I have an addiction

What’s happening

Addiction starts as a tool. It works. The work it does becomes essential. The essentiality becomes dependency. The dependency becomes the system that runs the day. By the time you can name it as addiction, the substance or behavior is doing something for you that nothing else has been doing, and stopping requires more than willpower because the function it serves is real.

Your addiction isn’t a moral failure. It’s a system that’s been working for you in ways you’ve stopped being able to operate without.

Which version of this is yours?

• I drink too much. And I’m not sure where the line is between “too much” and “alcoholic”. → I drink too much

• I’m an alcoholic. And the AA framework hasn’t been the right fit. → I’m an alcoholic

• I use cocaine. And the use is increasing in frequency. → I use cocaine

• I smoke weed every day. And I tell myself it’s not a problem. → I smoke weed every day

• I’m in recovery and white-knuckling it. Sober but not free. → I’m in recovery and white-knuckling it

• I’m addicted to porn. And the use has changed how I function elsewhere. → I’m addicted to porn

• I gamble online. Apps, sports betting, day trading as gambling. → I gamble online

Why standard addiction treatment hasn’t worked for everyone

The 12-step framework helps many people. It doesn’t help everyone. The willpower-and-abstinence model assumes the addict can hold abstinence with support. For people who use the substance to manage something the support doesn’t reach, abstinence becomes white-knuckling, and the white-knuckling has its own cost. The unaddressed function the substance was serving becomes the engine of the relapse.

You can’t outwillpower a system that’s been doing necessary work for you.

How we work with it

Strategic therapy treats the addiction as a system that’s been solving a real problem in a costly way. We name the function. We address it directly, in the room with you, with assignments you carry into the days between sessions. Your substance stops being necessary because the work it has been doing for you starts getting done somewhere it can actually hold.

Your addiction will quiet down because the function it has been serving will be served somewhere else.