Indeed, Acupuncture has been utilized successfully in the treatment of many addictive behaviors, including smoking.
It is the goal of Chinese medicine to assess and treat the WHOLE person, including spiritual, mental, and physical factors. Therefore, it is common to observe many emotional benefits in most patients following acupuncture treatment.
In our experience, conditions such as food addiction, sugar craving, obsessive compulsive behavior, alcoholism, and chemical addictions (nicotine, prescription drugs, and street drugs, to mention a few) respond favorably to the soothing, balancing, healing bio-energetic and neuro-physiological effects of acupuncture. Other neuro-psychological conditions, such as insomnia, anxiety, depression, irritability, mood swings, migraine headaches, tension headaches, mental "fog," and loss of concentration, attention span, or focus, may all benefit from acupuncture as well. It is important to remember that specific chemical imbalances, such as vitamin deficiency or trace mineral shortage, or metabolic toxicity, can play an important role in the development of these conditions. Further, many addictive disorders may contribute directly to a state of deficiency or toxicity, thereby compounding and complicating the problem.
It is therefore important to assess the individual's nutritional status, toxic exposure and accumulation of organic and inorganic toxins. At Integrated HealthCare Clinics, Inc., we thoroughly evaluate our patients to assist them in balancing their body's chemistry, in conjunction with expert acupuncture therapy provided by experienced certified acupuncturists. This combined therapeutic approach, integrating Eastern and Western modalities, will maximize your healing potential and lead to the most desirable outcome.
To further improve your long term success, there may be a need to address deeper psychological aspects of addictive behavior and emotional dependencies. This may be accomplished by using advanced EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing), a revolutionary technique practiced by a few specially-trained licensed psychologists. This is a new service we have recently added to improve the outcome of many of our other therapies and modalities.