Life can be beautiful. But it can also be hard. We can be faced with a variety of traumas, emotional issues, and more that make us feel like the world we live in is difficult, or that we feel like we need to see the world differently in order to live in it.
This is the root of addiction: the desire to escape from our existing reality. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, pornography, gambling – what matters is not the type of addiction, but the enhanced desire to see our reality as different than it is and within our ability to change it.
Addiction is Quick and Easy
When one gets fixated on a specific addiction, it often indicates an unhappiness with their circumstances, and the desire to look for a quick and easy solution to avoid the realities of life. Drug and alcohol addiction are perhaps the most common examples of this, but even addictions like gambling – which exist in our current reality – are based on this idea that our lives can be different at any moment, and that we can be someone that gets and deserves an immediate life reward.
We fall into these addictions under the impression that they help us avoid many of the realities of life. Of course, that is not the case. Addictions provide a change that is temporary, and then we’re back once again into the real world – a world that often worse because of this desire to change it. Over time, the “temporary reality” caused by the addiction is not enough, and we start seeking and desiring more and more of it, all the while it starts to hurt us more and more along the way.
Adapting to the Way Life Is
One of the reasons that people seek out addictions rather than therapy is because therapy does take time. Learning to love and appreciate the world is not something that occurs overnight. A person that finds that reality isn’t suiting them rarely says to the therapist “I’ve changed my mind, I love the universe now.” Typically, this is a long process that involves changing the way we think, feel, and process.
But it is also something that works. Patients that take the time to re-learn how to think in today’s stressful world will often find that they can be happier and far more fulfilled without their addiction, and that there is a lot of value for seeing and appreciating reality. Addiction may provide that temporary relief. But in the long term, it only makes reality harder and worse. Contact Long Island Psychology for more information about overcoming addiction.
