just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town

Recently, plonkee had an interesting post on addiction, which had me thinking about our successes and failures in breaking addictions. I have a very intense personality, coupled with an upbringing that placed a high price on failure; in short, two key factors that readily lead to obsession, and further down the road to addiction. But, those are also two elements that help with breaking addictions… if done properly. I thought I’d share some thoughts and hints on how to break an addiction. I’m not a mental health professional, but I do have direct experience in this matter!

There are two types of addiction: physical and psychological/emotional. They aren’t actually as separate as we think, but for the purposes of treatment, they are often considered as different entities. In general, the physical addiction is easier to treat than the psychological, because we have tangible evidence of the way physical addiction works. We can also “see” how the addictive substances can be cleared from the system. Psychological addiction, on the other, works in the murky areas of the brain, in complicated ways we haven’t yet begun to understand. Unfortunately, in most cases, psychological addiction is the bigger and deeper problem to be addressed. There are various ways to do so, some more successful than others. But ultimately, what works for one person won’t work for another, so often times, we have to try different strategies to hit upon the key one.

1. Replacement. Aka, the patch. Addiction is difficult to beat cold turkey, and with some types of addiction (ie, food and spending), cold turkey is actually just as bad because you’re only swinging from one extreme to another. Thus, in order to ensure a longer-term effect, baby steps are often easier and more effective. The idea is simple, replace the bad habit with a lesser bad habit, and then proceed to replace that with a good habit. The downside is that oftentimes you’re only replacing one addiction for another. A good example of this is found in food behavior - when trying to break the soda addiction, many people switch to juice, and then to water. Often, they find themselves obsessing over the amount of liquid they ingest, which defeats the purpose.
2. Aversion. Aka, the rubber band or the pinch. One of the reasons why an addiction is had to break is because we’ve associated good feelings with the item - the “high”. The idea behind this method is to begin to associate bad feelings (generally, pain) with the addiction. One simple technique is to pinch yourself or snap a rubber band every time you engage in (or even think about) the habit you are trying to eliminate. After some time, you’ll begin to dread the action you are trying to avoid. Of course, you’re also going to be uncomfortable for a while, but no pain, no gain, right?
3. Cognitive Behavior Therapy. Aka, rational thought. Now you start to address the root causes of the addiction, as opposed to the superficial elements. Addiction works like a false reward system, making you feel better when you’re feeling bad. CBT enables you to swap out the negative thoughts/emotions for more positive ones, so that you don’t have to resort to the addictive substance or habit.
4. Mindfulness. This is, I think, the best way to address the issue. My yoga teacher calls it “the nonjudging mind”; in the yogic tradition, it’s also referred to as the Witness. Part of the addiction cycle is punishment - when we feel down or bad, we resort to the action that makes us feel better temporarily. When we come off that high, we castigate ourselves for not being successful in resisting temptation, and fall into the vicious cycle again. The Witness is that part of us that watches what we do and think, labels those actions and thoughts, and lets go of any attachment to them. We do not judge what we’ve done, only observed its pathway so we can find ways to break the cycle. I’ll discuss this one a bit further in a future post.

Addiction comes in various forms; sometimes we don’t even recognize it. There are many other methods that people have tried successfully, and I’ve enough bad habits that I am sure there will others I’ll try at some point too. I’d love to hear other suggestions for what works (and doesn’t).