Bad Habits & Addictions by Henry Cloud

Author:Henry Cloud
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2010-05-24T16:00:00+00:00

THE PICTURE OF ADDICTION

What do most addictions look like? In general, most addicts follow this two-step path:

1. THEY BEGIN WITH A BEHAVIOR THAT BRINGS THEM PLEASURE. This can be pleasure in and of itself, engaged in for its own sake simply for the good feelings it brings, like what happens when people use drugs for the first time. Or the pleasure may be one indulged not for its own sake, but rather to achieve a feeling of relief from a bad state of mind or emotional distress. For instance, a woman on the way home from a stressful job may find that when she stops off at the mall and spends a lot of money, or stops at the local bar and has a few drinks, her stress diminishes. The pleasure that she finds is the pleasure of relief from some sort of pain, anxiety, or other distress. However, after the effects of the pleasurable experience have worn away, her body and mind will come back to the state they were in before the relief provided by the addictive behavior, and she will likely desire to go back to that state of pleasure. In other words, the substance or behavior has become self-reinforcing.

2. THEY BECOME PSYCHOLOGICALLY OR PHYSICALLY DEPENDENT ON THE BEHAVIOR OR SUB-STANCE. They begin to need the pleasure-inducing substance or behavior, often in ever-increasing amounts to get the same effect or relief. I (Henry) know a man who occasionally smokes cigars. I asked him once if he had ever had any problem with smoking, if it had ever gotten out of control. He told me that early on in his business career, he would sometimes bum a cigarette from a coworker on his way out the door at the end of the day. He liked the relaxing effect of smoking and thought it was just an occasional pleasure. Then he noticed something happening. On days when he was particularly stressed, he found himself wanting to go find the person and get a cigarette. He realized that he desired to smoke as a tension reliever. When he saw that beginning to happen, he quit smoking. His occasional use of a highly addicting drug had escalated and become self-reinforcing as a stress reliever.

However, most people fail to recognize that this kind of thing is happening, and they continue to do what makes them feel better. In fact, in a lot of circles, their behavior is even normalized. Many people feel it’s normal and acceptable to seek sexual release or to drink alcohol to blow off some steam. They do not recognize the warning signs, and so they continue the behavior. They’re like the proverbial frog in the kettle that doesn’t notice the gradual increase in the water temperature until it is boiling. The addictive behavior gradually takes over more of their soul, but at the same time it numbs them so that they don’t even know it.

Then typically, something negative happens to the person—some sort of negative consequence of the behavior emerges.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.