How To Stop Being Addicted To Something

Start Breaking A Bad Habit And Forming A New One

Shaping our everyday activities and even how we feel about ourselves, habits can either make you or break you. New Years resolutions are similar to trying to break a habit. We have a goal in mind, we prepare tools to help us succeed, and we make an effort to keep up the goal. So why do most New Years resolutions and attempts at breaking a bad habit fail?

Willpower and strength to stay away from temptations decreases. As a result, motivation generally decreases, leaving us caving into our past and forgetting all about our goals.

Dreams of reaching the finish line are also given up so easily. Say you want to start eating healthier. You start to eat fruits and vegetable every day for two days. On the third day, someone brings donuts into the office. Can you have one? You have been doing so good so one donut wont hurt, right? All it takes is being okay with that one donut for you to be okay with ice-cream later on and then pizza for a midnight snack. Considering you are eating vegetables, you are okay with having the donut because you are still eating healthy at other times.

Achieving goals and forming new habits dont work this way.

Caving in is all too easy when you are comfortable where you are. You give up trying to reach a goal because it seems unreachable or you are satisfied with something in-between where you are at the moment and the goal you are trying to reach.

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Your Mind Thinks About The Relationship Non

You will find that you are constantly running over in your head what is and isnt working with your relationship . You might start to get behind at work as your mind is not focused, or find yourself less interested in being around your friends because you are preoccupied. These are signs of being addicted to a person.

As with any addiction, one part of you will know you are involved in something that is not good for you. This means you will then give a lot of headspace over to excuses like it just needs more time or, maybe shes not as bad as I think and Im being too picky. But somehow, somewhere there will always be another part of you which will crave for your partner, and more often than not, that part of you dominates over.

When Someone You Love Is An Addict

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How To Stop Wanting

These strong synaptic links are there now, and theyre not going to go away on their own. Techniques like quitting cold-turkey dont try to erase the want. It will still be there, itching at the back of your head. And thats why youve seen people swear off social media, only to reinstall the app a week later. So what can be done to weaken those synapses and weaken the want?

You can gradually weaken a synapse through stimulus devaluation. In this case the stimulus is tapping on an app. We can devalue the stimulus by breaking the immediate reward you get from opening an app. Space does this by putting a 112 second breathing exercise between the action and the reward. By slowing down the immediacy of the reward the connection is slowly broken. When computers were slower, they were less addictive. This simulates that world. But the pause is variable, and Space is smart. So when you really need to get at your app, Space will only give a short pause. But when you are just mindlessly tapping, Space will give you a longer pause.

Most of the tools designed to help people who feel like theyre loosing control to their phones dont work this way. Monitoring, limiting, punishing, and scheduling are ineffective at best and often cruel.

How Cellphone Use Can Impact Your Mental Health

Research has consistently shown a link between excessive smartphone use and several mental health conditions.

While its important to note that this correlation doesnt necessarily mean that one causes the other, its still important to be aware of the potential risks of smartphone misuse.

Excessive smartphone use is associated with conditions including depression, anxiety, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder .

In adolescents and young adults, there are some additional risks. For these groups, smartphone use may cause problems with emotional regulation and cognitive function, impulsivity, and low self-esteem.

It may also cause physical changes, including insomnia, migraine, and even changes to the volume of gray matter, which makes up the outer layer of the brain.

Theres no formal definition of excessive phone use. If youre concerned that your phone use is impacting your work or relationships, there are steps you can take to manage time on your phone.

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Ways To Reduce Or Quit Drugs

There is no treatment that works for everyone. Just as drugs affect each person differently, treatment needs to be individual. Its important to find a program that works for you.

Treatment options range from counselling through to hospital care it depends on which drugs are involved and how serious your dependence or addiction is. They include:

• going cold turkey you stop taking drugs suddenly, with no outside help or support
• counselling and lifestyle changes individual or group therapy can help you learn to cope without drugs. This can be successful if your drug use has been mild. Peer support groups are often run by recovered addicts their personal experience can be helpful to others
• detoxification you stop taking drugs and have medical treatment while your body clears the drug from your system
• rehabilitation this is a longer term treatment where you stay in a hospital or clinic, or at home. It also involves psychological treatment to help you deal with issues that may have contributed to your drug use

If you have mental health issues your treatment will need to address that at the same time for your overall treatment to be effective.

