Filling the "void"

Last night I went out for a curry and a long walk around the marina with my friend, Cat. I'd met her at the Samaritans Christmas party a number of years ago and we'd been mates ever since.

She's one year away from becoming a fully qualified therapist and is particularly interested in addiction recovery. At the moment, she doesn't know much about the Beyond Compulsion method and has her own problems with compulsive desires.

But, she has read a lot of books on addiction recovery.

We spoke about addiction recovery solutions for about 2 hours together last night and it was a very interesting conversation.

I love her tons, she's an amazing friend that I am very grateful for, and I am very open to listening to her perspective on things, but, we do have totally opposing views when it comes to effectively helping people. Cat believes addiction is a function of unmet needs. That people have a void to fill. This notion is very popular, much more popular than the Beyond Compulsion method, in our society right now.

But to me, this concept of there being a "void to fill" is a blatant junkie thought. When you understand addiction correctly, you know that the only reason people want to engage in their compulsive behaviours is because they are involved in a psychological / emotional dependency on a mind / mood altering experience.

Essentially, people have addicted neural neural pathways. And these can be changed. But, to change these neural pathways - there is of course discomfort. Now, this discomfort of going through withdrawal is what people are getting confused about and now labelling a "void". This is because most people are quite clueless on what actually helps people correctly change their neural pathways. If there was truly a "void" then how come so many people have amazing lives, other than this one problem in their life? We work with clients all the time who have amazing relationships, fulfilling careers, and stable friendships. And yet, these guys still struggle with porn addiction.

I had a great life, on the surface, for over 9 years whilst still struggling with porn addiction. Anyone and everyone is susceptible to developing addicted neural pathways. There's not always some deep underlying reason that they continue to experience compulsive desires.

Sure, some people have a number of other problems in their life when struggling with addiction. Of course they do, living with addicted neural pathways is challenging.

But it is not a "void" that causes people to stay stuck.

It is ineffective treatments that don't actually get into and change neural pathways of compulsive desire which keep people stuck for decades. If we believe a "void needs to be filled" we will go around in circles for years and risk never finding real freedom and peace of mind.