When many think of addiction they think of someone strung out on drugs, someone dying of liver disease from alcohol use, or someone who ruins their marriage through multiple/ongoing affairs.  The reality is that the effects and prevalence of addiction reach far beyond these “extreme” examples.  In the most simplified form, an addiction is a behavior that you intentionally do with the knowledge that there will be long term loss, hurt and pain but you chose to do it anyway for the short term pleasure or escape it provides.  Drugs, alcohol and sex are the most discussed addictions because they have such immediate and observably devastating effects on an individual’s life and family.  

The first stage of overcoming addiction involves denial which allows the individual to block out the reality of the long term damage for the sake of the short term benefits.  In the broadest sense, if there is any behavior (drinking, smoking, drugs, sex, pornography, etc.) that you could not stop today and confidently abstain from for the next year than odds are good that you have some level of addiction to that behavior.  

If someone challenged you to not drink a single drop of alcohol this next year, could you confidently agree to that.  What about the same for cigarettes, pain killers, marijuana or even coffee.
We all have our attachments that we need to work on whether its work, exercise, facebook, anger, food, sex, or mood altering substances.  The attachments that we become dependent on often turn to addictions which threaten all we truly value.  These must be dealt with in very open, honest and intentional ways.  The first step is owning that there is a problem, admitting that it won’t just go away and that you need help with it, and developing a high level of motivation to change that problem.  If you can do those three things than you are well on your way to overcoming the addictions in your life.

 
If you are at that point with any addiction in your life please feel free to contact us at www.olivercounseling.com to set up a session and begin the process of becoming free of the addictions in your life.