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Addiction Questions

You keep saying I like getting high. I don’t. That’s a fact. I really hate it, but I don’t know why I keep doing it. Will The Freedom Model help me with this?

Yes. The issue is not whether or not you “like” getting high, it’s that you like it on some level. You see, when someone says you like getting high, you automatically think the person is describing that like as a truly enjoyable experience. But sometimes “like” is relative. Read the excerpt from The Freedom Model for Addictions below to understand what relative means in this case:

“The PDP (Positive Drive Principle) operates on the comparison of options. To choose means you’re seeing more than one option and then judging one of the options as the best and then doing it. This means that if you’re choosing excessive substance use, you see it as the best option available to you. Naturally, then this means you also see the option of going without such excessive substance use as worse in some way. People often wonder How can this be? My substance use is costing me so much that I shouldn’t want it. But the fact is, on some level, you do want it. You want it, at least in part, for the list of reasons you wrote down on the previous page.

What you don’t realize about costs is that you see costs in both choices—in both continuing heavy use and discontinuing it. You’ve worked so hard to become and stay conscious of the costs of your substance use that you’ve overlooked the fact that part of your calculation that makes continued heavy substance use look so attractive is that you see equal or even greater costs in discontinuing it. In a sense, you could also say Why would I ever quit? It would cost me so much. Yes, you read that right. I want you to read that again: Why would I ever quit? It would cost me so much. Now, sit for a moment and let that statement digest. It’s true, isn’t it?”

 

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