Can You Overcome Your Addictive Behavior?

What is an Addictive Behavior?

Addictive behavior is a strong temptation to perform a particular activity in the wake of short-term rewards. It not only reduces your self-control but also increases your dependence on futile or meaningless activities (Grant, Potenza, Weinstein, & Gorelick, 2010). For example, high dependence on psychoactive drugs invites their repeated consumption by addicted people. The prolonged consumption of these drugs strengthens their addiction that eventually compromises the heuristic capacity of individuals. The addictive behaviors including kleptomania and pathological gambling potentially reduce cognition, decision-making, and thinking ability. The addictive behaviors including internet addiction, video game playing, computer-based engagement, excessive tanning, non-paraphilic hypersexuality/sexual addiction, skin picking, and compulsive buying challenge the rational approaches of people while increasing their impulsivity to many folds.   

What are the Commonly Reported Addictive Activities? 

The extended engagement in the following activities increases the risk of addictive behaviors (Deleuze et al., 2015). 

1. Engagement in online forums 
2. Excessive downloading and searching from the internet 
3. Pornography 
4. Chatting 
5. Social networking 
6. Online gaming 
7. Extended engagement in multiplayer games 
8. Engagement in slot machines 
9. Betting 
10. Playing of scratch cards 
11. Casio engagement 
12. Engagement in online poker 
13. Lottery-based activities 
14. The increased and frequent use of drugs including opium, amphetamine, hallucinogen, antidepressant, and cocaine 
15. Increased use of mobile phone 
16. Increased use of mobile apps 
17. Excessive eating or overeating 
18. Elevated engagement in sports 
19. Workaholism or compulsive working 
20. Increased shopping activities 
21. Cannabis use 
22. Tobacco addiction 
23. Alcoholism 

What is the Cause of Addictive Behaviors? 

Addiction usually develops when you attempt to exit uncomfortable feelings while increasing your engagement in distractive activities (Deleuze et al., 2015). These interventions provide you a timely relief; however, they continue to increase your stress, anxiety, and dependence over time. Eventually, the development of inconsistent emotions unprecedentedly reduces your cognitive salience and self-control. Addictive behavior potentially deteriorates your psychosocial well-being while crushing your self-image. Various types of addictions impact your diet choices and reduce your engagement in physical activities. This eventually increases your risk of weight gain and metabolic complications. A sedentary lifestyle unequivocally contributes to the development of addictive behaviors. The extended use of social media platforms and disrupted interpersonal relationships also motivate you towards adopting various types of addictions. Your negative well-being consequences are the direct outcomes of your adverse social relations (Savolainen, Kaakinen, Sirola, & Oksanen, 2018). The sense of social isolation predominantly forces you to engage yourself in distracting activities that eventually increase your addiction paradigm.  

What Should You Do to Inquire Your Addiction?

You must raise concerns and seriously introspect after noticing any of the following scenarios in your daily life (Alavi et al., 2012). 

1. You repeatedly fail to control your impulses and unavoidably exhibit aggression and bad temper. 
2. You feel tensed before initiating your impulsive behavior. 
3. You feel pleasure while performing your addictive activity. 
4. You often lose your control and fail to quit your bad behavior despite repeated attempts. 
5. You tend to develop positive thoughts related to the addictive activity and plan to acquire abnormal behavior.   
6. You frequently engage with bad behavior without realizing its length and duration of the engagement. 
7. Your subconscious state of mind makes you realize the adversities of the addictive activity; however, your dependence on bad behavior increases your helplessness as soon as you attempt to say goodbye to the inappropriate conduct. 
8. You frequently engage with your addictive behavior despite performing your routine activities. 
9. You experience strong temptations to engage yourself in the addictive behavior during your productive hours at the workplace. 
10. You increasingly engage yourself in various activities that support and promote your addictive behavior. 
11. Your additive behavior interferes with your social obligations, domestic responsibilities, academic requirements, and occupational roles. 
12. You tend to give-up your important recreational, occupational, and social activities due to a strong urge to practice your addictive behavior.   
13. You resist and tolerate your physical problems, psychological complications, financial issues, and social disruptions at the cost of your addictive behavior. 
14. You increasingly exhibit a greater tendency to practice bad behavior. 
15. The elevated intensity of your addictive behavior drastically reduces your tolerance level. 
16. You often feel irritable and restless following your non-engagement with the addictive behavior. 
17. The addictive behavior challenges your socialization while you experience intense cravings and cognitive distortions. 
18. You unavoidably develop coping skills to increase your engagement in your addictive behavior.
19. The extended engagement in addictive behavior increases your feelings of escape and arousal. 
20. You experience serious mood swings and fail to control them over time due to your bad behavior. 
21. Your tolerance reduces to such an extent that sometimes you are forced to practice your addictive behavior for several hours to attain satisfaction. 
22. Sometimes you experience unpleasant withdrawal symptoms including shaking, irritability, and moodiness despite your elevated engagement in the addictive activities.    
23. You often encounter interpersonal conflicts with healthy or addicted people that make your day-to-day life extremely difficult and annoying. 
24. You experience intrapsychic conflicts within yourself while resisting or moving on with your psychological desires. 
25. Sometimes you succeed to control your bad behavior for a longer span; however, circumstances trigger your temptations of resuming the addictive activity with a greater frequency. 

