All physical addictions begin from an unmet childhood or young adult need. Often, the need stems from the lack of love perceived by the parents to the child from past emotional memories, causing us to feel unworthy and especially unloved.
We often reward ourselves with things that are not very good for us. A friend recently told me she only had one vice: she rewards herself by smoking cigarettes. Drinking diet soft drinks or having the occasional smoke may not seem like a big deal, but addictive behaviors often lead to more serious destructive life patterns.
What Are Addictions?
What do you crave the most in life? What do you honestly believe you can’t live without? Is it sugar, food, cigarettes, marijuana, exercise, sports, the internet, alcohol, or sex? Whatever your answer, you are part of the growing population of individuals who experience addictions.
The truth is, all addictions give us some type of pleasure, otherwise, we wouldn’t do them. It’s the dopamine high that we get addicted to. People under ongoing severe stress have a challenging time downgrading from the dopamine high and creating addictive personalities.
The term addiction describes a recurring compulsion to engage in some specific activity despite harmful consequences to health, mental state, or social life. There are biological or emotional factors that contribute to addictions.
Stanton Peele, Ph.D. states, “Addiction is the thematic malady for our society and entails every type of psychological and societal problem.”
In the Buddhist tradition, addictions are seen as mental attachments. Attachments to fear, loss, longing, or even a lack of purpose. It doesn’t matter if we choose alcohol, drugs, sex, food, pornography, exercise, or even shopping, you are trying to fill an empty space and dampen emotional pain. The important part of the addiction or compulsion is not about the desire to drink, do drugs or spend money. Instead, these addictions reflect an emotional need to fill an empty space within us and calm the pain of a past memory.
How Addictions Work
The addictive behavior appears as an “emotional need” and ends up as a replacement for something else. Food becomes a replacement for love or appreciation. Obsessing over things or details becomes a replacement for self-confidence. The addictive behavior offers a sense of power that can’t be found elsewhere. Compulsive, obsessive behaviors and even co-dependency are other forms of emotional addictions. These emotional addictions are connected to areas where we feel out of control.
Take drugs as an example. We get addicted to the euphoric sensations they provide. Suddenly, we start believing that being under the influence allows us to really “feel” and gives us a sense of grandeur that we otherwise would not experience. However, the drugs aren’t doing anything but changing the dopamine levels in the brain.
When we complain about not having enough money, for example, we get something from complaining. It makes us feel important, and we get attention from the complaining, which again raises the dopamine levels in the brain.
Transferring Addictions
Transferring addictions is a common occurrence. Instead of healing the emotional patterning associated with the addiction, we transfer the physical addiction to something else. This is often seen with alcohol addiction. If we are addicted to alcohol and stop the addiction, yet do not heal the emotional needs behind the addiction, people often transfer the addictive bad habits to something else, such as smoking. To heal, you want to change the emotional interactions associated with the addictive behavior and unwind the original patterns.
Changing Addictions
Addictions change once you have the courage to look deeply at what is programmed within you. To make a permanent change, you must look at what lies underneath the first emotional hurt associated with any physical addiction.
Where is the emotional behavioral starting point? Let’s take a look at cigarette smoking. In order to get to the core of the addictive behavior, you want to locate the initial feeling and/or the emotional scenario associated with the outward action of the addiction. To get there, ask, “What made me take that first inhale?” or “What was going on in my life? At what age did this occur? Were there family arguments? Were parents breaking up?”
Go Deeper
Enhance the process by going deeper by asking other questions like, “How do I feel when I smoke, take drugs, etc.?” Do you feel empowered, happy and content? Or do you feel weak, depressed, sad, unworthy and unloved? Be honest and describe your feelings.
Current personal situations are gateways to go deeper into the underlying feelings at the onset of a physical addiction. Often, addictions stem from needing love or attention from a mom or dad. Earlier life experiences set up the framework for adult lives.
Whatever the feeling is, it’s okay. This is the place to be 100 percent honest with yourself. There is no need to cast another judgment upon your feelings or qualify interactions between you and your parents. This is how the emotional energy got stuck in the first place.
Healing addictions is a deep exploration into your own self. Of course, stopping the physical actions of the addiction might seem easy, but it’s the subconscious mental patterns that run the show today.