The 1% Habit – The Surprising Power Of Incremental Improvements

In this article, I write about the surprising power of tiny changes, and you will be given a free psychological exercise that will help you to identify your bad habits.

In 2019, I was fully emerged in writing my first book about Habit Formation. This endeavour was terribly difficult for me.

Writing has never come easy for me, so being the lazy bastard that I am, I started by googling “best habit books in the world “. After ordering most of them, I wrote every single author an email to deepen my knowledge about behaviour psychology and more importantly – ask them how in the world they managed to finish a book that taught individuals the power of habit formation.

One of the first world changers that answered my podcast request was Jay Papasan, the author of the international bestseller The One Thing.

In this interview, Jay shared with me a metaphor about the power of tiny habit formation that I would like to share with you…

The Surprising Power Of The Domino Effect

On November 13, 2009, in Leeuwarden, Netherlands, Weijers Domino Productions broke the world record for lining up 4, 491,863 dominos in a spectacular fashion. A single domino was set into motion and unleashed 94,000 joules of energy, which is as much energy as it takes for a grown male to do 500+ push-ups1.

Each standing domino represents a small amount of potential energy, and the more dominos you put in a line. Thus, more potential energy can be generated.

Enough small domino in a row can produce a staggering amount of energy.

The same seems to be true for life; setting the right things in motion can produce massive energy and change.

In 1993, Loran Whitehead, a Professor of physics, discovered that domino falls could topple not only many things but also massive things.

He articulated that a single domino is capable of bringing down another domino that is 50 % bigger.

In 2001, a physicist from San Francisco reproduced Whitehead’s experiment by creating eid dominoes out of wood, each 50% bigger than the one before.

Fascinating, isn’t it? A tiny nudge in the right spot could produce massive energy; now imagine if this kept going.

If a regular domino fall is a linear progression, Whitehead’s would be described as geometric progression.

Let us do the math…

If we start with a regular domino, the 10th domino would be almost as tall as me (I am 2 meterish). By the 18th, you are looking at a domino that would be as tall as the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

The 23rd domino would be as big as the Eiffel Tower, and the 31st domino would be as tall as Mount Everest at almost 3,000 feet. At number 57, the domino would touch the moon.

The 1% Habit

Clients who see me in my private practice are often hungry for a quick fix, the one aha moment, or the monumental epiphany that is going to transform them overnight into who they want to be. It has turned out to be a significant struggle to convince them to trust in the power of micro improvements.

To utilise the power of incremental improvement, I often show my clients a funny video that I found on YouTube that perfectly displays the truth that small, strategic behavioural changes can add up and produce massive differences in your quality of life.

Many people go through life and never discover that behavioural modifications are the steering wheel of our lives. Suppose you add a new habit, belief, or reshape your environment purposefully. In that case, you will inevitably alter the trajectory of your life for the better.

When I invented my first habit journal – The Behaviour Kickstarter – I wanted to make sure that people tapped into the power of incremental improvement. This is why everybody who purchased this behaviour technology has to ask themselves by the end of the day a simple question: What can you do to be 1% better tomorrow?

Thought Experiment

Imagine three versions of yourself, six months, three years, and five years into the future.

What would your life look like if you were to continue to repeat your disempowering habits every day?

Now, think the other way around, if you were to actually stick to your resolutions and positive habits, who could you be in three years?

We may not recognise the effects that habits have on our lives. However, each behavioural decision is a vote to who we become and what our life is going to be like.

Hitting the gym once might not transform you into a supermodel. However, if you keep going, after a year, your body will be unrecognisable.

The same is true for bad habits, of course.

Drinking a glass of red wine will not transform you into an alcoholic. However, with enough repetition and excessiveness, your body will fall apart sooner or later.

Now, let us do the math; What would happen if you were to improve yourself daily by only one measly percentage?2

If you succeed in getting 1% better each day for one year, you will be thirty-seven times better by the time the year is over.

Yes, thirty-seven fucking times better, you read that right.

Let that sink in for a second and ask yourself: What kind of life results could I produce if my personal powers were to increase thirty-seven-fold?

The Power Of Habit Compounding

What do you think would happen to you if you were the captain of a cruise ship and you changed the course of your ship by just 3.5 degrees? At first, not a lot, right? But after a week or two, for better or worse, you would end up somewhere totally different.

