Save this article
Use this article for free on your own website
Republish this article for free on your own website or blog. Or search or browse for more articles that your audience will appreciate. Huge choice available. Ideal for finding quality, free content. Read our publishers guide.
Anxiety: The Heart Of Addictions And Compulsions
Addictions and compulsions are attempts to soothe unmanageable anxiety. But they backfire, resulting in negative consequences and fostering guilt or shame. By healing our own inner criticism and self-judgment, we can begin relieving the anxiety and releasing the need to turn to alcohol, drugs, food, or compulsive behaviors like shopping, internet use, or overwork.
We tend to think of Addictions and Compulsive behaviors as problems that stand alone. Once the addiction or compulsion is stopped, everything is okay. And while recovery from an addiction or compulsion is a huge relief, it is also essential to heal the underlying emotions. As George Carlin once said, “Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town.”
It all starts with anxiety - specifically anxiety about being deficient, or “not good enough.” Typical indicators of this anxiety are:
- Perfectionism – striving to meet an unattainable ideal
- Avoidance – hiding imperfections from others
- Compensation – Having outward signs of success, but feeling like a fraud inside
- Judgment – Finding fault with everything and everyone; feeling frustrated that no one can measure up
- Self-Judgment – Finding fault with oneself
- Irritability – a toned-down (and socially more acceptable) expression of anger about having to prove one’s worth
- Depression – a “why bother” response to repeated failure at “measuring up”
How does Anxiety Become an Addiction or Compulsion?
Compulsions are actions we are compelled to take even though they don’t make sense and may have negative consequences. At first, the compulsion provides pleasure and relief from anxiety. Then, guilt or shame over the negative consequences becomes the focus of the thoughts and the unpleasantness. Compulsions are a great distraction.
Addictions operate like compulsions, but in addition to the psychological component, there is also a physical component. The body requires a substance to achieve equilibrium. Recovery entails healing both the body and the psyche.
The Anxiety-Compulsion Cycle
The belief “I’m not good enough” is self-perpetuating. The truth is, we are all flawed. That’s just normal. It’s the fantasy that we shouldn’t be flawed that causes distress and an unending pursuit of relief from that distress.
Addictions and compulsions provide that relief for a while. Eventually, the addiction or compulsion creates more anxiety than relief. When this happens, people become obsessed with controlling their behavior. “I can stop anytime,” is the mantra, and indeed there are many “successful” days, months, even years when the new problem remains under control.
Often the success lies in transferring the obsessive thoughts to controlling the problem behavior (getting the monkey off your back). When we channel energy into dieting or abstinence, each day of success “proves” that we are “good enough.”
There’s just one problem. The original wounds that resulted in the belief about NOT being good enough are still there, unattended (this is the circus that George Carlin refers to). The positive feelings that result from successful abstinence are shaky at best, because they are conditional. One misstep or slip, and the negative self-judgment is re-confirmed.
Why Traditional Approaches Fail
Approaches like AA, Weight Watchers, or Clutterers Anonymous fail for three reasons.
- By focusing on the addiction or compulsion, they give anxiety a new area of focus: doing the program “good enough.” The result is an addiction to AA or the gym or some other source of “help.”
- Because they don’t heal the underlying anxiety, the risk for relapse is always high. Interestingly, both AA and dieting have a 95% failure rate after 3 years.
- Traditional approaches inadvertently perpetuate the fear of judgment. In AA and other 12-step groups, people count their days of abstinence. If they “slip,” they have to start over at day one. It’s like being a bad kid who’s sent to the back of the line. With dieting, it’s much the same. As long as you’re on the diet you’re “good.” As soon as you go off, you’re “bad.”
So What’s the Answer?
Identifying and healing the original wounds that set the whole thing into motion.
These wounds are frequently the result of criticism and judgment by family members, teachers, peers or other important people as we’re growing up. We internalize this judgment and develop our own “inner critic” – the voice in our own minds which is often more harsh than the original criticism.
When we identify the source of these wounds as adults, we realize that those original messages were inaccurate and distorted. We also come to see that the expectation that we become “perfect” is unrealistic and unnecessary. These realizations allow us to form more appropriate and realistic beliefs and expectations about ourselves and others. We can relax into our imperfections and come to like ourselves as we are, unconditionally.
While this work is neither simple or easy, it is incredibly rewarding and effective. Not only do you get to enjoy life without addictions or compulsions, you get to live with a person (YOU) who is kind, respectful, forgiving, nurturing encouraging…in short, you get to love yourself.