There is nothing funny about feeling compelled to drink, take drugs, or smoke. Addiction is not a joke, and if you are in the throes of one, there is every chance that you don’t even know it. Engaging in something that you find pleasurable is not inherently bad for you, but there is a very fine line between having fun and enjoying yourself and feeling an unavoidable compulsion to do something. One of these isn’t healthy, and I bet you could guess which one!
Whether it’s a compulsion to binge eat, to watch Netflix, to drink alcohol, or to take prescription drugs, you need to know that your compulsion could get you into massive amounts of trouble. You could call Leyba Mathew if you find that your addiction has led you to dangerous territories, but before you get there, you need to know that you definitely are dealing with addiction. With that in mind, we’ve put together six clear signs that it’s an addiction that you’re dealing with. Let’s take a look:
It’s Become Something So Important To You
The importance of the thing that you are doing goes beyond your job, your family, and your friends. At any cost, you will do the thing you NEED to do. You can determine how important something is to you by how much you’re not doing other things in favor of that one thing you are doing. For example, if you’re not paying your mortgage to afford wine, there’s a problem!
You Feel Better When You Do It
The reason we call it being a shopaholic is that shopping triggers a relaxed, happy response. The endorphins released because we are shopping make us feel good. When you take drugs, you do it for the high. Of course, it doesn’t feel too good when you’re involved in a DUI, but it feels good at the moment. The reward response is a clear reason to continue to do it. And that’s when the issues arise.
There Is No “Enough”
The more you do the thing you are doing, the more you want to do it. It takes precedence over every other thing that you have in your life, and that’s becoming an issue. When you’re carving out more space in your day-to-day life for this new compulsion, you’re putting more emphasis on the thing you’re doing.
You Get Anxious When You Can’t
There is a reason that employers give their staff smoking breaks. A lack of nicotine leads to anxiety, irritability, and angst in someone addicted to cigarettes. Smoking breaks “take the edge off” the anxiety and makes them feel better, so they are able to take paid breaks to have a cigarette. When you are feeling bad on the inside when you can’t binge eat, watch Netflix, even shop, it’s a good sign you’re addicted to what you’re doing.
It’s Consuming Your Life
If drugs, alcohol, or even shopping are starting to consume everything else in your life, taking over your money and putting you into debt, there is a problem. You should be able to enjoy most things in moderation, but when you can’t help it and you MUST drink, you need to seek some help.
You Can’t Help Yourself
You wake up in the morning and you say today is the day that you’re not going to drink. Then you get to the evening and before you know it, you’re pouring out your third glass of wine, promising yourself that tomorrow is the day. The problem with addiction is that tomorrow is never the day, and you need to speak to the professionals to make sure that you can reach that tomorrow.
Getting help is vital before your addiction costs you your life or the life of someone else.
This is a collaborative post.
Melinda
lookingforthelight.blog 
There’s a preconceived notion that drug addicts are but weak-willed and/or have somehow committed a moral crime. Ignored is that such intense addiction usually does not originate from a bout of boredom, where a person repeatedly consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked on an unregulated often-deadly chemical that eventually destroyed their life and even that of a loved-one. Serious psychological trauma, typically adverse childhood experiences, is usually behind a substance abuser’s debilitating lead-ball-and-chain self-medicating. The addiction likely resulted from his/her attempt at silencing through self-medicating the pain of serious life trauma or PTSD.
We now know pharmaceutical corporations intentionally pushed their very addictive and profitable opiate pain killers — I call it the real moral crime — for which they got off relatively lightly, considering the resulting immense suffering and overdose death numbers.
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