The document discusses behavioral and chemical addictions, highlighting similarities and differences between the two. It provides accounts from several individuals who have struggled with addiction and are now in recovery. Key points made include: both behavioral and chemical addictions involve compulsive repetition despite negative consequences and progression over time; behavioral addictions are often hidden; addiction can stem from childhood trauma, genetic predispositions, or environmental factors; and recovery requires willingness, humility, surrender, support systems, and ongoing personal growth.

1. Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
Program Transcript
DAVID COOK: I'm David Cook, and I've been in the mental
health field for over
25 years. And many of these years have been spent as a
substance abuse
counselor and working with people with behavioral and

2. chemical addictions.
People can become addicted to chemicals as well as behaviors.
Any chemical
that has the ability to alter the mood or any behavior that has
the ability to alter
the mood or is sensationalistic is potentially addictive.
Although chemical and behavioral addiction share many of the
same signs and
symptoms, there are also distinct differences between the two.
Two similarities
between chemical and behavioral addictions are that they both
involve the
compulsive repetition, in spite of negative consequences. And
they both
progressively worsen unless treated.
An important difference between the two, and a distinction that
should always be
realized, is that behavioral addictions are often hidden
addictions. There are no
urinalysises or drug screenings for compulsive gambling. Or
you can't smell
pornography on someone's breath. So consequently, because
behavioral
addictions are often hidden, the signs and symptoms continue
along their
destructive pathways undetected much longer than chemical
addictions.
When working with people with chemical and behavioral
addictions, the
addictions counselor will find that addicts have many barriers
along their road to
recovery.

3. NICOLE: My name is Nicole. I'm 38 years old, and May 30 I
will have five years
in recovery.
RICKY: My name is Ricky. I'm 52 years old. I've been in
recovery for 10 years.
GRETCHEN: My name is Gretchen. I'm 44, and I've been in
recovery for about
three years.
JASON: My name is Jason. I'm 32, and I've been in recovery for
five months.
ODESSA: My name is Odessa. I am 47 years old, and I have
been in recovery
for six years.
SHANE: My name is Shane. I am 39 years old, and I have 11
years clean.
NICOLE: My addiction began when I was a child, always
feeling different from
everybody else. I was ADHD, always bouncing off the walls.
And that's when I
first got my first experience with pills. And I remember that
chemical feeling of
feeling relaxed, and I liked it. And throughout my adolescence,
I experimented
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4. Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
with marijuana, pills, alcohol, whatever-- just whatever I could
get my hands on,
really.
I had a schedule where I would drink at noon, and then I would
drink at 2:00. I
had this whole schedule. It was really silly when I look back on
it now. But it's
funny how you have this whole mindset, and you can trick
yourself. And your
thinking and addiction is absolutely crazy.
And how you just convince yourself and can hide it from your
family. And you go
to different liquor stores so they don't know, and your friends

5. don't know and
don't tell your family and stuff like that. To go to great lengths
to hide it.
RICKY: Coming from a farm and everything with nothing to do,
and basically I
wanted to be in the in crowd. And the way you could get into
the in crowd, you
had to be cool. You had to do things. You had to basically do
drugs.
I came to enjoy the alcohol. Because my father, he really was an
alcoholic. My
daddy, when I finished high school, he passed away. So that left
me, the oldest
son, on the farm. So I had to drop everything. I had to become a
man, really a
man. Literally, a man at 18.
So there was a lot of pressure. There was a lot of
disappointments. And the only
way I could cover that up was by drinking and abusing drugs
more and more.
'Cause I thought that was it. There's no way out of this little
two-people town with
nothing but basically alcoholics. And this was where I was
going to end up at,
and this where I was going to die at.
GRETCHEN: My addictions are prescription pain pills and
alcohol. And I started
on Ritalin when I was in third grade. My whole childhood was
based in chaos,
because I'm a survivor of childhood sexual trauma. And my
parents were addicts,

6. and my parents always used around me. Their friends always
used around me.
I grew up thinking that was normal. I grew up thinking chaos
was normal and
negative-type behaviors. And so as I grew into an adult, that's
all I knew.
My mother's had breast cancer, and my mother has other health
issues. And
she's addicted to her pain pills, to the point that she's lost time.
And I kind of lost
time with her. I lost 2 and 1/2 months.
But she talked to me about it. And she would sit there, and she
would take her
pain pills like candy. I would try and reach out to her for help.
And she would just
say, go get a bottle, or go get me a beer, or go get this. And she
would take
those pain pills with that alcohol.
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7. Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
And I would sit there. I wanted her to be there for me just once.
And I would sit
there, and I would do it with her. But when you sit there, and
you watch your
mother do that and not help you and not support you and not
listen to you.
And the whole time I was there, I was telling her I needed to get
help. I needed
help. I need counseling. I needed treatment. I needed something.
And I mean, she would just nod in and out. This went on for 2
and 1/2 months.
She still there doing it. I'm not.
In the worst stage of my addiction, I just kind of went off the
deep end with it all. I
just realized that I couldn't handle it anymore, and I didn't know
how to fix it. So I
just self-medicated and drank and drank and drank and took
pills and drank. And
some things happened that just caused me to realize that I was
going to die if I
didn't reach for help.

