Notes on Dealing with an Addiction

• Dealing with an addiction is fairly simple in one way but complicated to make happen. 
• What gets you into an addiction is most often not a useful guide to how to get out of that addiction. 

• Equally, understanding why you use a substance is not all that helpful in working out how to stop using that substance 

• As humans we are designed to be addicted to something even if we haven’t found that something yet – addiction is a fact of life not an abberation. 

• How come some people end up addicted & others don’t is probably more related to bad luck & circumstances than it is to genetics or psychology. 

• Any addiction involves an endless repeating action & set of feelings & thoughts you can’t escape from – it’s an endless repeating pattern that takes up residence ‘inside’ your head & on the ‘outside’ in your daily interactions with people 

• Secrecy is central to most addictions – most people who are addicted are addicted to something & they are addicted to the secrecy that goes with that something and how you use it. 

• To break an addiction you have to break that person’s addiction to the substance + break that person’s addiction to secrecy 

• If you don’t break that person’s addiction to secrecy then the secrecy required for the addiction to flourish remains in place & available for the substance to return 

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