your teenager has an internet addiction:

  • Internet use seems more important than time with friends or hobbies that were previously enjoyed
  • Internet use has affected teenager’s grades in school
  • Loss of sleep due to internet use
  • Meeting strangers or unsafe people online
  • Unhealthy eating patterns, or high intake of caffeine to stay awake
  • Making many friends who he or she has never actually met in person
  • Experiencing anxiety when away from the internet
  • Neglect of appearance or hygiene
  • Missing money or increased online spending for websites, games, and other internet purchases

Why Do Teens Become Addicted to the Internet?

Every teen is different, just as every internet addiction is different. Some of the reasons your teen cannot break away from the computer may include:

  • Anxiety over life, school, achievements, and relationships may make the internet seem more appealing
  • Teenagers with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder may discover that the internet can hold their attention
  • The internet can be an escape from the hormones and emotions of adolescence
  • The teenager may feel that he or she can have a different identity online
  • The teenager may suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, other anxiety disorders, or depression
Teens and Internet Addiction

How is Internet Addiction Treated?

The most effective treatment for internet addiction is to remove the internet from the teenager’s life. Inpatient treatment removes the teenager from both the internet and the surroundings that allowed the addiction. Inpatient treatment is a form of intensive therapy that allows the teenager to spend an extended amount of time at an overnight facility. Inpatient facilities for internet addiction will provide:

  • Medical care
  • Nutritious meals
  • Counseling
  • Group therapy
  • Daily activities
  • Education

Inpatient treatment is often as comfortable as a hotel stay and provides an opportunity to break the cycle of internet addiction.

Need Help Finding Internet Addiction Treatment for Teenagers?

Are you or your teenager addicted to the internet? Our toll-free number is available 24 hours a day to provide you with more information about internet addiction and treatment programs. You owe it to yourself and your family to learn more about your options.…

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How Can Digital Drug Use Lead to Addiction?

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| Special Topics
How Can Digital Drug Use Lead to Addiction?

It seems that everything has gone digital since the technology revolution, including drug use. While the term may sound like it refers to the selling or purchasing of drugs via the internet, digital drug use has a much different meaning.

Digital drugs are actually sounded or, more specifically, binaural beats that are thought to change brain wave patterns, producing effects similar to drugs and inducing an altered state of consciousness. How a sound can act like a drug on the human brain requires a little background information.

How Do Digital Drugs Work?

Binaural beats occur when two tones with minimal difference in frequency are played simultaneously. Without the use of headphones, a person will pick up both tones, but the slight difference in frequency is perceived as a single sound overall; however, when binaural beats are heard through headphones, an individual can clearly hear the difference, and the brain processes the sounds like two separate beats. The brain naturally processes rhythmic sounds as electrical impulses or brain waves and the idea behind digital drugs is to control these brain waves by synchronizing them with designated binaural beats. This concept is similar to the action of many medications and therapies, such as biofeedback.

Digital drugs are most commonly sold online, with multiple tracks mimicking the effects of a certain drug. There are digital drugs versions of nearly every recreational, prescription, and designer drug available from Ambien to Ecstasy.

Can Digital Drugs Get You High?

The science behind digital drug use reflects that individuals can achieve the intended effects. Some consider digital drugs to be beneficial as they can help individuals with sleep difficulties, ADHD, anxiety, depression, and more. However, the drugs can also mimic the effects of more powerful, dangerous drugs such as cocaine, peyote, heroin, opium, ecstasy, and more. The side effects of these illicit, recreational drugs are harmful no matter how they are achieved, in substance or in sound.

How Can Digital Drug Use Lead to Addiction?

Are Digital Drugs Addictive?

Since digital drugs are relatively new, more time is needed to determine the exact harm and consequences these drugs pose. As for now, digital drugs show no evidence of chemical harm or chemical dependency potential. Digital drugs are addictive in a psychological sense, which many consider being more difficult to break than a physical addiction. When individuals rely on drugs or substances to deal with or cope with issues, the substance or even behavior can become harmful. Addiction is defined as a compulsive behavior despite the harm it is causing.

If an individual begins to make poor life choices in order to continue using digital drugs or continues using digital drugs despite harmful effects while under the influence, they may need help for an addiction. Furthermore, individuals who start using digital drugs can enjoy the effect so much that they are led to begin using the actual substance form of the drug which can cause both a physical and psychological addiction.

Looking for Drug Addiction Help?

If you or someone you care about is dealing with drug abuse or addiction, we can help you find the treatment and recovery services that will work for you. Call our toll-free helpline today to speak with a trained addiction counselor who can assist you with your questions, concerns, and needed information. Addiction counselors can help find and connect you with the treatment and recovery help that is right for you and your unique needs. Life is too short to waste on addiction. If you’re looking for help, call and speak with a counselor today. We’re ready to help, however we can.…

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How Does Euphoric Recall Contribute to Relapse?

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| Relapse
How Does Euphoric Recall Contribute to Relapse?

Addiction is both a physical and psychological disease. While many people mistakenly believe that the physical aspect of the disease is more powerful, it is actually the psychological side of addiction that causes more relapses. Learning how the addicted brain works can empower a recovering addict to avoid relapse.

How Psychological Addiction Works

The euphoric high felt during drug or alcohol abuse directly affects an area of the brain called the pleasure or reward center. This is the same part of the brain that manages a variety of important psychological functions such as the following:

  • Emotional response
  • Anxiety management
  • Coping with stress
  • Reinforcing behaviors (forming habits)
  • The ability to resist impulses
  • The formation and recollection of memories

Drugs and alcohol provide real, albeit temporary, relief of emotional pain or distress in this part of the brain. When the substance wears off and the underlying psychological disorder begins to take over, the brain will use every psychological tool at its disposal to get those chemicals again. One of the most problematic of these symptoms – especially after months of recovery – is a phenomenon called euphoric recall.

