Treating Addiction With Neurofeedback Part 1

If you have personally struggled with addiction or know someone who has, then you understand that the journey to recovery is often long and emotional. Many people who struggle with addiction have tried the typical treatment programs to find that they just don’t work for them. Here at NeuraPerformance Brain Center, we want to offer you another type of solution through neurofeedback therapy, but before we can tell you all about how neurofeedback can help with the treatment of addiction, let’s define addiction itself.

What is Addiction Not?

Before we define addiction, we want to take the time to explain what it is not. Many people have distorted views of addiction, especially with regards to addicts themselves. Many commonly held misconceptions include the following:

• All substance users are addicted.
• Addicts can stop using whenever they want.
• It’s not addiction if the medication is prescribed.
• Addicts cannot function, go to work, etc.
• Addiction indicates a lack of morals.
• It is easy to identify an addict.

What is Addiction?

Now that we have a better idea of what addiction is not, let’s talk about what it is. Addiction is a disease, often chronic, that affects the brain’s neurotransmission, reward, and motivational structures such that addictive behaviors begin to supersede behaviors related to self care, characterized by a lack of behavior control, an inability to abstain, etc. In other words, the cravings an addict experiences are caused by actual changes to the brain.

Doesn’t it stand to reason, then, that we could use the brain in order to treat addiction?

This is where neurofeedback comes in! Read part two on this topic to learn how neurofeedback can help you on your journey to addiction recovery. Have questions about neurofeedback or one of our other technologies? Get in touch with us via our online contact form.