Process Addiction Treatment and Rehab

Process addiction is an addiction to rewarding behaviour, without the presence of a physical substance. Also referred to as compulsive behaviours or behavioural addictions, they involve all compulsive actions that you do in spite of knowing the negative consequences.

Dependence does not derive from a physical substance but rather an action such as gambling, sex, shopping, watching porn, using the internet, playing video games, overeating and other related actions. Researchers have explained that there are chemical processes triggered when you engage in these activities, the same as when an addict takes cocaine or alcohol. It is characterised by an obsessive need to be involved in the activity or planning of the activity. It interferes with your relationships and ability to lead a normal, healthy life.

Sex Addiction: Sex as an act alone is not a problem, but like any activity that gives pleasure, it could be addictive. Dr Patrick Carnes describes the four stages of sex addiction as preoccupation, ritualisation, compulsive sexual behaviour and shame after the activity has concluded.

There have been some challenges in defining sexual addiction due to cultural and religious values in each society that sometimes narrows the definition of sex addiction. For example, a person who enjoys having sex with multiple partners, engaging in fantasies or a threesome might be viewed as an addict by someone with more conservative views.

Hypersexual behaviour poses a serious risk, such as legal consequences from engaging in illicit sexual activities or contracting an STI such as gonorrhoea, HIV, chlamydia and hepatitis. You could lose your job if you look at porn on your company computer and it affects your relationship with your partner. It could also lead to substance abuse to cushion the feelings of shame and guilt.

Shopping Addiction: While it is not recognised as an addiction, shopping addiction could have severe and destructive consequences on your life. For years, researchers and scientists have debated on the ideal classification for compulsive shopping. Should it be a mood disorder, addictive behaviour or an impulse-control issue? One thing they agree on is that shopping addiction is characterised by an overwhelming preoccupation to shop despite the negative consequences it has on your life.

It involves compulsive buying to feel good or numb feelings of depression and anxiety. Like other process addictions, it could take over your life, lead to legal woes, financial ruin and failed relationships. It usually exists with co-occurring disorders such as eating disorders, personality disorders, substance use disorder and impulse control disorders.

As with other behavioural addictions, it follows the pattern of thinking about shopping, planning the trip and executing the plan, which leads to you feeling a deep pleasure and temporary relief from negative emotions. When the “high” wears off, you feel disappointment and guilt, which leads to another shopping trip to combat those feelings.

Exercise Addiction: There are many benefits to exercise for the heart, brain, muscles and general wellbeing. However, it could also become an addiction, especially among runners, triathletes and those who have an eating disorder.

Exercise addiction is the compulsive need to exercise to feel good. Instead of to a substance, you’re addicted to the release of endorphins and dopamine that comes when you work out. These neurotransmitters are at work when someone is addicted to drugs/alcohol. The reward here is the joy from exercise. Quitting makes you feel anxious and depressed, just like someone who can’t access drugs.

Individuals who were overweight and got their body back are at risk of developing exercise addiction out of fear that they could gain all the weight back if they miss a few days of working out. Former addicts might turn to exercise to replace the reward they derive from taking drugs and alcohol. A diagnosis is not easy because you might not see it as a problem. Common indicators include decreased social activity, working out when you would normally be too sick to do so, and abnormal workout patterns.

Gaming Addiction

Multiplayer games are especially addictive. The gamer feels the thrill of a new challenge when they pass a level or unlock a new skill. They escape from reality into the virtual world until it becomes difficult to separate them both. New research reveals that there is a correlation between depression and gaming addiction, but many gamers are blind to the damage caused.

Food Addiction: Food is directly linked to life, we need it to survive. Eating healthily provides sustenance, keeps the disease at bay and energises you through each day. However, some people struggle with portion control and eating healthily. A food addict is addicted to food the same way an alcoholic is addicted to alcohol. Unlike other process addictions, there is a physical element involved that triggers the same neurotransmitters in the brain.

