Overcoming Addiction: Reclaiming Your Self Control

Understanding addiction and how to overcome it

What’s your drug?

Everyone has one. The thing or experience that creates that high. The thing that, once you’re exposed to it, you have to keep your dopamine response in check - lest you become addicted.

Perhaps you’re already addicted to one or more things.

Mind you, it doesn’t have to be a fully-fledged heroin addiction. That’s what most people picture when we say the hallowed words of ‘addiction’.

It’s very possible to become addicted to anything. Even something you believe is intrinsically good for you, can quickly turn sour when you become an addict. Food, sex, exercise, social media - all things that can be good, but quickly go bad when over-consumed.

It is possible to have too much of a good thing - Aesop

We live in a world which facilitates overconsumption and addiction. Organisations and individuals alike are invested in your addictions. Now, I’m not the biggest conspiracy theorist, but that’s just the way capitalism works.

Fast food chains require your excess consumption of nutritionally-poor foods to survive. Fast fashion relies on your addiction to the latest trends to turn over billions of dollars every year. The porn industry thrives on your addiction to masturbation and, in some cases, sexual violence, to keep the industry going for decades.

That’s just the way the world works.

It’s easy to feel as though you can’t control your addictions. It’s easy to feel as though you are a slave to your gratifications - even though, in the long term, it’s killing you from the inside.

I want to give you a little hope. There is a silver lining and there is light at the end of the tunnel. Whether you are dealing with your addictions in public or in private, it’s possible to regain the control over your urges that you once had.

So, let’s get into it.

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Summary of Key Points:

• Understanding human addiction

• Why must we master our addictions?

• How to overcome addiction

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Understanding Human Addiction

The word addiction is derived from a Latin term for “enslaved by” or “bound to”. Addiction is a state of mind that has existed as long as time itself. In a former article around Habit Formation, I discussed how the brain functions and forms responses to specific behaviour.

Healthy habits and behaviours can be semi-automated in response to specific triggers and patterns. However, addiction occurs by subverting the normal ways in which the brain registers pleasure and reward, corrupting natural neural pathways.

Once hijacked by the object or substance that creates a ‘high’ or dopamine response, your body and brain start to associate normalcy with this state. Hence, your body starts to trigger cravings for the dopamine hit.

Addiction has a powerful influence on the brain which operates in three main ways:

• Craving an object of addiction

• Losing control over the use of an object of addiction

• Continuing involvement with an object of addiction, despite unhealthy consequences

Before addictions were well studied, many thought that those who had addictions had a compromised moral character, or lack of willpower. Addictions were also associated merely with drugs and alcohol, as these were believed to be the only most powerful substances with the capacity to encourage addiction, due to the serious physical impacts they can have on the body.

However, more recent research has shown that pleasurable activities, particularly when enjoyed with no moderation, can become and addiction.

One of the most detrimental addictions I have personally struggled with, has been food. I love food - but in my early adolescent years, I was a victim of bullying for being obese. I turned to food as my source of comfort, leading to a pretty vicious cycle of self-indulgence, self-pity and self-loathing again and again.

It eventually led to a full-blown eating disorder, and took me many years to overcome. I still have urges and still have to check myself on my relationship with food, but I have definitely felt the detrimental effects that addiction can have on the mind, body and spirit.

Why Must We Master Our Addictions?

Alright, Renee, we get it. But do I really have to master my addiction?

Yes. You have to.

Life is extremely short, and one of the greatest gifts we’ve been given is our agency. We get to choose what we do, when we do it, and how we do it. Giving yourself over to an addiction means you lose that super power.

You become bound to something outside of yourself, and a slave to your urges. Addictions can consume your life, and make it very difficult for you continue the rich relationships you have around you.

Alcohol and drug addictions can fuel violent behaviours, as well as facilitate the breakdown of families and relationships. Pornography addictions can cause disregulation of libido, sexual dysfunction, emotional unavailability, and increase in developing a mental health disorders. Gambling and fraud addictions can put you in serious financial debt, legal danger and potentially danger, when borrowing money from criminal lenders.

Other more widespread addictions like social media addictions can decrease your mental health, worsen your eyesight, increase your levels of anxiety and risk of depression. Food addictions can cause obesity and increase your risk of heart disease. Exercise addiction can cause increased risk of injury, high cortisol levels and burnout.

Addictions have a lot of social, physical and psychological consequences. It’s about time you interrupted the cycle.

How to Overcome Addiction:

1. Find healthier coping mechanisms and rewards: Try to find other ways to ‘indulge’, or find other things to do to help distract yourself. You may take up a new hobby, try to learn a new skill, go out with friends or loved ones - it’s much harder to indulge in cravings when you’re not focused on them.

2. Increase friction between yourself and your drug: Whatever your particular drug may be, try to increase the friction between yourself and your substance. If it is a substance, object, food or thing, try to remove it from your house, or make it really difficult to access. This is a way you can discourage your brain from indulging, especially if it is more difficult to indulge in the first place.

3. Try Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): CBT is a form of therapy which involves reducing the symptoms of various mental health conditions. CBT teaches you coping skills and mechanisms to overcome addiction alongside a professional. It is always important to reach out to a professional, particularly when you feel as though other strategies may not be working on your own.

4. Invest in your spiritual wellbeing: I am personally a Christian. My relationship with, and faith in God, has created principles, boundaries and a higher sense of being which often overrides my desire to indulge in unregulated pleasure. The belief that my body is a temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20) and that God has given us the strength to overcome temptation (1 Corinthians 10:13) is my source of ongoing strength.

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I hope you enjoyed this week’s Optimise Me. I’ll see you again soon. Don’t forget to like or comment if anything here resonated with you - share with a friend too!

We’re overcoming our addictions this year.

With love,

-RK

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Extra Resources

Audio:

Visual

Reads

The Addiction Recovery Workbook - Paula Freedman