How Euphoric Recall Works

Because the formation and recollection of memories are managed in this same area, the brain may choose only to bring to mind the fun times or highlights of past drug use. The user will not remember the pain, sickness, destruction, disappointment, or trapped feelings of addiction – only the good times. This can lead a person to romanticize their previous substance abuse and spend too much time thinking back on it longingly. This type of distorted memory can also lead people to feel overconfident in their ability to resist relapse, which may cause them to place themselves in high-risk environments. A recovering alcoholic, when walking past a bar, may think back to some fun times and then tell himself that he can handle the temptation to drink now. He goes into the bar where the positive memories collide with his weakened state of alertness; before he knows it, he has relapsed.

How to Stop Euphoric Recall

While you cannot stop euphoric recall, one of the most powerful tools to overcome it is through relational accountability. Make sure you have a friend or sponsor who you have especially empowered to hold you accountable for your time, words, money, and actions. Another person can provide the accurate perspective that euphoric recall destroys. You may start to become nostalgic for your party days, but a good accountability partner will remind you of the broken relationships, the misery of withdrawal, and the positive aspects of being clean and sober. Journaling can also be extremely helpful – especially as it relates to identifying faulty or incomplete memories and filling in those gaps during weak moments. In time you can train your mind to remember all aspects of the disease of addiction, not just the distorted ones.

Help Dealing with Euphoric Recall

If you are struggling with euphoric recall, call our 24 hours, toll-free helpline. Our specially trained addiction counselors can help you think about the cost of addiction and relapse, as well as the numerous benefits of a sober life. Call now and let us help connect you with resources to keep your recovery on track.…

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Causes for Compulsive Shopping

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| Shopping Addiction
Causes for Compulsive Shopping

All addictions have the same basic symptoms. Obsession, compulsion, loss of control, and continued use in the face of negative consequences are all hallmarks of addiction. People can develop addictions to substances, behaviors or activities. Some of these behaviors or activities may be normal, everyday occurrences such as eating or shopping, which can make it much harder to determine if there is a problem with addiction.

There are several indicative behaviors that can identify a person as a shopping addict. Engaging in any “shopping binge” creates a feeling of euphoria or a “high” for the addicted individual. Addictions are two-pronged. On one end, the addiction is physical. The individual shops to get the rush of brain chemicals needed to feel high. On the other end, this type of addiction is psychological. The addict seeks to purchase items to help them cope with life, and intense anxiety is felt in the absence of their addictive activity. A shopping addict will engage in their addiction even when it’s become obvious that spending is against their own best interests.

As with all addictions, shopping becomes the person’s main way of coping with stress, to the point where they continue to shop excessively even when it is clearly having a negative impact on other areas of their life. As with other addictions, finances and relationships are damaged, yet the shopping addict feels unable to stop or even control their spending.

Causes for Compulsive Shopping

Reasons Behind Compulsive Shopping

Most causes for compulsive shopping are psychological. Generally, a person will be having emotions of loneliness, depression, feeling out of control in a particular area, and seeking to spend money in order to relieve the stress. Spending addiction is a symptom of flashing red-light warning sign that there are deep-rooted feelings one is trying to avoid facing. An addict indulges themselves in shopping to help numb those troubling feelings- for a while.

Some of the psychological conditions associated with compulsive shopping are:

  • Emotional deprivation in childhood
  • Inability to tolerate negative feelings, pain, loneliness, boredom, depression, fear, anger
  • Need to fill an inner void – empty and longing inside
  • Excitement seeking
  • Approval seeking
  • Perfectionism
  • Genuinely impulsive and compulsive
  • Need to gain control

To that end, some behaviors and emotions have been associated with as potential causes of shopping addiction, such as:

  • A reaction to disappointment, stress, anger, or fear by shopping
  • A feeling that one’s spending habits are out of control and are causing friction or conflict in one’s family, relationships
  • Feeling a sense of euphoria as well as anxiety while shopping
  • Experiencing a sense of getting away with something forbidden while shopping
  • Feeling severe guilt or remorse about having gone shopping, especially if it contradicts promises made to one’s self or a loved one
  • Buying things that are never or almost never used—in other words, buying for no reason other than to spend
  • Lying about one’s extensive shopping habits to friends and family
  • A preoccupation with credit cards and finances is built around how much one has spent, how much one will have to spend on shopping, and creative juggling of various accounts to make shopping possible.

Compulsive spending is sometimes hard to determine because almost everyone shops to some degree, but only about 6 percent of the U.S. population is thought to have these compulsive addictions. It thus should be noted that there are negative behaviors and reactions associated with shopping that lead to feelings of distress but that do not constitute a shopping addiction, compulsion, or disorder such as buyer’s remorse. However, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) has regarded behavioral disorders like shopping addiction to be reasonable disorders because they have common conditions with other compulsive behaviors that do not feature a stimulus one puts into their body (i.e. drugs, alcohol, tobacco). These are A sense of arousal before going shopping followed by pleasure or gratification while shopping and a loss of arousal as well as experiencing feelings of remorse after shopping.

Shopping Addiction Treatment

Those suffering from a compulsive buying disorder can seek shopping addiction treatment from a treatment center, therapist, or psychologist despite the lack of a quantified, well-defined diagnosis since the underlying issues are indeed psychological.

Some …

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