Addiction is Not Necessarily an Addiction for Life

By Dawn Walton

Guest Writer for Wake Up World

There is an accepted idea out there that once addicted to something, you will always be prone to returning to your addiction. This idea is reinforced by mainstream media, with constant stories of celebrities going into rehab or, even worse, taking their own lives through substance abuse. Alcoholics Anonymous encourage the idea that you will always be an alcoholic but that you can follow 12 steps to get off and stay off using alcohol. Many smokers will still answer that they are a smoker even when they have given up smoking for a while.

It is accepted that, given a certain set of circumstances, people will return to their addiction. It is also accepted that there is such a thing as an addictive personality. In fact, for many years I believed I had an addictive personality and would stay away from addictive substances because of the belief I would never be able to stop if I started.

I no longer believe that to be true. I do not think people have addictive personalities. I believe that people have a need to use some substance to help them cope. As long as there is a need to cope, there will be a need for the substance (or behaviour because gambling and shopping can also be addictions). I had a lot of difficult stuff in my childhood, if I had found something that allowed me to escape from that, I would definitely have used it. Luckily for me, nothing really worked.

To understand why it is possible to permanently overcome an addiction, we first have to look at what an addiction truly is.

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Previous articles by Dawn Walton:

• Fight, Flight… or Fun? Turning Anxiety into Anticipation
• Even Positive People Have Negative Thoughts
• Understanding and Overcoming Food Addiction

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