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Multiple addictions and addictive behaviour

Old 03-31-2019, 11:10 AM
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Multiple addictions and addictive behaviour

I posted earlier on today that I have been drinking again and I had some wonderfully supportive replies, so thank you. I want to talk about multiple addictions and see if anyone has any experience of this, so I thought I’d put it in a new thread.

I have other long-standing issues with addiction alongside my drinking. I smoke cigarettes - about 20 a day these days - and I also have a problem with food, with a history of binge eating and restricting. Whilst my drinking has got progressively worse over the years, my eating has got a bit more stable, but I do still have periods of bingeing and weight gain, and periods in which I restrict to lose weight. I’m currently about two stone/28lb over the upper limit of my healthy BMI range, though I have been both lighter and heavier over the years.

I’ve learned over the years that drinking keeps me from eating too much, purely because, like all alcoholics, I don’t want anything ruining my buzz. I’ve used drink as a tool for weight loss. I find that there is a constant but shifting power balance between the three - drinking, smoking and binge eating - in that when I try to tackle one, my engagement with either one or both of the others increases to compensate. For example, when I try to cut down or stop my drinking, I’ll binge on food until I feel sick; or when I try to lose weight to improve my self-esteem and body image, I’ll cut right back on food but I’ll drink like there’s no tomorrow and smoke like a chimney.

Does anyone relate to this, or have any advice about how to tackle this kind of substituting behaviour? The ideal situation would be freedom from the desire to engage in any of these, but I just swap one out for another and ultimately get nowhere. Is it possible to free yourself from all addictive drives? I feel like I don’t just need to stop doing these things - I need to become a completely new person with better values, more self-awareness, and healthier self-soothing techniques, but I just don’t know where to start .
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Old 03-31-2019, 11:44 AM
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I think it is possible to free yourself from the addictive thinking. For me, I was trying to fill a hole within myself, to fill the emptiness. In early recovery, I had to begin the journey of facing that emptiness and that dark hole within myself. I learned that I needed to begin to love myself. The only way for me to fill to emptiness was to begin to like and to love me.
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Old 03-31-2019, 11:52 AM
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For sure, I have multiple addictions. I get one to go dormant and another pops up.

As I understand it, it is common to have a cluster of addictions.

As Anna describes above, I am working on myself. I now like myself, I do healthy things, I do not do destructive things. This fills up a lot of the empty void inside me I was using my addictive substances & behaviours to fill.

I build self esteem by doing decent things, I no longer need to seek it from external stuff or by using people.

It is a positive message, this is all possible to overcome.

Awareness is amazing.
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Old 03-31-2019, 12:43 PM
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Anna and Peaceful, I identify with what you say about attempting to fill a void, and particularly with learning to like and love yourself. I have real problems with self-image, to the point that I never have my photo taken and I often avoid even looking in mirrors. I think I have a deeply-rooted sense of emptiness, insecurity and inferiority, and this is perhaps something I need to work on proactively. I had psychotherapy about ten years ago but I didn’t bond with the therapist so found it basically useless. Perhaps I could try again with a new therapist to attempt to tackle my self-esteem and worthiness issues.
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Old 03-31-2019, 02:48 PM
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Originally Posted by Polished View Post
I posted earlier on today that I have been drinking again and I had some wonderfully supportive replies, so thank you. I want to talk about multiple addictions and see if anyone has any experience of this, so I thought I’d put it in a new thread.

I have other long-standing issues with addiction alongside my drinking. I smoke cigarettes - about 20 a day these days - and I also have a problem with food, with a history of binge eating and restricting. Whilst my drinking has got progressively worse over the years, my eating has got a bit more stable, but I do still have periods of bingeing and weight gain, and periods in which I restrict to lose weight. I’m currently about two stone/28lb over the upper limit of my healthy BMI range, though I have been both lighter and heavier over the years.

I’ve learned over the years that drinking keeps me from eating too much, purely because, like all alcoholics, I don’t want anything ruining my buzz. I’ve used drink as a tool for weight loss. I find that there is a constant but shifting power balance between the three - drinking, smoking and binge eating - in that when I try to tackle one, my engagement with either one or both of the others increases to compensate. For example, when I try to cut down or stop my drinking, I’ll binge on food until I feel sick; or when I try to lose weight to improve my self-esteem and body image, I’ll cut right back on food but I’ll drink like there’s no tomorrow and smoke like a chimney.

Does anyone relate to this, or have any advice about how to tackle this kind of substituting behavior? The ideal situation would be freedom from the desire to engage in any of these, but I just swap one out for another and ultimately get nowhere. Is it possible to free yourself from all addictive drives? I feel like I don’t just need to stop doing these things - I need to become a completely new person with better values, more self-awareness, and healthier self-soothing techniques, but I just don’t know where to start .
Wow, you started right in thinking about your values and behavior. In my experience multiple addictions are really one addiction in the sense that they have the same root emotional cause. That's why people quit drinking but start smoking, over eating, Sees candy, etc. When I look at myself from the inside out, I realize that any and all addictions serve an emotional purpose and that purpose is to regain control over intolerable helpless feelings. Factors that lead a person to feel overwhelmingly helpless, in the face of specific circumstances, are always the same underlying factors, as those that lead to a person's general emotional problems, in life itself. This is precisely why we all have a tendency for multiple habits that can become compulsive (addictive).

Summary: Addictive behavior always serves and emotional purpose! Addicts have learned to empower themselves and regain control of how they feel, with a displaced quick fix or mood changer of substances and other behaviors. Non-addicts empower themselves and regain control of their feelings by facing them directly or replacing them with a more healthy high-value behavior. Compulsive behavior (addictions) is really about our, "Emotional IQ," or making our emotions work for us instead of against us. "A fool vents all their feelings, but a wise person holds them in check." Proverbs 29:11
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