Addiction, Compulsive Behavior and Problem Evasion
Related: Choosing Between Satisfaction for Now or Later, Letting Go of Sexual Thoughts
Problem evasion, evasive behavior may become addictive behavior
Time wasting
About patterns
Modifying habitual or undesirable behavior
Difficulty to break habit vs frequency of repetition
Addiction and Pleasure
It doesn't matter whether it is eating, drinking, playing video games or whatever addictive actions, behaviors, the underlying factor here is compulsive behavior and it is a matter of developing the willpower to resist the addictive behaviors. Looking to within yourself to realize your behavior, your patterns.
You have to think about your thinking.
Usually, addiction is a means of which to escape reality and avoid thinking about problems that ultimately must be faced.
People who excessively and continuously escape their problems through various diminishing outlets…
Escapement and avoidance are for the weak-minded.
Do not categorize yourself. Do not say you are one way and that's just how it is and it is never going to change. That is just making an excuse for yourself to continue escaping the problem.
There are many things which people do to avoid their real problems in life, whether they are addictive behaviors or recreational behaviors. Playing a musical instrument, painting, cooking, physical activity, can all be means of escaping reality, and avoiding the real issues in your life.
The best thing for anyone to do is attack the problems immediately, resolve them, and get them over with, rather than continually avoiding them, and letting new and more problems accumulate, and everything cascades, looking worse and worse as you keep avoiding the problems.
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Sometimes people do other things because they don’t know what else to do with themselves, they don’t know how else to occupy their time. So they do these other things which will occupy their time. These other things may not be constructive and are in a sense used to escape having to think about how else to use their time. Sometimes they get caught up in doing these other things and it becomes habitual.
The mind wanders, naturally. It seems as though one at times may not have the ability to control where the mind wanders. Thoughts occur spontaneously.
Addictions stem either directly through desires or indirectly through frustration, whereby the frustration is caused by problems. You seek to avoid the problems and evade them through behaviors which may become repetitive over time, because of constant evasion.
Another idea is that if one has two or more addictions, the stimulation of one addiction may lead to the stimulation and fulfillment of another.
Problem evasion, evasive behavior may become addictive behavior
You have dreams and fantasies
These are things that you want now.
But you don’t have them now and do not see them happening in the short term either.
This creates conflict within you, because it is something you deeply desire yet do not have. Therefore, it becomes a problem.
The problem leads to stress, frustration, negative feelings and emotion, you get down on yourself. You do not like to keep feeling those negative feelings all the time, and do not like to keep thinking about things you deeply want, or wish to achieve, yet do not have. Therefore, to alleviate yourself from those thoughts, you find activities to partake in which completely takes your thoughts, you focus, away from those issues you face. The catch is, typically, these actions one seeks to use for escape do not help in any way in getting one closer to those dreams or fantasies or help in solving the problems one faces.
So it then becomes a continuous cycle, day by day.
Time wasting
1. TV
2. Video Games
3. Internet
These three things are sucking up the majority of time of the new generations and turning their brains into mush.
About patterns
Easy patterns are also bad and common
Difficult patterns are also beneficial and rare
Modifying habitual or undesirable behavior
You just STOP. You don’t do it anymore. You don’t think about it anymore. You just cut it off right there and that’s it. That is the end of it.
Difficulty to break habit vs frequency of repetition
Addiction and Pleasure
What defines an addiction? Usually an addiction involves some kind of patterned behavior.
Certain things that are easy to acquire, or are readily available, can make it easy to develop an addiction. For example, buy alcohol, drink it. It doesn’t get much easier than that. Certain things that are hard to acquire may make it hard to become addicted to those things.
What makes something pleasurable?
Something that is pleasurable appeals to one or more of the five senses: sight, sound, smell, touch, taste.
- Sight
- Sound
- Smell
- Touch
- Taste
What makes an addiction?
- Repetitive behaviors
- Longing or craving for something