Just One Piece of the Puzzle

This morning I ran across an article explaining that British rocker Pete Doherty was battling his heroin addiction by practicing the ancient Chinese art of Chi gung. The piece contained some interesting information on exercise programs and addictions, but it was the use of the phrase “shifting from one dependency to another” that I would like to discuss.

Given the trio's opiate addictions over the years, this initially seems like a classic shifting from one dependency to another – the high of the drugs replaced by what's increasingly become known as the exercise high.~ TheAge.com.au

More often than not you will hear in recovery circles the phrase “trading one addiction for another”, it may sound similar but there is a very big difference. Yes, I have seen both alcoholics and addicts rapidly transform from using their DOC (drug of choice) into exercise freaks, church fanatics, workaholics, and even recovery meeting fiends. I wouldn’t call it a common occurrence, but it does happen. The point that needs to be made here though is that it is a dependency that is being traded; the mental disease of addiction still remains strong and firmly entrenched.

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Assuredly a dependency on a non-toxic substance or activity is at least a marginal improvement, but the problem is that the dependency is just one piece of a very big puzzle. An addiction involves so much more than just dependency including living environment, social structure, relationships, decision making, stress management, religious and cultural belief, lifestyle choice, health, and upbringing just to name a few. The brain has been hardwired to live vicariously through the addiction and switching dependency does little more than delay the progressive disease. Eventually the addict wants more or desire what is “missing” and will almost always inevitably move on to another and usually more harmful dependency.

Tony, who smoked heroin and took cocaine almost daily for a decade, took to running half-marathons and studying mixed martial arts. He admits: "Getting the buzz got harder, no question. I ended up having to do full-on sparring every day, really going for it, and I'd lie awake at night thinking about the next day's session. It still wasn't up there with the coke. So I went back to the coke."

I hope you found the article interesting, I did find it insightful. Recovering from an addiction is like a big puzzle and dependency is just a single piece. A structured program is needed to find all the rest of the pieces and their proper place. A program like Chi gung may provide this structure, for others it may be 12 step programs, long term treatment environments or self-styled plans like the one I use, but to be effective they must work on the disease and not just the dependency.