The secret addictions no one talks about- part 1: the addiction to anxiety, stress and depression. Blog #25

As a therapist and coach I have been specialising in depression, anxiety, addiction, self sabotage, traumas and phobias successfully ever since I started my career. Having spent a great deal of my life on the other side of the mirror I own an extensive insight about those imbalances. I have experienced first hand many facets and developments of severe depression and anxiety such as addiction, self sabotage, phobias, dyslexia, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder (BPD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), attention deficit disorder (ADHD), Pure OCD, Tourettes, Autism and so many other mental health labels as I have been essentially feasting on a gigantic (pardon my french) shit buffet for more than 25 years and experiencing tasters of all those labels.

The way I see it however, pretty much everything could be put under the umbrella of addiction if we can think of addiction on a more general level.

The most common addiction people come to see me for are addiction to: alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, food, sugar, porn and gambling. Less common are the addictions to power, popularity, winning, sex, shoplifting, social medias, gaming, mobile phone, work and the gym... This series of blogs will cover different category of addiction, but first let's remind ourselves of the basics of addiction.

Addiction 101

1-We need to feel connected. Depression is disconnection. Anxiety is the physical manifestation of being worried of not being able to cope with that disconnection. Nature abhors a vacuum, so a connection will be established to compensate for the disconnection in the form of an addiction. If we can't connect with ourselves/ the world/ people... we will connect to an addiction.

2-The brain is designed to create a comfort zone in which to keep us safe. The brain doesn't know about happy or healthy, just safety, and the only thing deemed safe for the brain is anything with a track record. So for instance if we have been feeling depressed and/or anxious for a long time, that will be our default mode, the chemical balance, the normality our subconscious mind will always bring us back to.

3-We are creatures of feelings and sensations (The emotional subconscious mind is 95% of our mind). So although everything starts with a thought, most of our thoughts are subconscious therefore emotional, which means that the emotional mind will always trump the conscious analytical mind. Which demonstrate furthermore how the vast majority of the mental health industry have been looking at the wrong place all along addressing the head instead of the heart.

So what does that mean ?

We essentially get addicted to our internal bio chemistry, the established patterns of hormonal rush any kind of addiction provides us with. The greater the disconnection and the deeper the feeling of powerlessness to being able to reconnect, the more excessive the mental and emotional imbalance.

The addiction to stress, anxiety and worries

Stress and anxiety are the reflection, the physical manifestations of fearful thoughts and are normal. Chronic stress and anxiety however are a habit stemmed from the repetition of those thoughts. A habit we can't get rid of is an addiction. Depression, stress and anxiety are by far the most common form of secret addiction people seek therapy and solace from.

We are not victim from external forces that instil stress, depression and/or anxiety in our body and mind. We are all subject to similar fluctuations in our environment daily yet some get affected more than others. Why ? Because of our filters, our triggers, the subconscious choice of reaction we choose to repeat and reinforce in the belief that this is our normality.

We return to and stay and repeat those states as we get addicted to the chemical rush we experience as we suffer them. Remember, the brain doesn't know or care about happy or healthy... It is our subconscious automatic pilot that keeps on reactivating those triggers time and again. It is the triggers, the associations, the belief system we want to address in order to regain balance.

The drugs don't work

Many people still use drugs to treat depression and anxiety. Drugs have never fixed anything in that department. If there is a strategy in place drugs can help provide temporary relief until the patient is stable and able to start a recovery strategy. But I will repeat this always and again:" Drugs don't, never have and never will fix anything to do with mental and emotional imbalance and more often than not create complications".

All drugs have an effect in our body because those drugs exists already in our body. If they didn't they would be poison to us. Any drug from our body we create inside out. When we replace the production of those drugs/chemicals with external input we cease to produce them, therefore creating an imbalance that turns into another addiction. Trying to fix an addiction with another addiction is the most ludicrous concept ever shared by science.

One of my proud and favourite one liner when asked at social conventions "what do you do?" is "I heal people from depression, anxiety, addiction, self sabotage and traumaswithout drugs".

We can stop the habit of depression, anxiety and stress and start the habit of feeling good, feeling balanced and connected instead...

Life and everything we do is a habit. It is possible now and only for the last few years thanks to Marisa Peer and her revolutionary RTT protocol (Rapid Transformational Therapy) and the expansion of Mindset and Mindfulness coaching, to let go of all disempowering habits of thoughts, emotions and actions and literally choose the mental and emotional set up we want to own in order to create the life that we want.







Didier Kan