Just as the course of a boat shifts radically when you alter the course by 1-2%, your life trajectory will be different if you make one or two behavioural modifications.

James Clear put it best when he said:

“Habits are the compound interest of self-improvement.”

Incremental behavioural improvements appear to be mundane and trivial at first. However, the right change at the right time will change everything for you.

Similar to the course change of a ship, your future will be altered if you change your habits, beliefs, and your living environment.

Of course, the first gains that you will produce will be barely noticeable:

  • Going to the gym once will not change your body an awful lot.
  • Studying for an hour will not make you pass the exam.
  • Bringing your partner flowers once will not make you Mr/Ms Right.
  • Putting a dollar into your investment account will not make you a millionaire.
  • Reading a book once will not make you a genius.
  • Helping your friend move once will not make you the best friend of someone.

BUT, if those one-time actions become habitual, if they become a part of who you are as a person, you will become:

  • A sexy beast.
  • A straight-A student.
  • Mr/Ms Right.
  • A millionaire.
  • A genius.
  • A friend that other people can count on.

One of the sentences that I try to hammer into my client’s heads is that their current life outcomes were produced by the habits, beliefs, thoughts, and environment of their former selves.

Repeat after me:

MY life is a product of MY patterns.

MY life is a product of MY patterns.

MY life is a product of MY patterns.

One of the simplest ways to predict someone’s future is to investigate their behavioural patterns and calculate where they will end up if they continue to be who they are, instead of behaving like the person they want to become.

Fulfilment, success, loving relationships, mental, and physical health are all results that are produced by the individual3.

Behavioural compounding goes both ways; however, if you have bad habits in your psychological portfolio, they will, of course, also compound over time, and you will pay for it big time.

Below, you will find a couple of examples of pattern compounding that I have noticed in my life:

Empowering Compounding  Disempowering Compounding 
Intimacy Compounding: Having one date night will not save your marriage, but making love a priority and reserving two days a week for your soulmate can make your bond indestructible. Procrastination Compounding: Scrolling once through social media will not make you a bad worker, but continuously wasting your time will kill your chances to perform at a high level in any professional domain.
Virtuosity Compounding: Doing the right thing once will not make you a hero, but if you continuously attempt to act nobly, this is what you are going to become. Depression Compounding: Ignoring your conscience once will not make you miserable. However, if you live a life of self-deception, self-sabotage, and egoism, your body will start to say no to you.
Mastery Compounding: Reading one book will not make you a genius, reading a book a week will. Overwork Compounding: Working long hours a week will not give you burnout, but if this becomes a pattern, you will perform poorly in all other areas of your life.

The Behaviour Detective – A Technique To Spot Disempowering Patterns Right Away

Now that we have come to understand that patterns compound into outcomes, it is time to address the elephant in the room: What can we do to spot bad habits early before they compound and turn our lives into a big pile of horse shit? 

For that manner, I have developed a simple behaviour exercise that I call The Behaviour Detective 4.

The exercise is quite simple; take a habit, a thought, a belief, or an environmental set-up and investigate:

  1. What is this pattern giving you?
  2. What is this pattern costing you?
  3. Whether or not this behavioural investment is good (+) bad (-) or neutral (=).

Behavioural patterns are the building blocks of your life, and if you are in doubt whether or not a habit, a thought, a belief, or an environmental set-up is good or bad for you, simply ask yourself;

Is this pattern turning me more into who I want to become, or is this pattern moving me away from becoming the hero of my own story?

The Behaviour Detective is a simple method that I use within all of my behavioural architecture coaching programs because it helps people to gain mastery in the most crucial field there is, which is knowing ourselves.

Everything we do is a decision whether we like it or not; nothing is neutral. Nothing. When we decide to go out on a Friday night to get smashed, we simultaneously decide to be in pain on Saturday.

When we decide to stay longer at the office, we, at the same time, prioritise work over our connections, and we are going to pay the price for that behavioural decision.

Each Netflix binge and ice cream (as fun as it is) is a step away from your desired beach body.

If you only take one idea away from this article, let it be this one: The quality of your daily decisions determines the quality of your life. 

