Behavioral Addictions Breaking Free with Compassionate, Comprehensive Care
Behavioral addictions, though often overlooked, can be as disruptive and consuming as substance use disorders. At Modern Mindwork, we treat a wide range of behavioral addictions, including compulsive internet use, excessive screen time, gambling, risky behaviors, sex and pornography addiction, over-exercising, and workaholism. These patterns can undermine your physical health, relationships, emotional regulation, and professional stability—but recovery is possible. Our integrative, trauma-informed approach addresses both the root causes and the compulsive behaviors themselves to restore balance and healing.
Understanding Behavioral Addictions
Behavioral addictions often start as coping mechanisms—ways to escape discomfort, avoid emotional pain, or generate temporary relief through dopamine-driven reward loops. Over time, these behaviors become compulsions, reinforced by neurobiological patterns and societal norms. We help you recognize these patterns, understand their emotional roots, and implement new ways of living that honor your well-being.
Types of Behavioral Addictions We Treat
Internet & Screen Addiction
Often disguised as productivity or ‘research,’ compulsive scrolling and screen time create mental fatigue, anxiety, and emotional disconnection. We address this through nervous system regulation, boundary setting, and behavioral rewiring.
Gambling & Risky Behaviors
Gambling and thrill-seeking behaviors stimulate powerful dopamine spikes, often masking underlying depression or trauma. We focus on harm-reduction strategies, emotional processing, and risk replacement tools.
Sex & Pornography Addiction
These compulsions often stem from attachment wounds or emotional regulation deficits. We approach these with zero shame and deep understanding, integrating therapy, trauma resolution, and healthy intimacy practices.
Exercise Addiction
Exercise addiction, or compulsive exercise, occurs when fitness dominates your life to the detriment of health, relationships, and mental well-being. You may feel anxious when not exercising, continue despite injuries, or prioritize workouts above all else. We use CBT, mindfulness, lifestyle coaching, and integrative therapies to restore balance and joy in movement.
Workaholism
Workaholism is driven by codependency, perfectionism, and chronic dysregulation of dopamine. You may feel unable to stop working, even when it causes exhaustion or relationship strain. We help rewire your reward system, challenge productivity-based self-worth, and develop new patterns of self-care and rest.
The Brain, Dopamine, and Behavioral Addictions
Behavioral addictions rely on distorted dopamine signaling, which causes us to chase compulsive behaviors while becoming numb to natural rewards. Over time, the brain requires more stimulation for less satisfaction. At Modern Mindwork, we address this through neurobiological reset strategies, trauma healing, and emotional reconnection.
Innovative Interventions: Ketamine & Integrative Care
Effective treatment for exercise addiction requires a holistic approach, integrating medical interventions, psychological therapy, and lifestyle adjustments. It includes addressing injuries and co-occurring mental health conditions. Psychological therapy may include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and mindfulness techniques. At Modern Mindwork, we specialize in ketamine infusion therapy and Integrative Therapy.
Innovative Treatments: Ketamine Therapies
Ketamine Infusion Therapy
Ketamine therapy offers rapid relief from the anxiety, depression, and emotional flatness that drive behavioral addictions. It interrupts compulsive loops, enhances neuroplasticity, and opens therapeutic space for reprocessing old wounds and resetting behavior.
Ketamine Assisted Therapy(KAP)
KAP pairs the neuroplastic and dissociative effects of ketamine with live therapeutic guidance, offering profound breakthroughs in self-awareness and emotional integration.
Integrative & Lifestyle Coaching
We support you in rebuilding your life from the ground up:
• Cultivating stress regulation practices not based on overwork or stimulation
• Restructuring routines and environments to support healing
• Relearning how to rest, play, and connect in meaningful ways
Codependence in Relationships and the Helping Professions
Codependence is a behavioral pattern rooted in chronic self-abandonment and emotional survival strategies. It often manifests in helping professionals—nurses, therapists, teachers, first responders—who feel compelled to meet others' needs at the expense of their own. In codependent dynamics, our sense of worth becomes tied to our ability to fix, save, or caretake others, while our own needs go unmet or unrecognized.
This dynamic is frequently exploited in work environments, especially within healthcare, education, and service-oriented fields. We are praised for being selfless while expected to burn ourselves out for the sake of the mission—or worse, for someone else’s profit margin. Employers may frame over-functioning as dedication, subtly (or not-so-subtly) asking us to light ourselves on fire so they can stay warm, meet quotas, or maximize revenue.
At Modern Mindwork, we recognize codependence not as a personality flaw, but as a trauma adaptation—often rooted in early experiences of conditional love, emotional neglect, or family dysfunction.
Our approach helps you:
• Reclaim your internal sense of worth separate from service or productivity
• Recognize when self-sacrifice is being glorified but not reciprocated
• Set healthy boundaries at work and in relationships
• Rebuild a nervous system that’s no longer addicted to overgiving or emotional chaos
Recovery from codependence is not about becoming cold or detached—it’s about becoming whole. With support, you can stay connected, compassionate, and effective in your work without draining your life force to do it.
About the Author
Joanna Starratt, MSN, CRNA, PMHNP-BC, ARNP
Joanna is a dual board-certified Nurse Practitioner in Anesthesia and Psychiatry. Her clinical focus includes ketamine infusion services, addiction and recovery care, neurodivergent support, and trauma-informed mental health care.
[Learn more about her approach to care →](https://modernmindwork.com/about)
Client Testimonials
I finally have found a real, long lasting reprieve from my depression. Ketamine therapy worked very fast and amazingly well
Joanna is warm and professional. She took her time and explained the process thoroughly.
Chronic depression almost killed me. Ketamine allows me to feel normally, sometimes happy, sometimes sad.