Addictions are many; and they range from drugs, alcohol, food and sex to behaviors such as control, shame, fear, jealousy, anger, etc… The program offers proven principles and tools for obtaining lasting personal and spiritual change. Many have been helped, and are continuing to be helped through the Genesis Process.

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SIMPLIFIED ADDICTIVE BRAIN OVERVIEW The limbic (addictive) part of the brain basically controls these areas; emotion, experiential learning, memory, dreaming, attention, pleasure, reward and arousal. It also controls the way we perceive emotional, motivational, sexual, and social behavior, including the formation of loving attachments. The limbic system not only controls the capacity to experience love and sorrow, but it governs and monitors our basic needs. This includes hunger and thirst, cravings for pleasure-inducing experiences such as drugs, food, sex and other real or imagined needs. Anything that has to do with survival (our ability to cope) can become an addiction.

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The Limbic System is what the Bible calls the heart If you want to change destructive behaviors and emotions you must change your Heart. The Limbic System (the heart) is negatively programmed through painful experiences with people we trusted, especially in our formative years. Not trusting or being able to bond with others leads to fear, anxiety, loneliness, isolation and self-gratification. Since the heart is negatively programmed through hurtful experiences with others, it must be healed through opposite experiences. When we can’t get our needs met from others we have to learn to self-gratify. Addiction is self-gratification. This is why recovery that heals what drives self-destructive behaviors is a process of learning to trust again. The process of trust that heals our hearts usually begins with God and then with people.

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Reward without work is neurochemically destructive. When we solve problems with chemicals we don’t learn anything. Our brain can become conditioned to be hyper-vigilant (super focused) on anything that can create a real or imagined feeling of well-being or safety (freedom from stress and fear). The bottom line is that addicts don’t chronically use to get high, they use to feel normal. Addiction is about feeling normal and being able to cope. When this survival part of the brain is damaged the ability to concentrate, handle stress, and experience reward and pleasure is diminished.

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People with limbic problems are at high risk to become addicted to anything that can help them to function, feel safe, normal or have a sense of pleasure. So anything that makes us feel safe and reduces stress, raises coping neurochemicals in the Limbic System, causing the brain to associate it with survival, or feeling normal. The limbic system can equate painful or fearful emotions with death (the ability to cope and survive) and create a focused attention (craving) for what we did in the past to feel ok again. Cravings can become difficult or impossible to say no to. This whole process is mostly subconscious which is why we can’t control addictive behaviors. The more the survival behavior is repeated, the more ingrained it becomes, resulting in a loss of control, thus an addiction. This is why we do the very thing we don’t want to do. Read Romans 7.

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The Limbic System has a memory system that records experiences that have to do with pleasure and reward and fear and pain. It sets up systems of thoughts, emotions and reactions to avoid what caused fear and pain in the past. It also sets up systems to repeat what reduced fear and pain and produce a feeling of pleasure. Fear and pain avoid it; pleasure and reward do it again. This is the cycle of the addictive brain. ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ One way this translates to treatment is that our Survival Brain will resist making changes associated with real or imagined fears, unless there is a measure of safety. Facing fears (conscious or unconscious) alone is not safe.

Wounds, addictions, relationship problems…

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If you are ready for change, Then you are ready for THE GENESIS PROCESS!

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One-on-One Genesis Counseling classes are available now!  Classes are limited and you must sign up for those sessions in advance, as well as purchase the book for $35. One-on-One Genesis Counseling is $60 week for 12 weeks.