Tip #: Take Care Of Yourself

Focusing on your own life is the most important thing you can do to assist the addict. If you are stressed out due to their issues, in addition to your own, it creates resentment and strain. It makes it difficult to want to help someone who has created so much difficulty in your life. By taking care of yourself through exercising, getting plenty of sleep, socializing and getting support, you may be better able to help your loved one when they are ready to accept the help.

The most important thing to remember is that you arent alone. Many people battle with these issues every day and it is vital to get the resources and support you need.

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How I Overcame Sexual Addiction

My name is Jordan, and Im a sex addict.

As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt like a total impostor.

The men and women seated around me, legs crossed and arms folded, draped over orange plastic chairs, would see right through me any second now. Even though I was staring down at the floor, I could feel their eyes burning in to me.

These people had real addictions my problems felt so entry-level by comparison. They had serious problems, not me.

I mean, sure, Id slept with countless women who I felt no emotional connection to.

Sure, Ive felt a deeply permeating sense of shame at the core of my being after compulsively acting out sexually.

And, if Im being honest with myself, Ive probably cumulatively spent weeks of my life watching porn, scanning sex ads, and frequenting massage parlours and sex workers in multiple countries.

Fuck. Who am I kidding?

The more I listened to the stories of the people around me, the more I realized that I was in the right place.

Addiction: What Is It

Addiction is a common problem, but help is available.

Addiction is defined as not having control over doing, taking or using something to the point where it could be harmful to you.

Addiction is most commonly associated with gambling, drugs, alcohol and smoking, but it’s possible to be addicted to just about anything, including:

• work some people are obsessed with their work to the extent that they become physically exhausted if your relationship, family and social life are affected and you never take holidays, you may be addicted to work
• internet as computer and mobile phone use has increased, so too have computer and internet addictions people may spend hours each day and night surfing the internet or gaming while neglecting other aspects of their lives
• solvents volatile substance abuse is when you inhale substances such as glue, aerosols, petrol or lighter fuel to give you a feeling of intoxication
• shopping shopping becomes an addiction when you buy things you don’t need or want to achieve a buzz this is quickly followed by feelings of guilt, shame or despair

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What Is Social Media

Social Media is a Computer based Technology usually an application or a Website which permits its users to create and share contents, transmit information, and send messages to one another.There are a couple of Social Media platforms, notably: WhatsApp, Instagram, YouTube, Tik Tok, Snapchat, Facebook, Blogs, Podcast, and Telegram which all currently ranks as the most popular and used Social Media platforms.

How to End Social Media Addiction and Protect Your Mental Health

These platforms are widely used because of the numerous advantages associated with making use of them.

Also see: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Internet

Signs You’re Becoming Addicted To Something

It’s easy to talk about addiction in a throwaway manner, as if just liking something quite a lot classifies you as an addict. Spoiler: it doesn’t. But social conceptions of how an addict looks and behaves still often look like something out of a Dickens novel, when the reality is more nebulous, less obvious, and more common. But how do you know if you’re becoming addicted to something or just having a good time?

The most commonly discussed area of addiction is drug and alcohol abuse the rehab organization Addiction Center estimates that 20 million Americans over the age of 12 have an addiction to alcohol or both legal and illegal drugs. When it comes to behavioral addictions, the lines are a bit less clear but from psychologically accepted problems like gambling to more contested definitions like sex addiction, it’s now no longer just substance abuse on the table when we talk about addicts.

If you’re worried you might be dependent on something whether it be drugs, alcohol, sex, or anything else here are nine common signs you may indeed be addicted.

