Anyone who has ever experienced an addiction will be very familiar with the 'hamster on a wheel' sensation. You are on a wheel that despite all your intentions to the contrary, you just can't get off! With this comes a sense of powerlessness, helplessness, shame, embarrassment, self loathing together with a feeling of being totally weak. Anyone experiencing these negative emotions is in extreme emotional pain which will obviously further drive the addiction as a form of escape.

The good news is that people who are suffering from any addiction are not weak. They are simply behaving in a natural way driven by their unconscious mind given their mindset, beliefs and previous experience. Anyone given their specific beliefs, experiences and mindset would behave in EXACTLY the same way. In other words, people with addictions are human! They do not have some inherant weakness or genetic flaw.

We often think our conscious mind runs the show. That we are in full control. But that is not the case. The conscious mind can only deal with about 7 to 9 tasks at the same time. This is why learning a new skill takes effort. But as we learn and repeat tasks, the unconscious mind slowly takes the information and then it incorporates this new learning so we can then complete tasks without consciously thinking about what we are doing. Driving is a good example of this. When learning how to drive, we have to pay full attention to actually driving the car as well as what is happening around us on the road. Once we have learned to drive, we no longer have to focus on HOW to drive. That is now automatic.

The unconscious mind does not know what is real or imagined. It does what it thinks you want it to do by the words and pictures you use and see in your head. Its only job is to keep us safe and to move us away from pain and towards pleasure. The unconscious mind also cannot hold conflicting beliefs (something is good and bad at the same time). This is why addiction becomes a 'hamster wheel' loop. The addicted person sees their addiction as a great source of pleasure that results in pain. Having these apposing views keeps the unconscious mind paralysed because it does not know which way to direct your behaviour.

ALL addictions have exactly the same psychological roots. Physical addiction is just a further complication of psychological addiction. No addiction could survive without a psychological driving force. This is good news because once the psychological driving force is found, it can be altered in order to get your needs met in healthy ways. An addiction is just an unhealthy way of trying to get an emotional need met. The addictive behaviour is often a way of 'shutting off' uncomfortable feelings. These uncomfortable feelings are often with us from  childhood because our emotional needs were not met then, or from previous trauma. Someone with an addiction will often feel 'empty'. Because the emptiness is not resolved by the addictive behaviour (it is just temporarily suspended during the addictive behaviour), the emptiness remains but is now joined by feelings of powerlessness, helplessness, shame and weakness. This then reinforces the addictive cycle as the person suffering from addiction seeks emotional relief.

To ditch your addiction using Rapid Transformational Therapy, contact me to arrange a  FREE 20 minute telephone consultation. You don't have to live locally because we can arrange a skype session.