Every addictive cycle has a moment where an unwanted feeling triggers the move to the addictive behavior. The want for a cigarette leads to the cigarette. The shame from the inner critic leads to television. The feeling of being out of control leads to anger as a coping mechanism. If you’re willing to feel all those things fully, there’s simply no reason to move to the addiction — and no reason to carry shame about it either.
“If you’re good with feeling all those things then there’s no reason to move to the addiction and there’s no reason to particularly have the shame around the addiction.”
This applies beyond substance addiction to any behavioral pattern driven by emotional avoidance — drama triangle dynamics, people-pleasing, controlling behavior. The common thread is an unwillingness to feel something (helplessness, abandonment, inadequacy) that drives a compensatory behavior. Embracing the intensity of the underlying feeling removes the fuel source of the pattern.
Related Concepts
- Shame addiction keeps you stuck
- Believing you’re broken sustains addiction
- Fully feeling stops the pattern
- Shame becomes addictive and creates empty fulfillment
- The avoidance chain runs from essential self through thinking to addiction
- Shame drives compulsive avoidance behaviors
- Self-attack is another form of avoidance