Re: crack addiction assistance?
At 08:16 22/01/1997 -0500, george wrote:
<....>
> However, he occassionally gets the same feeling "in his brain", as he says,
>that he used to get when he'd smoked crack. The feeling, he says, is like
>that of "6 orgasms at once" and he says the crack experience, for him, was
>very closely linked to sexual arousal and, in many instances, sexual
>encounters.
I think you'll have to do a thorough elicitation of kinesthetic
submodalities. I guess you'll find out a sequence of different
internal states (VAK) quickly linked together.
The "6 orgasms at once" feeling occurence is unclear, as reading
your post, I don't actually know whether this feeling is occuring
before or after smoking crack or at the same time. In this last
case the two feelings could have been accidentaly linked together
and each one is an anchor for the other.
IMHO I would try to decode all the kinesthetic sequence and
teach your patient to induce by himself (without crack !!) the full
set of internal states including the "6 orgasms at once" and the next
other possible feelings. You can do that by anchoring each step or
each internal state and then chaining the anchors. Most of the time
you don't even need to anchor kinesthetically, just verbal anchors
are powerful enough.
At this point you'll have taught him how to obtain by himself the
feelings he needs absolutely (or his body needs). So your patient
will no longer be in a state of emergency and you'll be able to
take some time to go into a deeper change process.
> One thing I pointed out to him was that, last week, the impulse HAD come up
>and he'd successfully resisted it through isolating himself from ANY contact
>with the old crack using environment, not carrying any cash on him, and
>frequent, imploring prayers. He was encourgaed to realize that he had, in
>fact, already weathered an onslaught of crack impulses.
>
> I mentioned this list and that I would ask, with his permission, for
>assistance. Your comments are appreciated.
>
> This man is working very hard to keep his life turned around. Having gotten
>out of prison three years ago, he now runs his own business. We have a
>special connection of mutual respect and experience (due to my drug
>experiences back in the '60's) I'm a bit uncomfortable with his model of the
>addiction as something to fight because, in his words, everyday is a struggle
>for him. I wonder if there's a way for him to deflect the energy of the
>impulses, rather than feeling he has to fight them?
Check out what are his motivation strategies. He could need to have
to fight against something to be fully motivated... Or only challenging
things could have any value for him...
> My heart goes out to this man, who calls me (he lives in another city) when
>he feels himself getting into a spot he has difficulty handling.
>
> I told him that everything the addiction gave him can be obtained elsewhere,
>in much more positive, beneficial ways. He agrees with this, yet daily
>struggles to fight the addiction.
Hey George, keep cool man, being emotionally involved with your patient can
prevent you from being effective ;-) I know, I know, it's a lot easier
to write that 'wise advice' from another continent thousands miles away
from your patient... and I'm always emotionally involved...;-)
I hope these few ideas will help. Could you write us small reports of
what you will do with this patient and how he will respond ? If he's Ok
of course. That will be very interesting and will be useful (I hope !?)
for the 'posterity'. And any of us could have great ideas for this guy.
Be well,
----
Bernard Frit mailto:bfrit@hotmail.com
The 'NLP and Addictions' Home Page and the
nlp-addict mailing list archives are at
http://nlp-addict.home.ml.org