It is mostly used to explain a compulsive desire to eat unhealthily, including eating processed junk food that has a powerful effect on the reward centres of the brain. People who have struggled with drug addiction and who have replaced it with food addiction say they are one and the same. It causes physical harm and leads to medical conditions such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, cancer, arthritis, Alzheimer’s, and more.

Tasty food that contains large amounts of fat, carbohydrates, salt, sugar and artificial sweeteners trigger the release of feel-good chemicals in the brain, such as serotonin and dopamine. To recreate the feeling, your brain craves this unhealthy food as it adjusts its receptors to compensate for the rush of chemicals.

Gambling Addiction: Gambling addiction is the compulsive action of gambling with no regard to the consequences on your finances, work or personal relationships. Gambling is a fun way to relax and connect with friends, but when the lows of losing and the highs of winning become addictive, it takes a severe toll on your life and your family.

You’re unable to stop even when you don’t want to gamble anymore. You lose thousands within minutes and rack up debt you have no way to pay. The euphoric rush is like the “high” an addict feels when they take cocaine or alcohol and you crave it continuously. When you lose, you try to fix the resulting low mood with a stake and the inability to stop is known as problem gambling.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, problem gambling is an impulse control disorder caused by thinking obsessively about gambling. Warning signs of gambling addiction include loss of control over the amount you wager in a session, giving up your favourite hobbies to gamble and applying for multiple credit cards to finance your gambling habits.

Internet Addiction: Internet addiction is not an official diagnosis, but it shares characteristics with other behavioural disorders. It is described as a poorly-controlled obsession, behaviour and urges regarding internet access and computer use that negatively affects your life or leads to distress. Behavioural scientists classify it as an impulse control disorder where you use social media and online activities to create a fantasy world, escape reality and substitute real-life connections with people online.

If your work revolves around the internet, it doesn’t mean you have an addiction. It is an addiction when your online activities affect your regular life. Associated activities include social networking, inappropriate internet pornography use, blogging, email, chatting and online shopping. It is how you use the internet, not particularly the amount of time spent online.

One study suggests that internet addiction is caused by structural changes in the brain’s prefrontal region which affects your ability to prioritise correctly, making the internet the most significant aspect of your life.

Symptoms of Sex and Love Addiction

Symptoms of Shopping Addiction

Symptoms of Exercise Addiction

Symptoms of Gaming Addiction

Symptoms of Food Addiction

Symptoms of Gambling Addiction

Why Makes Process Addictions Serious?

to spending your monthly income on gambling, withdrawing your children’s education funds, stealing from the workplace and racking up humongous debt to fund your gambling lifestyle.

The most dangerous aspect of behavioural addiction is that it’s easy to deny you have a problem, especially when it is generally accepted as a normal action. Someone with an exercise addiction might rationalise that exercise is good for the body, sex is healthy, food is required for sustenance, video games are fun, and the internet is for research.

Just like drug and alcohol disorders, these addictions take but never give in return. At the height of addiction, feelings of worthlessness, guilt and shame could send you spiralling down into depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation as a way out. Each process addiction starts with pleasure but, once it takes hold of you, it becomes harder to derive pleasure from the activity.

How Do Process Addictions Affect Teens?

Many parents are aware of the dangers of alcohol and drug addiction. They know the signs and take the necessary precautions to keep their teens out of trouble. However, most are unaware of the increasing dangers of behavioural addictions that wreak just as much havoc as any substance abuse. They are as legitimate as any physical addiction and require the same level of intensive treatment.

Over time, these compulsive behaviours could become toxic, affecting the quality of their life, relationships, school work and emotional wellbeing. Process addictions common to teens include internet addiction, gambling addiction, gaming disorder, sex addiction and shopping addiction. A teenager who is addicted to shopping will rack up a huge credit card bill that could take years to pay off. Someone who is addicted to sex is at the risk of teenage pregnancy and contracting a sexually transmitted disease.

Internet addiction is particularly prevalent among teenagers. Studies have shown that roughly 18% of teens are addicted to the internet. It affects their academic performance, ability to complete chores at home, leads them to isolate themselves from loved ones, lose track of time and become addicted to the pleasure of being online.