What are the Possible Ways to Quit Addiction without Pharmacotherapy? 

The following strategies could help you to control your deleterious addictive temptations in the absence of pharmacotherapeutic management (Peele, 2016) (TIP, 1999) (Chen, 2016). 

1. Lock and key effect: Sometimes you could feel a strong tendency to practice your addictive behavior. However, sometimes you might attempt to fight your addictive temptations without much success. The key to resolving such conflicts is to try a less harmful strategy as the first stage of addiction control. For example, you could try consuming nicotine gum in an attempt to reduce smoking frequency. The frequent consumption of nicotine gum will help you to manage your addictive temptations and overcome the pain of withdrawal symptoms. Alternatively, you might smoke a little to balance your energy level and mood. A gradual increase in nicotine gum use and a concomitant decrease in smoking frequency will finally take you to a stage where you shall efficiently manage your smoking temptation without carrying your smoking habit. Subsequently, you will experience greater stamina to reduce your nicotine gum use over time to experience a stage where you could imagine survival in the absence of smoking and nicotine gum use. However, this strategy could work only when you seriously aspire to quit smoking while understanding its health-related disadvantages. You must also remember that your neuronal receptors alternatively adjust with nicotine gum while you increasingly consume it in the surge of quitting smoking. This might increase your dependence on nicotine gum while you develop an addiction based on its increased use. That’s why you must work on your will-power and stamina while attempting to quit smoking through alternative strategies. 
2. Motivational Transformation: Motivation is the key to unravel the mysteries of nature. Motivation is not just a strategy, but a systematic phenomenon to boost your morale and wisdom against your unwarranted addictions. You must evaluate, think, recapitulate, and analyze your behavioral challenges and accordingly streamline your positive thoughts to build a strong meshwork of positive emotions against addiction or bad behavior. You must use your creative aptitude, problem-solving ability, and reasoning to enhance your emotional commitment against your addictive complications. Your aspirations to quit addictive behavior must be loaded with a strong sense of commitment, positivity, and purpose. You must define your boundaries and goals while evaluating your external pressures and self-induced addictive desires. You must convince yourself to believe that your bad behavior is the biggest traitor that barricades your personal and professional development to a level that defeats the purpose of your survival. Eventually, you will be forced to dynamically use your motivation to challenge and counter your behavioral inadequacies. You must not hesitate to take the support of your community and family members in challenging your biggest enemy (i.e. addictive behavior) that dares to aggravate your crude feelings for the sake of giving you a false sense of satisfaction. Addictive behavior is not less than a life-threatening allergy associated with a strong desire to scratch the skin surface. The more you scratch it, the more you satisfy yourself, and the more you feel the desire to scratch more while ignoring the extent of injury these scratches could cause on your skin surface. Eventually, your damaged skin will further fuel your skin allergy while aggravating the scratching desire. The process will continue while disrupting your peace of mind and tranquillity to an unimaginable extent. Addictive behavior is a similar state of mind that satisfies you, the more you practice it, while this satisfaction level keeps on decreasing with your increased engagement in inadequate activities. Eventually, the threshold of your bad behavior rises so much that you relentlessly practice it for the sake of regulating your satiety, pleasure, and gratification. At a stage, this threshold goes beyond your reach while you experience the risk of a complete nervous breakdown. Therefore, its highly important for you to understand the nature and character of your addictive behavior, to prepare viable and meaningful strategies for defeating it and forcing it to exit your mind, body, and soul.   
3. Biopsychosocial Interventions: You must research the impact of deleterious behavior on your nervous system and physical functioning. The biological, psychological, and social implications of addictions cannot be denied in a scenario when you determine to strike off your addiction through rational interventions. Accordingly, you should research and explore meaningful alternatives to avert, reduce, and detoxify your passive thoughts and addictive emotions. For example, you could think of consuming the food items of your choice, provided you must not opt for a junk diet to invite another addictive episode. The consumption of natural food items, including fruits and vegetables will not only satisfy your nutritional requirements, but also make you feel more fresh, refined, and energetic. You may also join self-help groups and take advice from your family physicians without agreeing on the consumption of medicines.  
4. Spiritual Interventions: Spirituality is one of the tested interventions to enhance your coping skills and self-control against your misguided behavioral adaptations. You may explore self-help programs or contact your community leader for taking the best advantage of the customized spiritual interventions. You must realize your power of self and enlighten your soul to enhance your emotional and spiritual wisdom. These interventions will ignite a feeling of positivity inside you against your bad behavior. You must introspect your character, human values, attitude, and conduct and practice meditation to overcome the defects in your ideology and outlook. Your extended engagement in your traditional rituals could also enhance your positivity and motivation      against your bad behavior. 
5. Exercise: Healthy habits are paramount to the enhancement of satisfaction and wellness outcomes. Exercise is one such healthy habit that effectively improves your physical and emotional health. You must engage yourself in various types of exercises to enhance your positive thoughts and self-control. Exercise will also help you to improve your tolerance level while increasing your capacity to overcome the withdrawal symptoms. Regular exercise will push      you into a state of inertia based on the establishment of health-related quality of life. This inertia will survive until you diligently engage yourself in aerobic exercises and similar physical activities. Exercise will increase your momentum to effortlessly defeat the addictive behavior. Exercise is a robust measure that not only improves immunity but also strengthens the circulatory system and functioning of the human brain. Accordingly, exercise will help you to develop a strong defense mechanism against your bad behavior. Exercise will also help your capacity to encounter unfavorable situations while improving your overall stamina. 