8. JASON: I was hooked when I was 14. I snuck into a casino with
a fake ID at 14
and won $1,000 playing blackjack. And then, it was like my
whole life went this
way. It was like, all right, college, that all can wait. 'Cause
there's no way I can
make this much money. So it was just off to the races from then.
I can remember one time, I cashed out my 401(k), took out like
$30,000, went
straight to the casino. Doubled that, and didn't leave, and then
lost $40,000. So I
think I got the same feeling losing or winning, as long as I was
gambling. It didn't
matter. It's the same. It's the rush.
I'd lost my job, because obviously I wasn't showing up for
work. I would go to the
casino. And of course, they'd give me a room for a week or two
weeks, whatever
I wanted. And I would stay there, literally.
And I just wouldn't go to work. And of course, no employer's
going to put up with
that. And I stayed there and gambled and gambled and gambled.
And I had
pretty much just lost everything. And I knew it was time to do
something.
ODESSA: Addiction started for me at an early age, probably
around 8 years old,
9 years old. My grandparents made homemade wine, and I
would taste it. So
that's where I think it actually started for me. It started with
alcohol, marijuana,

9. and cocaine, and then later, crack cocaine.
For most of my 20s and 30s, I was an active addict. I could stop
for many years
and then start back. But every time I would start back, the
addiction would get
worse and worse.
Once I got to a point in my life where things were falling totally
apart-- foreclosure
on homes, repo of vehicles, family dynamic totally destroyed,
living on the
streets, prostituting, doing whatever I had to do to get drugs--
that's when I
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10. Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
realized I needed help. I needed to go somewhere and get away.
Yes, that's
when I realized.
SHANE: I started using at about the age of 12. I started using
marijuana first. My
life kind of twisted and turned. I used a variety of substance
through high school.
But I found my drug of choice right out of high school, which
was
methamphetamine.
When I found my drug of choice, nothing else really mattered to
me. It was just
the getting and using and finding ways and means to get more.
So through that
period of life, I got married a couple times. But one thing was
clear is I stayed
married to methamphetamine. I didn't have the ability to get
away from it. It
became a normal part of life for me.
And I called myself being a functioning addict, because I had
the ability to go to
work. I had the ability to be an energetic father. And all these
lies I kept telling
myself, because I was able to function in everyday society. It
had become such a
part of my life that I couldn't live without it.

11. So that addiction cost me two marriages. It almost cost me my
family. And it
pretty much destroyed my relationship with my kids.
I guess some of the first events that happened to me that
allowed me to begin to
open my eyes, first of all, was a suicide attempt. I had a pistol
in the truck, and I
couldn't pull the trigger. I had it to the roof of my mouth. And I
had that blink of
something's wrong, and I need help. I can't do this on my own.
And I want to die.
I just couldn't do it.
The second glimmer was I had gotten arrested. And I can
remember laying there
in that jail cell and looking up at that ceiling, being on suicide
watch in a paper
suit, not really thinking the substance was a problem, but
thinking that something
was a problem. I am not meant to be in this cell. Something's
wrong, and I need
to get some help.
DAVID COOK: Recovery never comes quickly and easily. It
requires a great deal
of willingness to take responsibility for one's own addiction and
to do anything
necessary to stop. The addictions counselor should pay
particular attention to the
similarities and the differences between chemical and
behavioral addictions, as
well as the signs and symptoms of these addictions and the
consequences of
these addictions. They should also pay particular attention to
the hurdles that

12. these individuals face in their addictions and how they
overcame these hurdles or
how they continue to overcome these hurdles.
NICOLE: And so, I got through the afternoon by the grace of
my higher power
somehow. And I was throwing up. I was so sick. And I was like,
no, I'm not gonna
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13. Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
go. Yes, I'm gonna go. No, I'm not gonna go. And finally, I
went. And I will never
forget that day.
And I walked in, and it was full of people. And I was so scared.
When they did the
readings at the meeting, I was like, it just got chills. And I knew
I was home. And
I've been in Narcotics Anonymous ever since.
Someone described it best-- and I'll never forget it, in one of the
early meetings I
went to-- is to make a cake, you have to have all the
ingredients. And if you leave
out one of those ingredients, the cake's not going to turn out. So
to prevent
relapse, you have to have all the ingredients, which is have a
sponsor, go to
meetings, and work the steps with your sponsor.
An addiction counselor helped me and pushed me to go back to
school and back
to college. I had never finished and graduated with a degree.
And I went back for
social work, and I ended up graduating with honors.
RICKY: I had to realize that this might be my last chance. And
when I realized
that, I began to come open mind to suggestions. Because I
wasn't living. I was
trying to survive. I wasn't living.
I had to come out of that denial. And start to-- like I said, I'm
just now growing up.