Below, you will find an example of how I used the Behaviour Detective this week to investigate the price of my habits. You will find a Free Downloadable Worksheet at the end of the article, but I figured I would show you some of my flaws so that you can be open about yours as well:

 

Pattern (Habit, Thought, Belief, Environmental Set-Up) What Is This Pattern Giving Me?
(Today, In 6 Months, In 3 Years)
What Is This Pattern Costing Me?
(Today, In 6 Months, In 3 Years)
Good (+)Bad (-)Neutral (=) What Will You Do About It?
Snoozing for 25 minutes. Today: Bit of comfort, a delay of my morning routine.
In the future, this is not giving me a whole lot, to be honest.
Today: This habit fucks up my entire morning routine. I feel as if I am starting the day as a failure, and this feeling accompanies me through the day.
In the future, this habit can literally be one of the reasons why I will not become the person I know I can be. High-performance people do not have this habit; they do not start the day like that.
BAD HABIT! (-) I will ask my roomie to knock on my door so that I will get up in time.
Ruminating about my ex-girlfriend. As a romantic, it sometimes feels good to play the “what if game” and relive past experiences that felt good at the time. This cognitive habit hurts me psychologically because it reopens my old wounds.
In the future, this habit, for once, could make me bitter, resentful, and depressed. It could possibly ruin my chances of meeting my future soulmate because I am still stuck in one of my self-created grieving loops.
BAD HABIT! (-) Whenever the depressed entity  within me reminds me of my loss, I will say “This memory is hurting me, let’s look forward shall we Daniel?”
Compulsive protein bar snacking. Protein bars are delicious, and they give me, as the name says – a lot of protein. I like being a muscle giant, and those bars give me the feeling of growing into a strong person. Eating one bar would be fine, but I sometimes eat 3-5 within a day. This is $10 a day, which compounds to $300 a month.
Additionally, the financial downside, it’s almost impossible for me now to hit my caloric sweet spot, which means that I gain weight and fat because I snack 400 calorie bars all the time. So, in the future, this habit will not only not give me my dream body; it will actually move me away from it.
BAD HABIT! (-) I will establish a policy of eating only 2 bars per day, one in the morning and one after my workout.

Other snacks will be veggies.

Do You Want To Change Your Habits? 

What Are You And How Many?

“Jump!“

“Do it!“

“DO IT!“

Those were the words I heard on an ordinary afternoon while sitting on top of Table Mountain in the winter of 2018.

The internal voices were followed by a sudden and uncontrolled rush of tension in my legs – they were getting ready to catapult myself into the abyss.

This was not the first time this had happened to me, and I knew what to do.

I immediately grabbed the handrail, took a few deep breaths, cramped my hand up and did not let go of it until my shadow possession was over.

“…Fck off Tristan, not today“ I mumbled to myself.

I looked around to see if anybody noticed.

This is a picture of me in South-Africa

One of the friends I travelled with did, “You good bro?“

“Of course, I will catch up with you guys in a minute.“

As I took a couple of deep breaths, my muscles eased up, and I started to walk slowly again.

The voices were getting quieter and quieter until they finally faded out:

“You are not enough, and you never will be”.

”Your family will be better off without you”.

” You are making a fool out of yourself”.

”You are unlovable”.

”Nobody wants you”.

Possessed By Sadness

Luckily for me, I discovered many years before that incident in Capetown that I was not one thing but many.

”Tristan the loud one” was the name I choose for the depressed entity within myself.

The name Tristan, contrary to ordinary belief has nothing to do with the French word triste, which means sadness.  The name Tristan was originally derived from the Celtic language, and it means ”noise”.

I figured that this name was appropriate because this fragment of my soul kept whispering little toxic lies to myself over a great many years.

Painting by Aj Giel

While I hated every single visit of my inner critic, I have learned to live with him and to understand what I can to do keep this ”part” of myself in check.

Now, you might ask yourself: What the hell Daniel, are you suggesting that we all have multiple personality disorder?

Precisely, follow me into the rabbit hole…

The Composition Of The Psyche

What are you?

To answer this question, I would like to introduce you to today’s teacher:

Sigismund Schlomo Freud (1856-1939), arguably the most famous person in the history of psychology.

Freud’s discovery of the unconscious, the theory that states that our behaviour is driven by biological forces of which we are mostly unaware of are nowadays deeply entrenched in the world of psychiatry, at his time, it was a revolutionary idea.

Before Freud came along, people thought about the mind in predominantly philosophical terms.

The idea was that a human being is what they are aware of (think of Descartes quote – I think therefore I am).

It was furthermore assumed that we have control over ourselves.

Freud questioned those ideas.

