How can you tell if you have an addiction or just a bad habit?

Addictions are often referred to as diseases. That reflects the deeply destructive, often life-threatening, effect that an addiction has on a person. Addictions are the most extreme form of self-rejection and self-hatred. If you’re involved in an addiction, you focus almost all your energy on one thing (drinking alcohol, overeating food, smoking cigarettes, gambling). The only thing strong enough to motivate anyone to make such an extreme effort is a powerful unmet need.

The tragedy of addiction, however, is that what you do to try meeting your need never actually does it. Instead, you’re left with an underlying self-hatred and self-rejection that covers up your true need. What’s the result? You become locked onto a false (or “decoy”) need. Time passes, and you just keep trying to meet that need in a way that doesn’t work. A few days ago it was reported that almost 5% of Baby Boomers in the United States are abusing drugs. And even though you may know that overweight people die about 4 years too early compared to those of normal weight, food addiction can keep you eating in unhealthy ways.

An addiction takes away your free will, and leaves you in danger of losing what’s most important to you.

So what’s the difference between this addition scenario and a simple bad habit? With a bad habit, you may be creating huge inconveniences in your life, but you still have a certain capacity for self-control. You can see the bad habit; you recognize it’s a problem, and there’s a certain openness about it. With an addiction, there’s a powerful urge to hide the compulsive behavior, to deny it to yourself and others.

Hypnotherapy can help you take back your personal power, and free you from compulsive and addictive behaviors. My transpersonal approach to hypnosis and hypnotherapy is holistic; it helps you tap into your own internal wisdom — your natural ability to be whole and free.

This approach doesn’t just work with addictions, though. It can help you with bad habits too!  I’ve helped thousands of people to get free of destructive behaviors. If you want to take back control of your life, you’re invited to schedule a private session via Zoom to free you from the habit or addition that’s been getting in the way of your happiness.

You may also want to check out this and other audio programs I offer: Finding True Magic Audio “Weight Loss — Health Gain”