Addictions

When is it a problem?

All of us over indulge once in a while. Most of us have had the experience of drinking too much, smoking too much weed, eating too much cake or ice cream, or purchasing too many things. These are mostly normal parts of the human experience. Most of us can look at an evening of drinking too much and reflect on that and then easily change that behaviour. Similarly with other things we can look at our behaviour and decide that we’re not going to do it again. Whether it’s spending too much money, drinking too much, eating too much or whatever. People who struggle with addictions however have a very difficult time dealing with this.

What is an addiction?  An addiction is a kind of behaviour that most people would say that they have little to no control over once they start. So for example an alcoholic is a person who once they ingest alcohol into their system there is a chemical reaction that occurs that can make it nearly impossible for them to stop using alcohol. This is the same for many other substances, including coffee, tobacco, cocaine, heroin, opioids, cannabis and others.  Some people are born with addictions and some people grow into addictive behaviours. Some people use a substance for many years but then suddenly cross an invisible line that makes it nearly impossible to stop using whatever it is. Sometimes we do things when we’re using that make us ashamed or feel guilty and it can be very hard to talk about some of those things. Sometimes we have to do things to obtain a substance that make us feel guilty or ashamed.

Besides substances other people can have addictions to behaviours like shopping, food and sex. Most people will ask well how can I be addicted to something that I need to survive? That’s a very good question and a very difficult one to answer. Most of all we have to be able to look at the roots of our behaviours and try to understand how and when they became compulsions. Most of our behaviours start out in an effort to make us feel good. Overtime the desire to feel good can start to override any other feeling. Sometimes the behaviour is to avoid bad feelings like sadness anger fear shame guilt and anxiety.

One of the biggest struggles that people with addictions struggle with is the feeling of shame and guilt. This is why treating addiction needs to be done an environment free from shame and guilt and most of all judgment.