Addiction To Numbness
Addiction to numbness
It's a dangerous habit. One that may be difficult for you to break. One that could be destroying your life right now. A habit that leaves you feeling empty, bored and restless, not knowing what else to do with your life anymore. It is no surprise then, when one of these days you start to feel the need for more of this numbing sensation or some form of escape from reality-you might turn back towards drugs or other addictive behaviours as they offer an escape from the pain and emptiness in your life once again.
Do you feel completely alone, isolated and bored? If so, you might want to read this article carefully. It was written to help you get away from the vicious circle of addiction and turn your life around for good! This may be what's going on in your life: You have a serious addiction to distraction, entertainment or busy-ness. Instead of getting the real things you need in terms of love, security and intimacy from others in your life-you seek it through addictions.
In order to numb the pain of loneliness or insecurity-you fill yourself with distractions like television, junk food, shopping or gambling. In order to avoid loneliness and emotional pain, you can also get involved in compulsive working or over-working.
What many don't realize is that the things they do to manage their feelings of boredom or emotional pain can actually become addictive behaviour. Let's take a look at your behaviour: Do you use behaviours like watching TV, gambling, drinking, eating, shopping and other addictions to distract yourself from uncomfortable feelings inside? If so, you may be on a path towards addiction. Addiction is anything that we turn towards when we feel uncomfortable and want to escape those emotions.
What the addiction means is that we have turned to the addictive behaviour over and over again in order to numb the pain or discomfort of life. What this means is that your ability to cope with painful or uncomfortable feelings inside has diminished and you are now at risk of developing an addiction. You seem emotionally numb, bored, restless and falling apart inside.
In spite of it all-this article will try to show you that there IS hope for a life free from addiction! What we want for you is a clear understanding about:
The ingredients, symptoms and processes of addiction. The five stages of addiction – getting in touch with your addicted traits. What you can do to get free from this addiction.
First and foremost: You are NOT alone! There are many others like you who have the same patterns of behaviour that lead towards addiction. Many of us know how it feels inside when we feel lonely, bored or sad-we just don't know how to cope with those feelings any longer. We turn to our favourite addictions and behaviours in order to stop the pain inside-but these things cannot fill the emptiness inside because they never did.
We live in a society that promotes our addictions as a part of daily life. There are billboards everywhere, encouraging us to drink or smoke. Many of us have been told that we cannot cope without our favourite stimulant like coffee or tea. Thus addictions become normalised and acceptable as a social ritual in our society. We are not saying that your addiction is your fault-what we are saying is that you might have developed an addiction gradually through your patterns of behaviour and attitudes you adopted about life. We want to be clear about this because we want to help you understand what it is that you are dealing with.
What we want for you is a clear understanding about:
The ingredients, symptoms and processes of addiction. The five stages of addiction – getting in touch with your addicted traits. What you can do to get free from this addiction. By learning how your addictive traits develop and what they mean-you will be able to see that with the right understanding and some work, you can start to make different choices in your life and turn towards healthier behaviours that won't lead towards addictions.
The ingredients and symptoms of addiction:
Addictions are not just chemical substances (like drugs, alcohol or nicotine) that we abuse. They also include behaviours like gambling, shopping, eating, working and watching too much TV. The following are the main ingredients to look out for when figuring out if you have an addiction:
The more of these ingredients you have in your life-the more likely that your behaviour is becoming addictive. In addition to this, the following are some common symptoms of addiction:
You feel restless and bored when you can't do your addiction. You feel the need to focus intently on your addiction no matter what else is going on in your life. You feel that you need to use your addiction almost all the time in order to feel good. You have tried to stop using your addiction but you cannot stop.
Some people experience the following when they try to quit: They don't know what else to do with their life. They get a raging headache, get fat, become depressed and have difficulty sleeping. They cannot say no when friends or family offer them drugs or alcohol as an escape from life. They cannot cope with the pain of living without their addiction.
They experience a rollercoaster ride of feelings-a lot of ups and downs with their addiction. They have a history of failed attempts at quitting and relapses.
People use particular addictive behaviours to transiently escape or modulate negative emotions such as fear, anxiety, boredom or stress. Negative emotions are usually mild, but if not properly managed they can become more intense and unbearable (leading to dysphoria) — for example, an originally mild anger can be transformed into rage when a person is unable to "release" their angry feelings. This is why it's so important to learn healthy and effective emotion regulation strategies.
There are five stages of addiction:
The five stages of addiction shows the process that you go through when you become addicted. These stages are called the cycle of addiction and many people have gone through all or some of them.
Awareness of your addictive behaviours will give you a chance to stop these behaviours in their tracks. Once you are aware that you might have an addiction, you can start doing things to help yourself move towards being free from this disease.
Conclusion:
As we have shown you-there is hope for a life free from addiction. The responsibility of change lies on you. You need to start making different choices in your life and learn how to cope with difficult emotions and situations that create pain inside. This is important in order to live a free and healthy life. Take care, Clare Moore
Why are we writing this article? Addiction is an issue that affects many of us in our society today. Many people who develop addictions don't recognise it because they think they are a part of the problem.
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Addiction To Numbness