Process Addiction & Substance Abuse

Behavioural scientists believe that all entities and actions that could stimulate a person can also lead to addiction. Any habit that becomes something you can’t stop doing could be described as an addiction. Behavioural addictions such as internet addiction are similar to opioid addiction except that, in the case of internet addiction, you’re addicted to the feeling produced by the action. When you quit the action, you might experience the same consequences a person who is addicted to alcohol goes through, such as depression and insomnia.

Stanton Peele was the first to suggest that addictions could exist without a psychotropic drug. In his view, an addict is dependent on the experience the substance produces and the reaction to the substance is only one example. Other researchers posit that core indicators of process addiction are just like a chemical addiction, emphasising that it impacts social relationships, work performance and general life.

People suffering from a behavioural addiction often combine their processes with a substance abuse disorder. Gamblers are presented with alcohol to keep themselves “entertained”, cocaine and performance drugs are described by many porn stars as the true “heroes” of their videos, gamers are shown alcohol and energy drinks all the time during advertisements during streams and special broadcasts.

Process Addiction Treatment

Treatment is similar to other addictions, but it presents its own challenges, such as the impracticality of life-long abstinence from the behaviour especially when it involves food, the internet, computers or shopping. In these cases, treatment is designed to address the specific situations that triggered the compulsive behaviour and develop a unique plan for avoiding them or engaging in them without abuse.

Process addiction usually exists with a co-occurring disorder, so it is important to seek treatment at a facility that treats dual diagnosis patients. A holistic treatment aimed at changing all aspects of your life instead of targeting just the addictive behaviour will yield the best results. It also helps to prevent cross addiction where you switch one addiction for another and reduce the occurrence of a relapse.

Diagnosis and evaluation

It is very difficult to diagnose a process addiction because there is no presence of a psychotropic substance in the body or resulting effect on the brain. Until recently, not much research was conducted and there isn’t a lot of data for a consistent diagnosis and evaluation of behavioural addiction.

Shopping addiction: Survey on Compensatory and Addictive Shopping Behaviour, Compulsive Buying Scale and the Minnesota Impulsive Disorder Interview.

Exercise addiction: Commitment to Running Scale, Exercise Dependence Questionnaire and the Bodybuilding Dependency Scale

Gaming addiction: Problem Video Game Playing Scale, Internet Addiction Test and the Game Addiction Scale

Detox

Unlike the plan for substance abuse or a physical addiction, a behavioural addiction doesn’t require a detox because withdrawal symptoms are mostly psychological. Individuals who are in treatment use the “cold turkey” method to break their dependence to a process addiction. The hardest part is getting them to admit they have a problem and need professional guidance to overcome their addiction.

Medication may be helpful in treating some addictions such as naltrexone for online sex addiction, sleeping aids to help with insomnia and antidepressants for those who are going through withdrawal.

Family support

The family is an integral part of any addiction treatment. Addiction is a “family disease” because it leaves a mark on your loved ones. For treatment to be comprehensive, family members partake in the recovery journey and engage in family therapy sessions designed to help the unit learn how to provide support for the addict.

Individual therapy: Cognitive behavioural therapy to identify the underlying thoughts, beliefs and feelings that perpetuate addictive behaviours and develop effective strategies to change them for positive behaviours.

Dialectical behavioural therapy for patients who have complex needs or who have a hard time controlling their actions and feelings (especially those who are suicidal).

Motivational interviewing meets you where you are. It is a non-judgemental approach that helps you find inward motivation for treatment. It is useful for those who are apathetic to treatment in the early days of recovery.

Alternative therapies: This includes prayer, meditation, nature retreats, art therapy, yoga, exercise, nutrition therapy, animal therapy, psychodrama, journaling and a range of holistic therapies that help you find new ways to cope with stressors and triggers.

Group therapy: Group therapy is a great place to connect with peers who are struggling with a similar problem. It feels good knowing that someone else understands you and it’s a source of moral support and motivation. You learn from the shared experiences of others as well as enjoy a safe space to discuss your issues.

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