What is Addiction?

“All that we are is the result of what we have thought. The mind is everything. What we think we become.” Gautama Buddha

This week, one of my patients said a very honest statement about herself and told me about the slippery slope she is on. Before I reveal what it is…let me tell you a bit of her background.

B.L. is in her 50′s. She struggles with depression and overeating, and she finds herself drinking a glass of wine  or two or three  (not a good habit) at the end of the day to relax.

She is a housewife and has a lot of unstructured time at home while her husband is at work. Her kids are grown and gone.

Here was her revelation about what is addiction….

She said, “I don’t look forward to food. I don’t sit there and think, I want to break open this bag of chips later, BUT… I find myself thinking, I can’t wait to drink that glass of wine later”. She said she knew she was on a slippery slope with thoughts like that popping into her mind.

As a psychiatrist, I can tell you this is the gradual, sneaky way that addictive thinking takes over your brain and your rational thinking. That is the basis of what IS addiction. Your reward system in your brain kicks in when you drink and releases a chemical, called dopamine. Your brain remembers pleasure and wants more.

B.L.’s brain is starting to “remind” her early in the day about the feeling of pleasure she gets from drinking.That memory drives her  behavior to repeat that pleasure. Now one glass of wine has turned into two into three.

B.L. and I discussed the slippery slope she is on. We talked about how to replace drinking with healthier rewards. We discussed ways she can work on changing her thinking. We discussed what led to her developing this “habit” in the first place. Addiction recovery is all about changing your thinking and behavior.

Like the quote from Buddha, “What we think, we become” is a lesson to all of us.

If you want to break a habit or an addiction, you need to put different thoughts in your head. B.L. was wise enough to be aware of her brains’s tricky thinking that served as a warning sign for change.

Changing our thinking is key to our personal development. Do you have a story about what prompted you to make a major change?  What was your wake up call?  It can be about anything. Please share your story in the comment section below.

Her story shows what is addiction and how to catch yourself on that slippery slope!

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Tags: addiction recovery, addictive thinking, personal development, slippery slope