During the years I am alive, I’ve seen many people, from highly successful to extremely unsuccessful, who have difficult time getting rid of addictions.
Every person is addicted to something, it doesn’t necessarily has to be cigarettes or alcohol, whose connotation is traditionally associated with the word addiction. It can be just as innocent as a small cup of coffee, going to the gym daily, or even reading the newspaper each morning.
It doesn’t have to be something harmful, either. I know the connotation of addiction is more often than not a bad one since it’s usually associated with dangerous things, but addiction is just a word to describe a person who is “physically and/or mentally dependent on a particular substance, and unable to stop taking it without incurring adverse effects.”
We are all addicted to food and sex, which is natural and make total sense from an evolutionary standpoint.
The problem, though, arises when we become addicted to unnatural things that might damage us over the long-term, or even short-term.
The simple mechanism of addiction works like this:
The addictive substance creates the problem that then it pretends to solve.
I’ve come across this idea several times in my life, but it was strengthened in my mind when I saw it on a blog post of Victor Pride from Bold&Determined. He discussed the nature of addiction and it really all came up to this very specific sentence.
I’ll rewrite it – “The addictive substance creates the problem that then it pretends to solve.”
When you understand that, you have two choices:
- Continue to intensify/feed the problem by continuing to consume the addictive substance
- Eliminate the problem from occurring in the first place, suffer temporarily from withdrawal effects and eventually lose the dependency on the substance – in other words – successfully overcome the addiction
Nothing’s better than an example.
Let’s take a cigarette – if you don’t smoke – ask yourself why?
The answer will be – You have NOT allowed it.
Now take another addiction you have, for example, sugar, if you consume sugar ask yourself why?
The answer will be – You allowed it.
So it really all can be summarized by whether or not you allow a particular addiction get into your life, whether or not you allow some substance interfere with your well being, whether or not you allow something to make you dependent and preventing you from being free.
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Until next time,
– Gal
