Process Addiction Treatment for Women at Hannah’s House

Philosophy

Compulsive behavioral health problems such as compulsive shopping, gambling, and sexual addiction can be hard to stop without professional therapy and intervention. Conditions like these that co-occur with substance use disorders are known as process and behavioral addictions.

What is a Process Addiction?

Women may believe their wellbeing and happiness depend on specific activities and outcomes. As you build up a tolerance to risk, you may decide to gamble more in hopes of a bigger payoff. Or you may be unable to resist ordering despite mounting credit card debt. The adrenalin rush as packages arrive feels powerful and triggers the desire for more.

Why Process Addictions Are Hard to Resist

Also known as a behavioral addiction, a process addiction is when a person becomes dependent on an activity or a person. As with substance use or alcohol addictions, a person struggling with a process addiction exhibits withdrawal symptoms when they can’t do the activity in question or be with the person they are addicted to.

Common Process Addictions

At Hannah’s House, we specialize in helping patients uncover root issues and recover from process addictions that may go unnoticed or be unknowingly encouraged by friends, family, and co-workers.

Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Patients obsessed with physical perfection may go to extreme means to look a certain way. In this process addiction, you may focus on tanning your skin or have multiple plastic surgeries to fit a perceived physical ideal or change something to match other people’s appearance in your social circle.

Exercise Addiction

Women who take exercising too seriously or to the level where they work out, despite injury and exhaustion, may have an addiction. Rather than rest, these women push their bodies to extremes.

Work Addiction

When a woman’s desire for approval and recognition gets out of control, her health can suffer. Society often encourages workaholism, and individuals may justify their compulsive drive.

Shopping Addiction

Shopping and spending money regardless of having tremendous debt or small finances can be a powerful and seductive process addiction, especially if you purchase more than what you need daily.

Love and Relationship Addiction

Women who jump from one relationship to another or have multiple romantic partners are destructive to everyone, including themselves. These patterns have nothing to do with love.

Smartphone Addiction

Feeling anxious if not holding your phone or constantly checking your smart devices may be a sign of trouble. Loved ones may point out that you are ignoring them in place of the internet.

Social Media Addiction

Compulsively posting photos on social media rather than engaging with people in real life can be an addiction. Continually scrolling through profiles and comparing your life (and likes) to curated ideals can become an unhealthy obsession.

Gambling Addiction

When women risk something of value like their retirement savings or assets for the thrill of the casino or racetrack, the habit may be unstoppable without help and may turn into a process addiction.

Cyber Addiction and Video/Internet Gaming Addiction

Playing video games online or alone for hours rather than engaging socially with real people indicates a compulsion. If your hygiene and sleep patterns are suffering, you may need help.

Self-Harm Addiction

When women experience an inability to feel emotions, they may turn to compulsive actions of physical self-harm like cutting their skin. Numbing emotional pain with physical harm is dangerous.

Treating Process Addictions

When women cannot engage in their process addiction of choice, they experience emotional and physical withdrawal. Process addictions can be challenging, but recovery is possible. We address the shame and get to core issues.

At Hannah’s House, our treatment methods include:

  • Psychological testing
  • Individual psychotherapy
  • Advanced trauma therapies
  • Psychopharmacology
  • Group counseling
  • Support groups
  • 12-Step programming and fellowships

Women Do Recover

Hannah’s House recognizes that recovery from process addictions and substance use disorders is possible. Call today at 561.841.1272.