April 27, 2018


People who struggle with substances are typically intelligent people.  They invest in things that offer a benefit. So when taking substances, they experience a sense of pleasure, energy, calm or relief. On the other hand, the long term consequences can strip away quality of life and lead to horrible consequences. They know they need to stop, but often times can’t without help. To continue using, they masterfully manipulate, lie and steal to continue their habit.

How Addictions Start:

  • People unknowingly become addicted to an opiate as a result of an injury, surgery, or accident.
  • Teens often start experimenting with drugs during adolescence and continue the habit into adulthood.
  • When dealing with emotional pain, boredom, abuse, excessive work, fitting in, boredom or recreation.

The devastating effects of addiction have created greater awareness around drugs such as Methamphetamines, cocaine, crack cocaine, Ecstasy, and Xanax. Alcoholism is also a disease that we cannot ignore. People who struggle with addictions have lost jobs, marriages, custody of children and even end up in prison or dead.


How We Work With Addiction:

There are many factors and variables with any addiction that we consider when working with our clients.  We believe that addiction is often secondary to the problem.  Drugs and alcohol are simply a way to deal with the emotional pain.  There is often a history of trauma and abuse in the past which makes individuals more prone to use drugs or alcohol or both to manage the psychic pain. 

Depression, anxiety, OCD and ADHD are some of the underlying causes for addiction.  For instance, people with ADHD can be attracted to methamphetamines.  People prone to anxiety can abuse Xanax as a method to control panic attacks.  Individuals with depression are likely to use alcohol or opiates. 

ReVISION Counseling has a staff of specialists handpicked to help people work through addiction. Our therapists are not only registered with the Board of Behavioral Sciences in the state of California, but as mentioned earlier, have experience and success overcoming their own addictions. Due to the complicated nature of addiction, we believe it cannot be properly treated by just anyone.  We are here to help.  We understand that no one person has the same story.  We approach each case with the resolve to answer questions, counsel issues, and maintain sobriety. We want to help you create your own “extraordinary destiny”.