14. In recovery 10 years, I'm just now growing up. I think the
biggest part was denial.
That was the first process, coming out of denial.
I'm an alcohol and drug counselor, a recovering addict. Man, it
feels good to
know that you're helping others in the same predicament that
you were once in.
As long as I help that one person-- all them peoples I dealt with
that day, and I
know I got that one person. I got one somebody that day, that
does a lot for me.
GRETCHEN: I would not suggest to anybody to do it the way I
did it. I would
suggest someone maybe in my position to get medical detox,
which I didn't do. It
could have killed me. And I wouldn't suggest the way that I did
it to anybody.
But I detoxed at home. I was very violently ill. And I just kept
telling myself, God
doesn't want me to forget what this feels like. He doesn't want
me to forget this
time.
I went to NA and AA meetings twice a week too. And the
people at my church
and the people in my meetings, they helped me. They helped me
through it. They
helped to me understand that I was going to be all right and that
even though it
didn't seem like that there was gonna be a better day, there was.
And I just reached out to every resource I could find to get
information on why I

15. might be doing the things I was doing or feeling the way I was
feeling and what to
do about it. And I'm still doing that. And I'm not gonna stop.
©2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 5
Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
JASON: The first 30 days, 35 days or so, it was like extensive
group therapy
every morning of the week, where you get in groups with a
bunch of people,
maybe 10, 15 people, with my addiction. We'd talk about it, talk

16. about what we're
going through and what's on our minds. Just whatever. Just be
open. And then
you have these classes that you deal with about the addiction.
And then, of course, the meetings at night, 12-step meetings.
And then after that,
after the 35 days, another 60 days of the same thing, but a little
bit more
freedom. Not so intense, but staying around people in recovery
and not just
going back out there to where I came from, which would be my
old job and old
friends and all that.
I've been in treatment four times. And I've always gone back,
gotten out, and
gone back to where I came from. And it does help to kind of
relocate and then be
around people that are trying to do what you're doing, for sure.
Because every
time I would go back to that old environment, of course, I'm
with my old friends.
They don't have that problem, but they're going to do it. And
then here you are,
getting dragged back into it.
Number one would be to continue to go to meetings and stay
involved in the 12-
step program that I'm in and to talk to my sponsor and to
continue working steps,
and to eventually be a sponsor for other people, and just to let
this life become
my life. Because it has to be, for me, everything about how I
live and what I do.

17. ODESSA: I had to relapse several times to understand that I
couldn't do this by
myself. I couldn't beat this thing. The first step, I had to admit
that I was an
addict. For years, I didn't want to accept that, because I had
been so productive
for so long.
And the second thing was for me to be able to surrender to
something. It's hard
to surrender to something that you don't know anything about.
To be able to trust
someone in recovery was like foreign land to me.
But that was the second step was a big step for me, to be able to
surrender to
the suggestion of others. And to become open minded. To see
other people
that's gone on before me and to see the evidence that had been
proven by them.
For so many years, I only believed in me and what I was
capable of doing. But no
man's an island. And I've learned that. And reaching out to
others and working in
a 12-step program and being held accountable has made my life
successful.
Matter of fact, all the years that I thought I was productive, I
wasn't at peace.
Today, I'm at peace.
SHANE: One of the counselors had a mirror in his office. And
he said, go look in
that mirror. And I walked into that mirror. And he said, now
look straight in the

18. ©2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 6
Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
eyes of the person that's looking at you in that mirror and say, if
that's not the
problem, there is no solution. 'Cause I can't change anything
else but that.
And that scared me. It scared me, because I was the one
destroying everybody
around me, including myself. It's like I was OK with dying. I

19. was afraid of living.
And boy, that just impacted so much in my life. It's one of the
things that still
draws me to recovery today. I want to tear up thinking about it
right now, because
it's one of the powerful things that keeps me going. And that
addictions counselor
doesn't know how much he's helped me.
DAVID COOK: Someone with a chemical addiction can also
have an unidentified
behavioral addiction, or vice versa. It's not uncommon for this
to happen. It's
what is known as cross-addiction. When someone stops one
addiction-- say,
cocaine addiction-- and replaces it with a behavioral addition,
like gambling, this
is cross-addiction. Addictions counselors should keep in mind
that there are
similarities and differences in chemical and behavioral
addictions.
Behavioral and Chemical Addiction
Additional Content Attribution
Music:
Creative Support Services
Los Angeles, CA
Dimension Sound Effects Library
Newnan, GA
Narrator Tracks Music Library
Stevens Point, WI

20. Signature Music, Inc
Chesterton, IN
Studio Cutz Music Library
Carrollton, TX
Special Thanks:
Fairland Center/Region One Mental Health
©2014 Laureate Education, Inc. 7