Rather than seeing the mind as one thing, he acknowledged that there are invisible forces under the surface of the mind that govern our behavior.1

The idea that we possess a significantly smaller amount of self-regulation than we would like to have is indeed scary, but I believe that deep down we all know this to be true.

You have encountered this principle before; do you remember seeing the famous snickers commercial ‘You’re not you when you’re hungry’?

In those commercials, you have a series of masculine men whom all transform into histrionic women because they are possessed by their hunger.

This idea that your hunger, your lust, your sadness, and your anger are autonomous entities who reside within you and who have the power to overrule you to get what they want is a Freudian idea.2

Did you ever have a moment where somebody you cared about violated your boundaries, and you found yourself possessed by anger and you said or did something for which later, once you regained control you had to apologise?

Let me tell you how I learned about anger…

Possessed By Anger

The first time I noticed that in certain social settings, invisible behavioural drivers could be awakened was when one of my classmates tried to kill me.

I was in the sixth grade of a bad school in a bad neighbourhood.

After I had been bullied for quite some time, and I learned that becoming a bully is indeed much better than being bullied.

Myself (left) scuffling around with one of my classmates

Since I wanted to be left in peace by other aggressive kids in my class, I occasionally had to ”prove” myself to establish my standing in the school dominance hierarchy – meaning that I had to pick on somebody else.

My choice was clear- Steven, a kid who I was sure I could pick on without immediate consequences.

After a couple of word fights between Steven and me, it got physical.

He threw a swinger at me but missed; I did not miss with mine.

After my punch successfully landed on his nose, I managed to put him in a headlock and choked him until we were separated by a teacher.

What then followed was something that I am never going to forget in my life.

I expected the scuffle to end.

I assumed that Steven would accept his defeat and I figured that since everybody witnessed my ”victory”, the other tough kids would think twice before picking on me.

I was as wrong.

Steven just stood there, staring at his hand that was covered with his own nose blood.

After regaining his breath, he tilted his head in my direction, and his stare hit me.

There was something about Stevens’s eyes that changed after he saw his own blood.

After what felt like an eternity Steven smirked and opened his mouth,

I’m going to kill you”.

Steven proceeded by pushing our teacher out of the way as if she was made out of cotton.

She fell on the floor.

He walked right over her and grabbed the big scissors that were placed on her desk.

There he was, a chubby kid with glasses, pulsating skin, fletching teeth, eyes focused on me and only with one mission in mind: Stab him.

I ran as fast as I ever did in my life.

I did not return to school for a week.

I had nightmares for months, where I would see Steven’s facial expression over and over again.

Painting by Leah Justyce

My young and naive brain just could not contemplate what it had seen.

At that time, my mother always told me that human beings are good and pure at their core, but that look, those eyes, that smile, those weird movements did not fit into my understanding of the human condition.

What I saw was not Steven, that was not my classmate.

But if it was not him, who was it?

Freud and other psychoanalytical thinkers believed that rather than being one thing, we are a house in which many spirits live, and he made the terrifying notion that we are not the undisputed ruler of that house.

The ego is not master in its own house”.― Sigmund Freud

The thing that I could not understand about Steven’s transformation was that it did not fit my understanding of how emotions were supposed to work.

Growing up, I was taught that we have emotions, but in Steven’s case, it was different, it seemed to me that his emotions had him.

He was not angry; he was anger.

Steven was not transformed at that moment; it seemed to me as if something else within him, something that was already there got activated and overruled him.

That “Steven“ had a different body posture, he had different values, after all, he was not one bit concerned with his well-being in the long run, what he cared about was eliminating the source of the threat, and he willingly accepted the possibility of ruining his life for that satisfaction.

Behavioural Orchestra

Two years ago, I had lunch with a mentor of mine Peter, a systematic family therapist and his son Till, a business psychologist who also happens to be my best friend.

While eating oysters and drinking red wine, Peter eventually opened up about his counselling philosophy

When I start interviewing a client, I like to learn about their behavioural orchestra.

Most counselling approaches focus on the individual and the individual alone; a family therapist who is worth his gold will not ignore the fact that human beings are systematic creatures.

Learning about the different forces that shape the behaviour of the client helps me to draw better conclusions about the situation that is at hand.

With children, I often use an orchestra analogy.

What are the children’s parents like?  What kind of friends does the kid have?  Is the child surrounded by high-quality teachers?

