Are addictions inevitable at some point in our lives?

Are addictions inevitable at some point in our lives?

What’s really going on when we talk about addictions? Where do they come from?

Addictive personalities and addictions are rooted in trauma.

What is an addiction? An addiction is classified as anything that you continuously do that stops a bad feeling and causes a good feeling.?

Let me add to that.

An addiction is classified as anything that you continuously do that stops a bad feeling and causes a good feeling (consciously and/or subconsciously) that also harms you and, more than often, directly or indirectly, others around you.

When we satisfy an addiction, we experience the release of the feel-good chemical dopamine, resulting in a "high" similar to that induced by drugs or other substances with addictive qualities.

Addictions can take many forms, but they all have the same mode of operation.

Your brain craves more and more, and as long as you continue to excessively binge, shop, drink, have sex, gamble, take part in high-adrenaline sports, text, shoplift etc… your brain will continue to produce dopamine.

Dopamine also relates to great things such as love and desire. So your body can’t necessarily tell whether the dopamine being released is for a good reason or a not-so-good reason.

A dopamine release feels good for a moment. It can even give you feeling grounded, belonging and bonding.

And then you want more.

Because you don’t want to feel bad again or that ‘something is missing’. Dopamine’s playground is the limbic part of the brain, specifically the nucleus accumbens. This is our primal, or primitive “old”, centre of the brain. It is responsible for keeping us alive.?

Therefore, dopamine is released in the part of the brain that takes care of our survival. I am no doctor, so please do not quote me, but the bottom line is that we always come back to the same thing: we are primitively programmed to survive.

There is a natural human need to survive, to move from pain to pleasure, and addictions are a temporary fix and an emotional hook that some of us succumb to in order to get through difficult emotions such as stress and sadness.

The addictions often offer great comfort at the time but mean that that emotional hook overcomes all logic.?

At the simplest level, we are humans and want to feel good and loved. Addictions, therefore, are disguised ways that let us know that we are not feeling good or feeling loved. We are hurting somewhere. And we’re hurting pretty bad.

Addictions are not diseases embedded in your genes and a sign of the weak. Addictions are a symptom of emotional pain.Those are fatalistic approaches to the pain of the human condition. Whilst it is a long journey for some, being able to address the root cause of the trauma, the sense of constantly lacking can be addressed.?

I really encourage you to listen to Dr Gabor Maté’s explaining the gap in our understanding of addictions in the medical world.

So, do we all have addictions at some point in our lives? In one way or another, we got hooked onto something to soothe the pain. I hope this raises more awareness for yourself and also a better understanding of addictions.

Whilst I do not specialise in addictions, Rapid Transformational Therapy has been showing some great results lately. However, I help my clients with their eating habits and excessive behaviours. I shall share the results of RTT enabling people to quit smoking soon! In the meantime, remember you may be coming for this, but in truth, I am going to help you release what hurts, and that is going to have a snowball effect in many parts of your life.