Alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, gambling, food, sex, internet, games, shopping … Addiction has many faces, but one thing in common – their victims do not want to admit that they have a problem for a long time. See how to find out if you are addicted to addiction and where to seek help.
This is the truth about addiction that only addicts know. It’s not about alcohol, pipes, or those unfortunate pornographic films at all. Addiction begins with emptiness. From a void that acts like a powerful, invisible vacuum cleaner, trying to fill its sack with garbage for a while. The vacuum created by this void is like a black hole – it sucks everything up. First, your attention.
Addiction begins when you can’t concentrate on anything until your hunger is satisfied.
And it doesn’t matter whether you can satisfy him with vodka, a cigarette or with the hope of winning the whole pot. The important thing is that you can’t do anything constructive without a moment’s saturation.
Of course, as soon as you know the situation, you try to ignore the choke. But it is difficult. The eyes direct themselves towards the jacket in which you left the cigarettes, or the fingers themselves press the mouse button when the cursor hovers over the Firefox icon by accident. You try not to think about what you want so badly, but it’s impossible. With the ease of a science fiction writer, you make up an excuse to put on that jacket and go out, or to check the weather for tomorrow on the internet. You know this is self-deception, so you end up thinking to yourself – too bad! – and you stop fooling yourself.
Do you struggle with addiction? Find professional help at Alina Lodge Rehab Center in NJ
When you finally reach for this forbidden fruit, you are blessed with euphoria and peace. For a short or long time, depending on the type of addiction, you are able to focus on something else. You can study, work, you can even listen to what your girlfriend has to say. However, this moment of saturation only lasts until your thoughts start to steer themselves, completely without your will, towards what is to fill you. Concentration drops and your entire horizon fills you with your dark object of desire.
The worst part is that the addiction interferes not only with work but also with pleasure. Ask a heavy smoker why he doesn’t like going to the movies and you will learn that two hours without a smoke is definitely too long. Smokers prefer to watch movies at home with an ashtray at hand, rather than at the cinema. This is one of the most characteristic elements of an addiction: Your addiction becomes more important than anything else. You are able to argue with your loved one when he tries to talk to you while you are playing Tetris.
The addiction dictatorship
One of the most understandable for laymen definitions of the concept of addiction says that addiction is “an acquired strong need, of the nature of compulsion, to constantly perform an activity or take a substance”. The key words here are “coercive”. Because this is the essence of addiction: addiction takes away your freedom to choose.
He is like a dictator who says what you are allowed and what is not. And although you think for a long time that you have things under control, that whether you smoke or not depends on your will, and that you can quit at any time, even from tomorrow, … tomorrow, almost never from today. Only when you realize that it is no longer your choice, that something decides for you – you can start the tedious process of recovering from addiction.
Great Escape
Think about what your addiction is, what you are addicted to. First of all, get rid of the imposing path of associations: addict – alcohol – drunk – dirty bum. Yes, that unpleasant smelling man on the bus is probably really addicted to alcohol, but wait … Do you think he was born this way? If you had seen him 10, 20 years ago, you might have seen a promising biology student or a happy young dad playing with a baby on a swing.
If you – going back in time like the young Michael J. Fox in Back to the Future – could then ask them if they were addicted, they probably would have gouted more or less the same as you did today when you read the question what are you addicted to. It is possible that a few years ago the 243,000 people who, according to the report of the State Agency for Solving Alcohol Problems in 2010, were treated in various types of drug Drug and Alcohol Detox , would have sworn the same.
Seek help
If you feel you have lost your control of your addiction, you can seek help from one of addiction treatment centers. Many work in psychiatric wards, but there are also many private centers scattered across the country where you can get help both on an outpatient and inpatient basis.
On site, you are provided with the help of psychotherapists, doctors and other addicts. The most popular addiction therapy method is based on the 12-step method developed by Alcoholics Anonymous. It is about gradually regaining control over your life. However, psychotherapy is not the only way out of addiction.