By learning about the external drivers of the client, I can counsel them emphatically because I can vaguely understand what it is like to be in their shoes”.

I loved the metaphor of the behavioural orchestra, but I believed it was missing something, don’t we all have an internal orchestra as well?

I could not put it in words on that day, but to me, it seemed that we are a subset of different modes of beings.  This ecosystem consists of external and internal drivers who all affect us behaviourally, emotionally, socially, and cognitively.

 

2013 Seb Eriksson

Modern consciousness researches have concluded that rather than being one thing, the human psyche seems to be composed of various “ego-states”.

The concept of the ego was first written about between AD 397 and 400 by Augustine of Hippo in his masterpiece “Confessions“.

Saint Augustine of Hippo

Hope has two beautiful daughters; their names are Anger and Courage.  Anger at the way things are, and Courage to see that they do not remain as they are”.  ― Augustine of Hippo

The word ego is Greek, and it simply means – “self“.

Many modern therapists confirm the theory that rather than having a unitary personality, we are a house with many rooms, and in those rooms live different “selves“.

Each of those “selves“ is distinct in its character and is equipped with a full range of emotions, desires, habits, values, beliefs, and even genders, sexual orientations or talents.3

From that idea we can make a terrifying derivation: We are conflicted by nature.

What if two sub-modalities want something different at the same time?

We go to war with ourselves…

Possessed By Pleasure

In 2019, my friends and I travelled for a month through Europe in a van.

After almost five thousand kilometres on the road we received the exciting news that another friend of ours, Richard, an actor, wanted to join us on our adventure, all we had to do was to drive to Venice and pick him up.

In our euphoria about the imminent arrival of our dear friend, we somehow managed to arrive an entire day too early in Venice.

But it was not any other day; it was a Saturday.

Once we arrived in the city, we immediately armed ourselves with enough wine bottles to take out a wild Rhino.

After some drunk strolling through the most beautiful city in the world, we finally found a relatively undisturbed little bridge where we could marvel at the stars and philosophise about life.

Photo by Massimo Adami

Venice has a special meaning for me; years ago I travelled here with my girlfriend at the time.

It was the first cities where I told a girl that I loved her and meant it.

So, it is fair to say that my heart was in turmoil on that day.

After another bottle of red wine, my friends had to take a leak.

That conversational break was welcomed by me, I had a short moment for myself to dwell into memories and mourn… or at least this is what I thought.

My melancholia was interrupted by a loud “SPLASH“.

My friend Chrissi had slipped and fallen into the canal.

I am not sure if I had ever laughed this hard in my life.

While holding my belly, I saw that it was not only the disgusting water of Venice that was dripping down my friend’s hand; it was also blood.

My friend Till and I were instantly sobered up by that scene, so it was time to head back to the bar street of Venice because our friend clearly needed some first aid and more importantly, we needed to get ourselves drunk again.

Cup by cup, I became less and less Daniel and transformed slowly but surely into a two-meter tall ravaging drunk.

I talked to every person, made all of the jokes, danced on every table, and ordered all of the drinks.

As the last bar kicked us out, my friend Till suggested that it is time to go home.

I was not too fond of the idea, I somehow managed to befriend a local Italian cocaine dealer, and he proposed to me the idea that we should not go home but to go with him to an underground party where we could continue to intoxicate ourselves.

I tried to convince Till that this plan is indeed far superior to going home, but my pitch remained unsuccessful.

After five minutes of debating, I just decided to go with my “new friend“ to the rave.

Till saw this and jumped in front of me and told me with a parental voice  “Jaques it’s time to go home“.

Jaques was the nickname my friends picked years earlier for my intoxicated persona.

While “Daniel“ is in love with books, people, and his future, “Jaques“ can only be described as a playful idiot who worships the moment and chooses endless excess no matter the cost.

Artist: Jeremy Wilson

It was not only my friend who stood in front of me, but it was also reason itself, and “Jaques“ did not want to have any part of it, he simply did not want his mania to end just yet.

My friend, however, would not budge down, so he pushed me and said again fiercely “Jaques time to go home“.

Another thing “Jaques“ is not a fan of is someone telling him what to do, so “he“ took a swing at my friend.

My friend went down.

He got back up, walked right past me and whispered: “go and have your misery, you stupid son of a bitch“.

The fight sobered me up and scared my new Italian “friend“ away, and I found myself alone at night in the middle of Venice.