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When Someone You Love Has An Addiction

The fallout from an addiction, for addicts and the people who love them, is devastating the manipulations, the guilt, the destruction of relationships and the breakage of people. When addicts know they are loved by someone who is invested in them, they immediately have fuel for their addiction. Your love and your need to bring them safely through their addiction might see you giving money you cant afford, saying yes when that yes will destroy you, lying to protect them, and having your body turn cold with fear from the midnight ring of the phone. You dread seeing them and you need to see them, all at once.

You might stop liking them, but you dont stop loving them. If youre waiting for the addict to stop the insanity the guilt trips, the lying, the manipulation its not going to happen. If you cant say no to the manipulations of their addiction in your unaddicted state, know that they wont say no from their addicted one. Not because they wont, but because they cant.

If you love an addict, it will be a long and excruciating road before you realise that there is absolutely nothing you can do. It will come when youre exhausted, heartbroken, and when you feel the pain of their self-destruction pressing relentlessly and permanently against you. The relationships and the world around you will start to break, and youll cut yourself on the jagged pieces. Thats when youll know, from the deepest and purest part of you, that you just cant live like this any more.

How Is It Treated

Treating purely physical dependence is pretty straightforward. The best approach typically involves working with a professional to either gradually taper off use or stop use altogether while under supervision to manage withdrawal symptoms.

Treating psychological dependence is a bit more complex. For some folks dealing with both a physical and psychological dependence, the psychological side of things sometimes resolves on its own once the physical dependence is treated.

In most cases, though, working with a therapist is the best course for addressing psychological dependence, whether it occurs on its own or alongside physical dependence.

In therapy, youll typically explore patterns that trigger your use and work to create new patterns of thought and behavior.

Also Check: How To Let Go Of An Addict You Love

What Are My Addiction Treatment Options

To understand which level of treatment is most appropriate for your needs, you should consult with a physician, a therapist, or other treatment professional, who can assess your situation and make treatment recommendations. Often, people begin their recovery efforts with a period of supervised medical detox and then, depending on their needs, progress through additional rehabilitation. Treatment is sometimes initiated at a relatively intensive level of care but, as recovery progress is made, becomes gradually less intensive as individuals move through their continuum of care. The broad levels of care as outlined by the American Society for Addiction Medicine include:17,18

Learn more about the levels of care offered at American Addiction Centers nationwide treatment centers.

Curious about whether your insurance will cover the entirety of your addiction care? Fill out the form on the page below and an American Addiction Centers admissions navigator will inquire with your insurance company to discover your benefits.

Verify Your Insurance Benefits

How Can I Tell If I Need Substance Abuse Help

If youre asking yourself whether you need help, theres a chance you might be ready to admit to the presence of a problem. If youre not sure, you might consider whether you meet the criteria for a substance use disorder, or SUD, which is the American Psychiatric Associations diagnostic term for addiction. These criteria include:15,16

• Using drugs or alcohol in higher or more frequent amounts than you originally intended.
• Wanting to stop using drugs or alcohol but being unable to do so.
• Spending a lot of time trying to get, use, and recover from the effects of the substance.
• Experiencing cravings, which are strong feelings and urges to use.
• Being unable to meet your responsibilities at work, home, or school because of your substance use.
• Continuing to use drugs or alcohol even though its causing social or relationship problems.
• Giving up or stopping activities you once enjoyed so you can use drugs or alcohol.
• Using substances in situations where it is dangerous to do so .
• Continuing to drink or use drugs even though you have a psychological or physical problem that you know is probably due to your substance use.
• Experiencing tolerance, or needing to use more of the substance to achieve the desired effect.
• Developing withdrawal symptoms, such as irritability or shakiness, when you stop using the substance.

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Can You Be Addicted To Someone Sexually Yes

One of the most searched questions on the internet is can you be addicted to someone sexually? Yes, you can! Especially in addictive relationships, sexual addiction becomes a major issue as often times you can feel that the only attention that you might get from your partner would be from sex. This makes you desperate and you try to do anything and everything you can to keep your partners attention, including possibly engaging in activities that you might not be comfortable with. This ultimately serves as one of the major signs of being addicted to a person.