At all times, the life of people, and even more so of modern people, has been full of various activities and events. It contains activities, falling in love, work (interesting or not), creativity, delicious food, hobbies, sports, alcohol, cigarettes and other psychoactive substances. What am I talking about? But here’s what: all these “things” can bring pleasure, cause a certain uplift, change the perception of reality (!) They help to escape or hide from worries, and not notice the negative sides of life. However, what helps at some point can hinder and harm in another situation. The desire to get rid of negative experiences with the help of “doping”, to hide behind the saving shield of dubious pleasures, sometimes almost dissolving in them, leads away from solving pressing problems into the world of illusions. All of this, on the one hand, is a form of non-acceptance of reality, and on the other, a construction of existence and solving problems in the most ineffective way. However, the problems are not solved. On the contrary, there are more and more of them, and it is becoming more and more difficult to cope with them. It is much easier to forget yourself, to disconnect from problems with the help of alcohol and drugs or other methods. This is how addiction is formed. Dependency is when a person is painfully attached to something. And it could be anything or anyone: another person, alcohol and drugs, some activity special to a person (for example, gambling, shopping), a chemical substance or just food, a hobby. This “object” can completely absorb, become the meaning of life, everything can be built around it and everything can revolve around it. Separation from the object of dependence is painful. A dependent person is a slave to his addiction and at some point he understands that there is less joy than problems, but he is not able to give up that small amount of pleasure. Although in reality, he does not so much enjoy it as relieve internal discomfort. There are socially acceptable addictions: - workaholism, - extreme sports; Socially unacceptable: - alcoholism, - drug addiction, - gambling (gambling, including computer games), - unrequited love - also in this company. But while for society certain dependencies can play a positive or negative role, for the individual this phenomenon is ultimately invariably destructive. Codependency There are addicts and there are people who live next to him, despite all the difficulties of this life - these are codependents. In fact, they are also dependent, and the subject of their dependence is the dependent person himself. These are the same mothers, wives, husbands, sisters, brothers, grandmothers and other relatives. Living with an addict, a woman is in constant anxiety, tired of problems, despairing, and plunges into depression. She is characterized by a deep desire to care for someone, to feel needed, or she is driven by the fear of loneliness, and often both at the same time. In many families, women live with alcoholics from generation to generation. First, dad was an alcoholic, then her husband... The girl experiences dual feelings for her drinking father: love and hatred. She wants to cure and save him. But she fails. Then she chooses a drinking husband for herself in order to ultimately achieve her goal - to cure him. This idea also fails with her husband, and she takes it upon herself... to take care of her son. Such a woman does not know how to live with normal men - she needs to learn this for a long time. But she knows well how to build a relationship with a drunkard: how to reprimand, control, call a doctor, make sure she doesn’t drink... With him she feels “needed and important.” In addition, efforts to save the drinker allow her to forget about her problems - with health, appearance, etc. She does not suspect that she also needs treatment. She is directly dependent on...this alcoholic. He cannot live without vodka, and she cannot live without him. Exercise “Awareness of addiction/codependency” (for therapeutic groups) Exercise –10 min. - to work in pairs, and 20 min. for discussion. Instructions Performed in pairs. In this exercise, the first number in a pair informs the other about his dependence or codependency. What form of addiction he chooses to discuss is up to him and him alone. The speaker reveals the essence of this dependence in such detail that the partner understands what he is talking about. Next, the first number talks about the feelings associated with addiction. And he answers out loud the question he asked himself: what positive purpose does addiction serve? For example, gambling fills time, helps cope with boredom, loneliness... The partner listens, then repeats what he heard, asks clarifying questions. The first confirms the retelling and, if necessary, clarifies what was heard. The second describes the feelings that the story of addiction evoked in him. Discussion at will. Question to the addict: What do you now realize about the mechanism of your addiction, what feelings do you experience? Solving the problem A person who abuses or is unable to resist his passion does not see a problem in this and does not seek help. A heavy drinker, for example, does not feel remorse and does not even allow the thought of treatment. His surroundings, on the contrary, suffer and want to cure him. Namely, relatives bring an alcoholic to a psychotherapist and want the most severe methods - “to sew in a medicine or code it.” Some people say: “If he loses his temper, drinks, let him die.” Nothing less. An alcoholic does not consider himself sick and therefore does not undergo treatment, but his relatives are also confident that they are healthy, and only one drunkard is sick, and they try to force him to undergo treatment. At first glance, the situation is hopeless; it is impossible to help a person if he does not want it. You can't drag him into heaven by force. However, completely different possibilities open up when you manage to look at this problem as a disease of the whole family. That is why, with any addiction - be it drugs, alcohol or gambling - not only the “patient” himself needs therapy, but also his “healthy” relatives. Let's look at an example of analyzing the game "Alcoholic". It is truly a game because it represents interactions between people that are repeated in a certain way, during which the participants derive certain benefits for themselves. The alcoholic himself, in addition to the pleasure of drinking, gets rid of problems for a while, but the most important thing is that he subconsciously strives for mental suffering at the time of a hangover. These are reproaches from the persecutor and reproaches to oneself - “you see how weak and unhappy I am.” He plays the game "Let's see if you can stop me." His goal is self-flagellation. The Persecutor and the Rescuer often appear in one person - a wife, a mother. At the psychological level, this game is played by the Child of an alcoholic and the Parent of his wife, who takes the position “You should stop drinking, because you will ruin your health, ruin your destiny, etc.” Often the victim, i.e. a mother or wife plays a game with an alcoholic like “If it weren’t for you...” or “Look how I suffer because of you...”. Among other things, intimacy is avoided in such a family, the participants are busy fulfilling their mission, and life time is also filled. But it is important to understand why? The antithesis of the game is a complete rejection of one’s destructive roles of Rescuer and Persecutor. The alcoholic’s environment stops indulging him, takes the position of Adults, calling a spade a spade, overcoming the disease in a comprehensive manner. Under these conditions, an alcoholic must decide for himself what he will do with his life, enters into an agreement at the “Adult-Adult” level with a therapist, fulfills his obligations, working through his psychological problems and developing new models of behavior. Individual work on overcoming addiction Therapist to client: Place your addiction next to you on the chair. Talk to each other: find out what you have in common, what unites you, what is important and meaningful, what good things you can teach each other... When they talk,…