Addictions (even very mild ones!)

You can be addicted to all kinds of things: watching tv, alcohol, working with your computer, cookies, cigarettes etc. One of the characteristics of being addicted could be described as: as soon as the need arises, you want to meet it. As it calls forth a feeling within you that you have learned to label as "wanted", or at least nicer than having to experience the alternative. This could mean that watching tv makes a fine alternative to a family life that is not functioning too well. Alcohol will numb your experiences, thus making it easier for you to make something nice out of a situation. Playing with a computer can make you feel very much in charge. Etc.

Acting on a need means surrender to your personality who created the need in the first place. So it is a way for your personality to make his worldview work again: there is attention for him, he is listened to, and what it offers you is what you asked for (even though it will be accompanied by guilt feelings, but that is his working space as well). That is why the opposite is a problem in itself: not acting on a need of your personality creates tension (or you could use it to make yourself feel good because you are strong now). And tension was the one experience you tried to avoid in the first place, as that was an unpleasant one.

At first there was an occasion that in itself was neutral. Then it was labeled unpleasant. You are likely to have tried to get rid of that feeling by hiding it, reasoning it away, or other ways. You did not succeed in that, and then you started looking for something that could at least lessen the unpleasant feelings, and would give you an overall pleasant one (for example, smoking is not a pleasant sensation in itself, but what it got you was more important and it made you get used to the taste). Now you are addicted to what you have learned to call a pleasant feeling. And in all those situations in which you need a feeling like that, you are likely to use the substitute you have chosen. Even if there is not much of a problem and yet there is supply, you will want to have it.

Now you see that addiction helps you to avoid facing other things: unpleasant feelings and situations. You now seem to be in control and to be able to call forth pleasant experiences any moment you like. So you are addicted to a feeling that you cannot create otherwise, not so much a sensation of taste or otherwise. That is why so many people do smoke, even if they no longer like the taste anymore.

The solution can be found in becoming aware of the process that you are repeating here, and go back-to-basics, to the origin where situations in themselves are neutral, before you start judging and interpreting them. When you allow yourself to become aware of that and learn to no longer strengthen the aspect in you that creates the tension, then your need to compensate this stress will disappear by itself.

There are separate columns on smoking, drinking, eating and focusing.