What's Your Addiction?

Seriouslyourself

Hi there, come on in. This is Seriouslyourself, the podcast, and I'm Ingrid Helander.
Hey there, come on in. Welcome to Seriouslyourself. I'm really happy you're here today. I have an interesting topic that has been coming up a lot for me lately, and it's about addiction. Addiction... hmm... I never have thought of myself as a person really susceptible, honestly, to addictions. Well, not entirely, but I would say that the kinds of addictions - this sort of scary addictions that we hear about a lot like opioid addiction or alcohol addiction or other drug addictions, I don't really like the feeling of being terribly under the influence. Painkillers seldom work well for me, some even jumped me the other direction and make me feel hyper and have more pain, and it's always been that way since I was a little kid. I was raised in a family where ,you know, you were taught to be pretty afraid - I think is the word - of all things that would alter you too much. You know, I don't know if that was good or bad. But at any rate, it was never really a part of who I, you know had grown up to be, and so I didn't ever really think about addiction much. But the last couple of months I've been dealing with an addiction in my family and really taking a serious look at myself and what it means to have addiction.
I can tell you that I definitely have had times in my life and probably even right now where I am certainly addicted to caffeine, to coffee. How about you? I don't know if you drink coffee or maybe a strong tea, you know that if you quit suddenly you're probably going to go through 3-5 days of nasty headache and irritability. And it's a very particular feeling, and you know it pretty quickly like, oh man, I haven't had my coffee! And it can make you really ill, you know, the withdrawal symptoms from caffeine can be terrible. So yeah, is that an addiction? Absolutely.
We know that the definition of addiction is a compulsive, chronic physiological or psychological need for a habit-forming substance, behavior or activity, having harmful physical, psychological, or social effects and typically causing well-defined symptoms such as anxiety, irritability, tremors or nausea upon withdrawal or abstinence. That's Miriam Webster.
Yeah. So the purpose of the podcast today is to get us really thinking about that in Seriouslyourself, it's not to minimize significant, serious, life-threatening addictions or any of the people that are going through them or any of those who love those folks. Okay? It's not to minimize that. And it's certainly not to pathologize "normal," because that's got a really broad meaning for me, but behaviors that we should not be concerned about. I'm not trying to make normal, everyday, don't worry about it behaviors into something that would be an illness or sickness or a problem.
So having said that, I do think though that it's really worth it, when you're trying to be more seriously yourself, to look at what addictiveness, right? Or what addictions might you have. One thing I'm learning in dealing with a loved one's addiction is that I have parts of me that are co-addicted with them, right? I don't like them to feel or act off. And so I have certain behaviors that I will repeat in order to maintain them, right? That's that you know that enabler kind of a thing. I hate the word enabler because it makes you feel so lousy, so I won't use it here. But you know, it's that kind of a thing. Yeah?
So what about you? What do you engage in that might have an extra little bit of a hold and negative impact for you? My favorite current definition of addiction is by a woman named Karen Perlmutter who's an addiction expert, and she defines addiction as: The gradual development of an (inaccurate) belief that I am incapable of experiencing discomfort and therefore I must pursue comfort at all cost. Right? This deep, honest belief in the body - in the mind, I guess that the addict wholly believes (though it is not true) that they cannot experience any kind of discomfort.
And if you know someone who is really addicted to whatever they're addicted to and you look at them and you're like: Really? Really? You have to do this thing or you have to have that? Yeah, they feel they do. They're not - they're not kidding. Okay? So if you think about that definition, which I really like, and you apply it to your own behaviors and activities, it can be so helpful. And here's why: It can show you where you're not attending to parts of your discomfort in a way that's helpful. It can show you where you're feeling out of control around discomfort.
Using that definition for everyday behaviors that you feel compelled to do really can help you to know if you are entering dangerous territory or what the difference is between behavior that is soothing, that is helpful, that is internally supportive and behavior or practices that have a negative addictive quality. Right? So you might say, well, I'm addicted to meditation Ingrid. I have to do it every morning or I am off. And I would say that's an interesting one to look at, because it is a wonderful practice and you will gain a ton from meditating and you probably aren't going to have negative consequences from meditating, and you probably won't have serious immediate symptoms - I don't think - if you stop meditating. However, if you meditate in such a way that is because you absolutely cannot stand the discomfort you are in, right? And without being able to do that immediately in that way and in disregard of everyone and everything, then you might have an addiction, right? Good or bad? I'm not sure. But you know, so I'm taking something that we normally would think of as just really super great, right? I know people that do really good things like exercise, but from an addictive standpoint. So if they don't exercise their thoughts, feelings become so overwhelming for them that they have to exercise in lieu of absolutely everything and it takes over their lives and sometimes has negative health consequences.
