Common Themes in Addictions

It doesn’t matter if the addiction is to substances, gambling, alcohol, shopping or sex. All those with an addiction share things in common:

1. Strong feelings: Everyone has a wide range of feelings that can be positive or negative. However, people who lead with their feelings often end up living in the ditch! Over the years, I have found that many of my clients who suffer from addiction report that their anxiety motivates them to resort to unhealthy coping strategies. Your uncontrollable feelings often play a key role in your addiction pattern.

2. Lack of skills – Those who don’t know how to deal with their feelings in a healthy way look for alternative methods. For example, someone who has relationship problems and a low self-image might be a likely candidate for becoming a workaholic. They can become very valuable in the workplace and learn specific job skills, but they don’t solve their other personal problems.

3. Facilitators: Most people with addictions can name the person who first introduced them to the substance or activity that led to their addiction. They also often have people in their lives who have contributed to or allowed the addiction to continue their inappropriate behaviors.

4. Fantasy and Cravings: When a person is obsessively thinking about addiction and has cravings to use, their focus is not available for their responsibilities.

5. Detachment – Sometimes it can seem like the addict has two people living inside. There is the public person who presents himself well and the private person who is involved in a secretive lifestyle. In many cases, the person has been able to separate one from the other and sometimes doesn’t even remember doing specific things because they have become so good at separating the two. This is common with a number of problem areas, such as eating disorders and sexual addictions.

6. Tolerance: Over time, it will be necessary to increase the amount or strength of a substance or activity that is needed to produce a high to get the same effect. Those who start out looking at pornography, for example, may increasingly require more frequent or more powerful images. Some may progress through chat lines and affairs, start hiring prostitutes, or add violence to their sexual experiences.

7. Withdrawal – Heartbreak can occur when the addiction is not fed. A person may feel frustrated, angry, or unable to function when they abstain. Withdrawal can be physiological and/or psychological in nature.

8. Consequences: People with addictions often also experience relationship problems, financial and job problems, legal encounters, declining health, shame, and self-loathing. Over time, their lives can become unmanageable.

9. Defense Mechanisms – Denial, projection, blame, repression, rationalization, intellectualization, minimization, deviance, and manipulation are some of the ways in which a person avoids facing reality and receiving treatment.

10. Temptations – A person who is addicted has formed a life that promotes addiction. Your friends, activities, schedules, and habits revolve around the addiction. He/she can easily get a short term “fix” as that has been her pattern. Therefore, recovery involves taking one day at a time, knowing that it will be difficult to commit to change for the long term.

11. Opportunities for change – No matter where you go in the world, there are supports and resources to help the person who is addicted. But that person has to be ready and willing to change. Alcoholics Anonymous, group therapy, public agencies, and private therapists are just a phone call away. Employers offer employee assistant programs and insurance companies generally recognize addiction as a medical condition that qualifies for disability benefits.

12. People who love them: If you are worried about someone who is involved in addiction, you need help. You can’t change another person but you can work on yourself. The best thing you can do today is book an appointment with an addiction psychologist so you can start working on your healthy future.