Addiction

I personally differentiate between addiction and dependence, especially physical dependence as it is generally known in connection with smoking, various drugs and the use of psychotropic medications. Dependence arises as a consequence of addiction but not the other way round. Addiction therefore exists before dependence. It is a compensation mechanism and serves as an escape from reality. At least that is how I perceive it in myself and the people I deal with. To get rid of an addiction, you have to find out what you are running away from. It is a purely psychological problem that I would like to focus on here. The physical dependency must be looked at separately. That would go beyond the scope of this article. However, I can say from experience that it is much easier to tackle the dependency, psychologically and physically, if you have first resolved the addiction. If you don't remove the cause, the person concerned will simply switch to another addictive substance or relapse.

Addictive behaviour can be described as anything that harms you personally, you know that it harms you, but you do it anyway impulsively over a longer period of time. Such behaviour also tends to become more and more extreme over time. Ultimately, it leads to self-destruction. Widespread forms include drug and medication abuse, alcoholism, cigarette addiction, gambling addiction, sex addiction, workaholism, internet addiction and many more. It is usually the social life and the wallet that suffer most from addictions. Friendships and families fall apart, you drive yourself to financial ruin, etc. Although you do realise the effects yourself, you can't stop. Your self-confidence naturally suffers as a result and you may take refuge in addiction even more because you can no longer stand yourself.

The cause can often be found in childhood experiences. These can sometimes be seemingly mundane things such as having been rejected by classmates at a game. This can lead to the destruction on ones self-esteem and the unresolved pain later being drowned with alcohol. Alcohol and tobacco consumption often go hand in hand, as tobacco has the ability to mask underlying emotions and keep them in the background. Smoking numbs us. As a result, we no longer feel our emotions as clearly as without. As the experiences can have happened a long time ago, we may have no idea what could be causing these subliminal emotions. As men in particular are taught during childhood that they have to be strong, they don't want to show any weakness later on, which effectively prevents them from coming to terms with the situation.

If you are personally affected by addiction, try to observe yourself and pay attention to the topics that come up in conversations when you are indulging in your addiction. This is always a good indicator. If you can't remember because you were perhaps too drunk, ask someone who spent that time with you. Alcohol has the ability to temporarily tear down the walls around our hearts, allowing hidden emotions to come to light. We then have no choice but to talk about it. People who experienced this moment with you may still remember. Don't be ashamed of it, instead use the opportunity to your advantage. If you are lucky, you will also have found someone to talk to who can help you process your hidden emotions. The most important thing is that we talk about it. This allows the emotions to come out and lose their negative effect. Once something has been consciously expressed, you can no longer hide it. This opens the path to healing.

Processing happens by reliving the hidden emotions. It may hurt, but afterwards it's over. Psychologists are trained for this process and can help you. However, their options may be limited. Depending on how deep the emotions are buried in the subconscious, special techniques may be needed to get to them. Meditation could be a possibility that you can use for this. That way you do everything yourself. Hypnosis and kinesiology offer methods with which you can penetrate the depths of the subconscious under the guidance of a therapist. This should be easier for most people. Whichever technique you use, the main thing is to bring the emotions that are causing the addictive behaviour out into the open and deal with them. The desire to escape from reality disappears all by itself once the emotions have been dealt with. There is then nothing left to run away from.

Further Reading

Dr. Gabor Maté has done extremely valuable work in this field. I can wholeheartedly recommend both his books and the many videos that can be found on the internet. On his website he maintains a large library on this topic.