So for me, I was thinking about, well certainly, you know, if I stopped drinking coffee tomorrow, I would have a headache for a little bit. Now if somebody said, you know, there's a huge coffee problem - I don't know what it would be, but you cannot have coffee again or even caffeine, right? I wouldn't lose my mind over that. I wouldn't be like, this cannot be, I won't be able to handle my life. Okay? But you know, if somebody took my phone away tomorrow, I may have similar thoughts. I was recently with a friend whom I adore, and she had dropped her phone in the ocean and then was trying to go about doing her work, doing her business even of like getting a new phone and so on. But she didn't know the area, and she didn't have GPS with her. And so getting together with anyone or even to certain stores was enormously hard. We are (so really aren't we? Many of us) addicted to our phones, addicted to having a thought, you know, I wonder about this and then Googling it immediately and sometimes when we can't do that we get really frustrated. I know if I'm trying to think of a word or a movie or a song or something, I can't remember some fact. It can drive me purely nuts if I can't get to Google to ask. Now can I get used to that feeling? Yes. Could I tolerate it? Yeah. But you've certainly seen the videos - and if you haven't, they're interesting to watch - of like young teenagers who have their phone removed and they go through withdrawal symptoms, literal physical panicky withdrawal. They can't imagine not having that tool in their hand really as part of their body and their consciousness that they're going to experience so much discomfort without it. Right?
So the next time, I would say, that you're experiencing some discomfort in this process of becoming more seriously yourself, notice what you reach for, notice what you're thinking. "I need. I need to do this now." And then stay compassionately curious and ask yourself: Do I need to repeat that behavior? Do I need to look at my email first thing every morning? Do I need to play that game on the phone? Do I need to call that particular person to see if they're okay right now? Do I need to eat this thing, drink this thing? Have this thing? Yeah. And then you can decide, I don't need it. I can enjoy it or I can use something healthy to soothe, but I'm okay. And maybe, you can even notice what is the actual discomfort you're trying to rid yourself up or you believe you can't handle. What is it? What's the worst that's gonna happen? And let yourself go there, not because you're going there, but because some part of you already believes it's going to happen. Does that make sense? And do it gently and kindly. And if you find that you're having, you know, truly serious problem with it and it's really hard for you to take it seriously - because of course the addiction will say no, no, no, no, no I'm not. I am not a problem for you. I'm your savior, right? The addiction has that sneaky way of doing that.
Especially things like alcohol and drugs, because they have more of a chemical component, even than the juicing of our own body, right? When we satisfy a craving to get rid of a discomfort, right? So if we do that psychologically, I'm sure there's still a chemical happening in our bodies. But if we do it with a drug, then it's even more so makes sense. Yeah.
So I just want to bring that up. I think especially after the pandemic, we are seeing tons and tons and tons of addictions that have popped to the surface more; that have not been able to be seen by others because people were quarantined. So they got out of hand, that have not been able to get the resources they needed because of also quarantines and illness, staffing all kinds of issues, Right?
So just offering tons and tons of patience to yourself and to others who are experiencing addiction right now, taking the time to understand your own and offering it curiosity and care. And get help if you need. Reach out. We all want to feel good, and we're all capable of handling especially emotional discomfort with enough help and enough compassion.
Take good, good care of you. Take a deep breath, stay really patient and get curious. What are your addictions, my friends? Talk to you next time. Bye.
Thank you for joining me for this episode of Seriouslyourself. To help treat yourself well each week, go ahead and subscribe to Seriouslyourself wherever you listen to podcasts, and please share this link with anyone you love who might be seeking a little more truth and delight in their lives.

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And thanks to those who make Seriouslyourself special: our wonderful music is Midsummer from the album Flood by the fabulous Joel Helander. Seriouslyourself is produced by Particulate Media, K.O. Myers, Executive Producer. The ideas and inspirations come from beautiful humans like you, that I feel lucky to know. And I'm Ingrid Helander. Take good care of yourself. See you next time.