Breaking the Cycle of Addiction
Have you ever asked yourself: “How do I break the cycle? What can I do when I feel the urge to drink? Are there any quick tips to building a new, healthy habit?” Because if so, then you're not alone. Questions like these feed into the cyclic patterns that you're trying so hard to break with your addiction. So let's try reframing them, building a foundation for sober awareness, and heal the whole person suffering.
As a Licensed Clinical Addictions Specialist, I have heard a variety of definitions for addiction over the years–both medically and from client’s lived experiences. One of the best ways I've heard it defined is that addiction is a “disorder of choice” (Gene Heyman, PhD, 2009).
Defining Addiction
Speaking from a biological standpoint, alcohol—like any other substance—alters the brain. This can lead to increased tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, significant impairment of life responsibilities, and more issues depending on a person’s substance of choice and length of use. Realistically, substances alter the brain the first time you try experimenting–but more on this later.
Viewing addiction as a disease of choice, ties together two concepts: (1) the biological or medical component I just mentioned, and (2) examining the influence of choice. To try a substance of any kind, usually it is in a setting that we are offered something by peers, curious about the feeling we witness in others, or seek it out due to societal norms around drinking. There are cases when people are forced substances without their knowledge so not all addictions may start with an initial decision to try something.
The Craving Cycle
The disorder of choice is best illustrated by examining the Cycle of Use: Trigger → Thoughts → Cravings → Use. It is possible to go directly from trigger to use once addiction has become so habitual in some folks. I have often heard over the years, “it was just impulsive” and there were no thoughts behind it.
Triggers
So how do we get from the trigger to use and more importantly how do we interrupt this cycle of alcohol abuse? The trigger can be any event, situation, or feeling that we don't particularly feel comfortable with. It's activating some sense of unease within us typically, or alternatively can be a positive emotion that we want to enhance. We cannot control our exposure to triggers all the time, but we control how we respond.
Thoughts
That's where it evolves into changing our thought patterns. Once we've experienced some trigger–good or bad– then the thoughts start to creep in.
“I deserve to have just a glass of wine tonight, it was a stressful day at work.”
“I need something to shut my thoughts off.”
“I have a family birthday this weekend and I know I'm going to need a few drinks to get through that.”
The obsessions, the planning, and even the justifications start building mentally for us. At this point, you can still change the course of the cycle and not end up drinking because of the triggering situation. It's essential we learn how to feel more comfortable with our thoughts and understand our emotional cues.
Cravings to Use
Once the thoughts feel too strong, the physical cravings and urges may start to take over. This can come off as feeling more irritable over small things, headaches or brain fog, yearning for alcohol/substances, or even restlessness at night. This can appear subtle if it's become the norm for a lot of folks. A bad day at work leads to a draining evening, and coping with alcohol to shut your mind off. This cycle is all too familiar for a lot of us.
Build New Habits
Interrupting this cycle means you have to do something different– duh! But it's not always that easy. When you tell your brain, “I'm going to stop eating out so much to save money.” How long does that typically last? A few weeks, days, or even hours—guilty of all of these myself.
Building a new, healthy habit starts every morning with intention. You literally take it one day at a time. When setting an overarching goal for yourself you want to add something to your daily routine so it challenges your brain. As opposed to taking something away with nothing planned to replace it.
I've seen a lot of failures within sobriety—and lifestyle changes in general—because we can't just “stop” doing something that we've been doing for years. Our brain doesn't have an off switch like that. It will just find something else to attach to, for example if you abruptly stop drinking coffee every morning, sooner or later you may switch to energy drinks. Having a high dose of caffeine in the morning is addicting for our bodies. If we don’t have a healthy alternative in place, our body will naturally start to crave that caffeine again eventually.
Trigger: Stressful day ahead for work mixed with a poor night of sleeping
Thoughts: “I haven’t had coffee in so long and these energy drinks aren’t cutting it for me. I don’t think I’ll be able to get through the day without it.”
Cravings: Increased urges to drink coffee, planning to leave early to stop by Starbucks on the way to work, feeling more tired the more that you’re talking about it
Use: Buying a coffee that morning and restarting the cycle of use
Healing the Whole Person
The most important takeaway from this entire blog, is that you have to get to the root of the issue to break the cycle of an addiction. Addiction is a symptom of something greater going on underneath the surface. Addictions are usually outside factors that we are using to regulate what is going on within ourselves emotionally.
This is what I meant earlier about treating the whole person, not just the addiction. Truly breaking the cycle of addiction means doing the deep work in understanding why you seek something outside of yourself to comfort what is going on within your mind.
Begin by identifying what your triggers are, what makes you feel uncomfortable in your own skin, and time frames each day you crave disconnection. Notice patterns of avoidance, doom scrolling, and planning around unhealthy behaviors. This can all be explored in the context of therapy, or just your own self reflection.
Let's answer those initial questions again:
How do I break the cycle?
Learning how to feel my emotions in the moments I want to avoid them.
What can I do when I feel the urge to drink?
Identify ways to distract yourself in a healthy way temporarily, while undergoing the deep work for long term changes.
Are there any quick tips to building a new, healthy habit?
The fastest way to build a new habit is to start today and to start small. Then just stay consistent with it and you'll have formed a new habit in no time!
Reach out today if interested in learning more about your own relationship with alcohol or addiction, or how to support a loved one navigating these issues as well.
References:
Kurti AN, Dallery J. REVIEW OF HEYMAN'S ADDICTION: A DISORDER OF CHOICE. J Appl Behav Anal. 2012 Spring;45(1):229–40. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2012.45-229. PMCID: PMC3297350. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3297350/
