How to Break an Addiction

Are you tired of being addicted to painkillers or tranquillizers and don’t know how to stop? Are you in denial and tell yourself you can stop if you want to but still have not. If you are getting weary of being a slave to your addictions, ask yourself the following:

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Do you spend a large amount of time and energy thinking about your addiction?
   
   -If you are thinking about when you can take another pill, you have an addiction problem.
   
   -My experience is that when there is a pain management issue, the medication controls the pain but you do not get high. If you are getting high from your pain medication, you are taking to much and will most probably get addicted.

2. Do you realize the psychological addiction is harder to break than the physical addiction?
   
   -There is nothing more difficult to break than a psychological addiction.
   
   -I have known people who are medically detoxed (in the hospital) and still cannot beak their addiction even though they are no longer physically addicted.
   
   -And that’s because a psychological addiction is hard-wired to your feelings, which are very powerful.

3. Are you willing to get professional help? If you could stop yourself, you would do that.
   
   -Addictions have nothing to do with smarts. I have known people with extremely high IQ’s get very addicted to many things.
   
   -You cannot break an addiction by thinking your way through it.

4. Can you feel? You must feel to break an addiction.
   
   -In order to heal, you must feel.
   
   -Addictions keep us anesthetized from feeling.
   
   -You take your substance of choice until you are numb (from feeling) - that is the underlying dynamic of an addiction.
   
   -Unless you are willing to bear the anxiety that comes right before feeling the feeling you are afraid to feel, you can never break an addiction.

Resources

• Chandra's Blog "Chandra UnPlugged - No Nonsense, Straight-Up Blogging from a Life Coach"
• Chandra's Homepage "Coaching for Authenticity"
• Chandra's FREE Daily Email "Cutting Through to THE REAL TRUTH"
• Chandra’s books and CDs

[soanyway]

on 8/10/2009 So true...and so hard for many! I just don't understand it much, if ever I was addicted and knew I was out of control I just quit and never looked back. I wonder how it is ok for me and so devastating for others? My best friend is a recovering addict and she still suffers! It must be a brain chemical or something. Thanks for the article!