I was just reading a book, “Finding Your Sober Bubble” By Darren G. Taylor. He says in it that NLP helped him but he really did not go on to explain how, which got me wondering. Then I thought “I trained in NLP a few years ago, I feel there should be a load of stuff I can apply”.
In fact, I am a Master Practitioner and Coach Practitioner. NLP is a sort of short-cut discipline that pinches bits that seem to work from other disciplines and models them. I call it magpie psychology. It can sound rather pseudosciency, especially because of the terminology they use as their own, but I have certainly seen it successfully applied. For example, I cured my nearly life-long arachnophobia in about 15 minutes with time-line therapy. I went from running away in horror from big hairy house spiders to being able to pick them up. I moved and dialled down someone’s back pain so it was more bearable using Miltonian hypnosis (we deliberately did not try to eliminate pain completely, as it serves a purpose in letting you know when you are harming yourself).
So, while I have a think about how NLP may help us through recovery and come back to you with any ideas, do you have any experience of, or heard of, something from NLP that has been helpful for you?
Didn’t know what it was, so looked it up.
And yes, changing mindset is exactly what I have done. Just didn’t know it had a techy name.
I’d be careful with it, honestly. There are some things that are really hard to change about ourselves. I hope it works for you, but I always have found I can’t lie to myself or try to reinvent myself without going back to who I am over time. The real test is whether the changes you make using NLP last long term. Like I said, I hope it works, just remember that if it doesn’t it’s not that you did something wrong, it may be that changing ourselves is not as simple as a lot of self help books make it out to be.
Thanks for your input Steve,
I agree that some of what it has been used for, eg by Antony Rollins, is a bit false. It is constantly evolving and models best practice in areas like CBT, DBT and family practice. Where I trained there was a lot of emphasis to use it in discovering more about who we are and, by using something called the Metamodel, uncovering the lies we tell ourselves to form our beliefs (deletions, distortions and generalisations).
I am going to go back to it with fresh eyes, because when I did it I was definitely in denial about drinking. It was instrumental in stopping me smoking once and for all many years ago though. 
Sounds good man! Work it!!!