Virtual EMDR Result
Getting sober with Virtual EMDR
07 Feb 2017
I never thought I could be happy, I had so many problems for so long that I thought I’d never crawl out of this hole in the ground.
I came from a pretty rough childhood. It was routine to watch my mother do drugs with her boyfriend or to be sexually inappropriate and incestuous right in front of me.
She would also go to extremes, most of which consisted of her ignoring me, but when she did pay attention it was to scream at me at the top of her lungs and tell me that I was a f*#@ing pig. Something that no 9 year old needs to be hearing from their parents.
I remember sitting alone in the back of the car while she “ran inside real quick,” something that I now know was her going into her dealer’s house to buy meth and cocaine.
The first time I encountered EMDR therapy, it was in person with a therapist guiding me through my sessions. I was going to 12-step AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meetings at the time and even though I was not getting sober, I had met some pretty incredible people many of whom are still my friends now.
During AA meetings, I started to hear people share about their childhood and the word “trauma” came up when people talked about some of the violence and abuse they had been through.
After our meetings, we would sometimes go out for a slice of pizza which was the first time I ever remember someone mentioning EMDR Therapy and talking about what it was.
I got on Google and found an EMDR therapist right in the city, made an appointment, and started down this road.
The EMDR worked great. It was an amazing transformation. I had found peace with my abusive childhood. The problem was that I was still drinking like a fish.
At my lowest point in my drinking career, I woke up in a park downtown. My wallet was gone as were my shoes. I had a black eye, but no idea what had happened.
I renewed my efforts at getting cleaned up. I joined a therapy group, which is just a bunch of people talking about their life problems.
I also started working with the Virtual EMDR Addiction program.
I had an edge over most other people who would use the Virtual EMDR program because I was not totally new to EMDR and I knew, at least a little bit, what kind of things I would need to do for a session.
I knew the basics so there wasn’t much of a process to teach myself the online EMDR program steps.
It was more-or-less the same stuff that I did in the in-person sessions, I was just doing it on my own.
It worked pretty great. I did sessions at least a handful of times every week. And if I had a really tough craving, I would do a session right away to shut down the desire.
I would still think about a Jack Daniels and Coke strong and on ice. Or I would think about a frosty can of beer.
But the memories just didn’t have the same kind of pull. And it was this that allowed me to get some distance from acting out with alcohol.
The more time passed with me not drinking, the easier and easier it became.
Somehow the EMDR has made this desire smaller, and the allure of drinking has little power.
I am able to stay sober and I feel confident that I won’t need to go back to the bottom of a bottle (which is a pretty horrible placed to spend your life).
I think it’s important to note that even though the online EMDR shut off my desire to get drunk, for me the group therapy has also been essential.
It has been a corner stone of me understanding who I am, what motivates me, and how to leave the past behind forever.
I think if I had instead chosen to just do the Virtual EMDR for Addiction program by itself, I would have stopped drinking but I would still be walking around angry and hating myself. It was important to work all that stuff out too.
Shelly, Ontario, Canada
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Hi Shelly, Thanks for sharing your story of getting sober with us. We are glad that the Virtual EMDR Addiction program played a part in your recovery, and wish you all the best as you continue on your journey of healing.
A Certified EMDR therapist could have helped you target that Self-Hate and get to its core, which you already mentioned in your childhood history, it seems odd that you would have gotten so much from in person EMDR—then only processed one target your addiction memories—then stopped there. Any EMDR therapist worth their salt (like I said a Certified EMDR therapist) wouldn’t have stopped at your present triggers only.