Imagine that you are taking a puff of a cigarette, a slug of whiskey, a snort of cocaine, a shot of heroin, or a toke of marijuana. Put aside first whether the drugs are legal or not. For now, just concentrate on the chemistry.
The moment you take that puff, that slug, that snort, that shot, that toke, trillions of potent molecules rush through your bloodstream before finally reaching your brain. Once they settle there, these molecules will set off a cascade of electrical and chemical events, a type of neurological chain reaction that will ricochet around your skull and rearrange your mind’s interior reality. And before you know it, you are addicted.
Everyone in this world has his or her own addictions. Too much of something is bad enough and when your addictions go overboard, you should know that it is time for you to stop them before they gain full control of your system, before you reach that point of no return.
Addiction Basics
Addictions are things that you need to deal with right away or else you will end up being eaten by your bad habits, and when you want to get out of their stronghold, you can no longer do anything because it is already too late.
For you to effectively stop your addictions, the most important thing that you have to do before anything else is to learn what addiction really is. By doing this, it will be easier for you to determine if what you are experiencing right now is truly an addiction or just a simple inclination to do things.
A Short introduction to addiction
By definition, addiction is a kind of condition that takes place when a person ingests a certain substance (e.g. cocaine, alcohol, nicotine) or engages in a particular activity (e.g. shopping, gambling, sex) that can give pleasure but the continued use or act of which can become compulsive and interfere with one’s ordinary responsibilities in life, such as health, work or relationships.
Users are usually not aware that their behavior is out of control and is starting to cause problems, not only for themselves but also for the people around them. There are different types of addictions; one of them is described as physical addiction. It refers to the biological state wherein the body adapts to the presence of a drug to point that the drug no longer gives the same effect, a situation referred to as tolerance.
Due to tolerance, the biological reaction of withdrawal can take place when the drug has been discontinued. Another form of physical condition is where the brain overreacts to drugs or cues related to drugs. For example, an alcoholic that walks into a bar will feel a strong pull to get a drink due to such cues. But in most cases, the addictive behavior does not have any relation to exposure to cues or physical tolerance.
There are some people who feel the compulsion to shop, gamble or use drugs as their reaction to their emotional stress, whether they have a physical condition or not. Because these kinds of psychologically based addictions are not based on brain or drug effects, people often switch their addictive actions from a certain drug to an entirely different one, or even to a non-drug behavior.
Here, the addiction’s focus does not matter; it is the need to do something under some form of stress. To treat this kind of condition, it is important to understand how it works psychologically. When referring to any form of addiction, it is essential to understand that its cause might not necessarily be for the sake of searching for pleasure and that is addicted to something has nothing to do with a person’s strength of character or morality.
Acknowledge the addiction
To finish something, you need to start with it first. The same principle applies to stopping your addictions. You can never expect to go to sleep at night and wake up the next morning with your system completely washed off your addictions when you did not do anything about it.
The first and undoubtedly most important step for curbing your addictions is to acknowledge their existence. When you accept the fact that you have an addiction, it will be much easier for you to continue on with your journey to finally set yourself free.
Acknowledging your addictions – your initial step to recovery
As the old saying goes, even the longest journey starts with only a single step. The road to stopping your addictions also starts with one important step. But in the case of addiction, this is not just any step because the truth is; it is the hardest step that you might ever have to take in your life.
It is a step that everyone with an addiction should take if they are truly determined to overcome their bad habits. When you acknowledge your addiction, it means that you accept that it has become a part of your life, a part of who you are.
When you have acknowledged it and you were able to face up to this difficult fact, then it is the time that you can finally start taking control, not only of your addiction but of your life as a whole. It is pretty much setting the ground rules for the upcoming battles. It is that line in the sand that marks out the start of a brand new life for you and your whole family.
Acknowledging your addiction is all about genuinely admitting to yourself, in the deepest parts of your heart, that you actually have an addiction, not just a simple problem, a serious problem that you can control if you put your mind to it. You need to face the fact, no matter how difficult or hurtful it might be, that you have a real addiction.
Of course, doing this is and will never be easy but the moment you are able to do that and you finally acknowledge it for what it really is, you will be able to own it as a part of yourself and a part of who you are. However, it does not mean that you have to blame or hate yourself for it. It only means that you have finally decided to stop denying the reality and the excuses or justifications that are normally associated with addiction.
Excerpted from the book Stop Addictive Habits.
This excerpt has been edited and condensed for clarity.
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