The Dangers of Addiction

A good life is all about moderation. A little bit of something is fine, but too much and things can seriously change. Think of what you eat. The best advice is that a balanced diet is the best for your health, body and mind. Sure, sugar isn’t the best thing for your body, but it’s still needed just like your veggies, your greens are. Addiction, particularly a substance addiction is where you have too much of something, resulting in a change in your body’s natural equilibrium. If you’re addicted to sugar, you can put on weight which can cause health problems down the line, like obesity and heart failure, so the daily desire and habit for too much sugar would be a seriously dangerous addiction.
It might seem simple enough to know, to recognise when you become addicted to something. It might seem like all you have to look out for is a change in your behaviour or intake of something. But It’s more than this. In a perfect world, addiction wouldn’t exist, but unfortunately, the world isn’t perfect and we have to deal with addiction. Addiction attacks in three main ways.

CRAVING – When you become addicted to something, you crave that thing multiple times during the day, and the craving itself will be very strong. You could find yourself skipping over something important like a work meeting in order to ensure that your cravings are met. Not only are you continually taking something that isn’t good for you, you’re also putting the rest of life in jeopardy for the sake of pleasure.

LOSS OF CONTROL – Often times, addiction is linked to mental health issues. If you’re feeling depressed or stressed you might turn to alcohol to calm yourself or numb the pain, and this is where the second attack comes from.. So, you keep doing it, but the more you drink, the more you need to take each time, and after a while you could be drinking multiple bottles of wine a night. The problem is that because it worked once, and continues to work by taking more each time, you can subconsciously tell yourself that without this vice, you’ll lose your perceived control, and that without it, you’d be in an even worse state.

Whilst both craving and the fear of losing control are both separate attacks, taking the substance is what seriously does the damage to you, especially when you’re aware of the potential future outcomes.

Addictions are all about pleasure. You take something to feel pleasure, you engage in an activity to feel pleasure. So, it’s easy to understand that when these substances aren’t being taken, and the activities aren’t being engaged in, why people feel worse. Addiction is a dangerous path. But if you develop an addiction and can recognise that you must break the habit for you own good, and often for the good of your family and friends. then there are ways that you can overcome it.