You must try one or more of the above-mentioned techniques to enhance your bad behavior management capacity. Focussed efforts and rational thinking will predominantly enhance your scope of improving your mental health and wellness. Addictive behavior is a shrewd enemy that weakens your courage and strength while increasing your dependence on deleterious activities. However, you have ample scope of defeating your enemy through the adoption of a healthy lifestyle and evidence-based psychosocial strategies.  

References

Alavi, S. S., Ferdosi, M., Jannatifard, F., Eslami, M., Alaghemandan, H., & Setare, M. (2012). Behavioral Addiction versus Substance Addiction: Correspondence of Psychiatric and Psychological Views. International Journal of Preventive Medicine, 3(4), 290-294. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3354400/

Chen, W. J. (2016). Frequent exercise: A healthy habit or a behavioral addiction? Chronic Diseases and Translational Medicine, 2(4), 235-240. doi:10.1016/j.cdtm.2016.11.014

Deleuze, J., Rochat, L., Romo, L., der-Linden, M. V., Achab, S., Thorens, G., . . . Billieuxa, J. (2015). Prevalence and characteristics of addictive behaviors in a community sample: A latent class analysis. Addict Behav Rep, 46-56. doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2015.04.001

Grant, J. E., Potenza, M. N., Weinstein, A., & Gorelick, D. A. (2010). Introduction to Behavioral Addictions. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse, 233–241. doi:10.3109/00952990.2010.491884

Peele, S. (2016). People control their addictions: No matter how much the “chronic” brain disease model of addiction indicates otherwise, we know that people can quit addictions – with special reference to harm reduction and mindfulness. Addict Behav Rep, 97-101. doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2016.05.003

Savolainen, I., Kaakinen, M., Sirola , A., & Oksanen, A. (2018). Addictive behaviors and psychological distress among adolescents and emerging adults: A mediating role of peer group identification. Addict Behav Rep, 75(81), 75-81. doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2018.03.002

TIP. (1999). Chapter 1-- Conceptualizing Motivation And Change. In Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Abuse Treatment. Rockville (MD): Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration .