Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Substance Abuse

Substance abuse refers to excessive intake of a substance which is hazardous to health but it becomes a habit for a person to take it regularly which he finds unable to reduce or cease. It can be called as an addiction. Teenagers are the most affected category of substance abuse.
The reasons for the substance abuse differ according to different persons. Many times it is just peer pressure which makes teens start substance abuse. Some times there are emotional reasons such as feeling of being neglected, not being loved and cared, improper parenting, depression, poverty, stress in family etc. because of which person indulge in the substance abuse.

Apart from this, the person finds the substance abuse as an easy way to escape from stress. He feels this might make him feel happy and peaceful and relieve stress. Many a times there are no reasons for substance abuse, it is just curiosity which makes the person to start substance abuse.
Cognitive behavioral therapy helps the patients to come out of the substance abuse and modify their thinking, attitude and behavior. It also increases their life skills to lead a healthy and happy life. The recent research shows that this therapy actually works and helps the substance abused patients to come out of their abuse. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is based on a combination of Behavioral Theory and the Cognitive Theory. The Cognitive theory assumes that most of the psychological problems derive from a wrong thinking process, the therapy focuses on the thoughts, beliefs, attributions and attitudes that influence one’s feelings. The Behavioral theory assumes that substance abuse disorders are developed through the general principles of learning and reinforcement. As per this theory, changes in one’s behavior come through the learning of new behaviors.

At last, it can be concluded that the CBT approach is not only successful but rather superior to that of other approaches to deal substance abuse disorder. The comparative studies also indicated that, in most of the cases, the cognitive behavioral therapy is preferred over other therapies. The skills of this therapy can be used for a long time. This therapy is normally used to treat mental illness like depression, phobia and anxiety disorders.