Written by James Dear

Since doing work on various bad habits, and one serious addiction, I have come to realise that everyone is self-medicating in one way or another. Self-medication can be in the form of food, shopping, alcohol, illegal drugs, medical drugs or almost anything that you find comfort in. 

I realised that I have been self-medicating in one way or another for my entire life and when I looked around so was almost everyone else. I always thought that addiction must have been caused by the drug, or process that you are engaged in, but I am coming to wonder if they are just masking people's pain. Once I realised that everyone who is performing these self-medicating rituals must be suffering from some form of anxiety or uncomfortable feeling I felt a wave of compassion. I felt a sense of connection to everyone suffering from an inability to control themselves, bullied by a medley of uncomfortable emotions. I started to see how much everyone had in common. In reality, everyone just wants to be happy and to love. 

A huge breakthrough for me was learning that anger can release a discharge of dopamine, adrenaline and norepinephrine, meaning that when you get angry you are getting high. Consequences of anger have the same guilt and shame associated with them as other types of addiction. I have observed that people can get a real buzz out of being angry as if in the moment they really enjoy it, drunk on the emotion. They express that in the moment they had no control and their behaviour is followed by regret. I do not see this as being too dissimilar to my drug addiction.

Because of this, I can forgive those who are angry towards me. This has been transformational for me. That being said, we are still responsible for the things we do and we will inevitably suffer the consequences, therefore we must learn to control it. Your higher nature seems to know better but as soon as we are overwhelmed with emotions we lose sight of what is right and true. This is harder still when we are compromised by mind-altering substances.

I heard a psychologist say that if you are feeling anxious or depressed you should H.A.L.T. This means that you should check whether you are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired. All four of these things factor towards a mentally and physically depleted state of body and mind. If we may able to identify these then we can address them early to prevent becoming emotionally vulnerable.

I felt like I had a hard day today: it is possible that I was hungry, angry lonely and tired. I had done a full day at work and been to the gym. The gym normally pulls me out of a bad mindset but today it didn't shake. As someone who tries not to drink, do drugs, eat meat or currently eat dairy there the selection of instant gratification is considerably diminished. I find myself sitting in my car in Pak n Save car park eating an entire packet of cookies in one go. As I sit there feeling sick and confused I think to myself, this sugar rush isn’t ideal at 9pm when I have work in the morning. I considered making myself sick but having been with someone recovering from bulimia in the past and at least had the sense to realise that could be a slippery slope. Funny how often I find myself doing something that I instantly regret as if I have been on autopilot up to the exact moment the deed is done. This is subconscious sabotage at its finest. When I was using drugs it was almost as if I had blacked out between wanting to buy drugs and having some. As soon as I had the powder hit my nostril I would realise that it was Wednesday morning and there weren't going to be any raves to go to and everyone was at work. Each and every time this happened I was met with instant regret. 

It really is ironic that the exact thing that you are doing to try and make yourself feel better is making you worse and worse and worse. Welcome to the negative feedback loop. 

I felt down so I ate cookies, the sugar made me anxious and irritable, I put on weight, I got low and ate more cookies. The cycle continues.

The only thing that gets me through these periods is the sheer faith that I will get through. I have been in these loops so many times that I know that so long as you have the intention to get out, eventually after churning you around a few times, it will spit you out and by the grace of God I get my willpower back as if it was a virtue that had been taken from you and returned. In times of no self-control, I have learned to observe exactly what is going on. What are my emotions doing? What are my thoughts doing? How are my actions contributing to these? What is my social life like? Am I keeping up my meditation practice? I approach others who have been through similar situations and ask for wisdom to navigate out of stormy seas.

I believe that there is always a choice and whilst you might not have the skills and mindset to beat that problem at the time you can choose to improve.  Willpower is something that can be trained like a muscle and you can get stronger. Your willpower can be looked at in the same way as your body. The spectrum goes from not leaving your bedroom and eating until they have to take the roof off to lift you out with a crane all the way up to through to someone like Wim Hof who climbed past the death zone on Mount Everest wearing nothing but shorts.

If you can climb Mount Everest start with a hill.

Thank you for making it this far. If you enjoyed reading this or anything resonated with you please like and share. I would love to read about your own experiences and thoughts in the comments. 

Break the Chain

Strength and love