My regained senses could not help themselves but be endlessly intrigued by the depths of my own shadow.

I remember mumbling to myself “Did I just punch my best friend because he wanted to protect myself from drugs and bad people?“.

My mania had ended… time to go home.

Or so I thought…

I have little to no orientation skills even when I am sober, but finding my way drunk out of Venice was a lost cause from the start.

After wandering around aimlessly for hours, I surrendered to the maze of the old town.

Luckily, I met what seemed to be the last person awake in Venice, an old tattooed Vaporetto captain.

After some desperate negotiation, he agreed to give me a ride home in his boat.

Just as the sun started to kiss Venice awake, I found myself in the backseat of a luxurious- mahogany-speed-boatish-water taxi heading with god speed towards the camping ground where our van was parked.

(If you ever get drunk and lost in Venice, do not forget to bring enough cash to get a water taxi home.  The water taxis do not take credit cards.)

The very first thing I did the next morning was to write in my journal and rip the entire page out and handed it to Till, the letter said:

Good friends go to war with you.

Best friends go to war against you, if necessary.

I am sorry.

Yours

Daniel“

He forgave me at that moment, we hugged, and I shed a tear of gratitude because I realised that my friend wants the best for the best part in me.

The next day came, our friend Richard arrived, but nobody partied that night, we all had enough…

In the video above, you will see my hungover friends and myself finally catching up with our friend Richard.  See the bandage on my friend’s right hand?  Yes, he really fell in the canal the day before and injured himself mildly while doing so…and I will forever roasting him for it…

Do You Hear Voices?  Yes, Me Too

Dr Richard Schwartz, one of the most eminent thinkers in the field of Internal Family Systems Therapy, noticed something strange in the early 1980s while working with clients who had severe eating disorders.

During that time, many family therapists believed that the origins of psychological disorders were caused by dysfunctional structures in the family.  This means that if you want to change the behaviour of the client, you must change the organisation of the family itself.

He soon discovered that his “textbook family therapy techniques” of reorganising the family structure proved to be ineffective, most of his clients kept binging and purging.4

Art by Tanja Silvestrini

Out of frustration, Dr Schwartz began to ask what was happening inside his clients.5

His clients would then open up and tell him about the extensive conversations they had with what they called different “parts” of themselves.

At first, Dr Schwartz thought that these conversations where metaphors for their feelings, but his clients all described these “parts” as distinct personalities who made them do things.

Dr Schwartz first wondered if his clients had multiple personality disorder, but then he had a terrifying discovery:

I have those voices too”.

One of his clients, Diane, told him, for example, about a pessimistic voice that she was hearing who always told her that everything was hopeless.

Dr Schwartz approached that “part” of Diane as if it was a distinct person and much to his surprise the voice responded to him and confessed that if she prevented Diane from taking any risks, she would not get hurt.

That “part” of Diane was trying to protect her.

Dr Schwartz was ecstatic, if this inner pessimist was driven by a benign intent, then Diane might be able to negotiate a different role for it.

But Diane did not want to have anything to do with this “part” of herself; in fact, she hated her inner pessimist.

I asked her why she was so rude to the pessimist, and she went on a long dialogue, describing how that voice had made every step she took in life a major hurdle”.

Dr Schwartz realised something even more bizarre; he was not talking to Diane; he was talking to the “part” of her that was at war with the inner pessimist.

There was one “part” in her who was cracking the whip to drive her towards achievement while another “part” of herself was trying to protect Diane from the pain of failure while concurrently being sorry for her because she had to work so very hard.

Dr Schwartz stepped in and told Diane to focus on the voice that was at war with the pessimist and ask it to stop interfering in her negotiations with the inner pessimist.

To Dr Schwartz’s amazement, that “part” of Diane agreed to “step back”.

He again asked Diane how she felt about her inner pessimist:

In a calm, caring voice, Diane said she was grateful for her inner pessimist for trying to protect her and felt sorry that it had to work so hard”.

From that point, negotiations with her inner pessimists were easy, and Diane ultimately healed.

Encounters like the one with Diane led Dr Schwarz to create a new therapy approach where he acknowledges the existence of those “parts“ in his clients and even in himself.

One could say that it is really the job of the therapist to get all of these different “parts“ to talk to each other and negotiate the physical and psychological health of all of the “parts“ of the client.

This form of spiritual integration and mediation seems to be crucial for the therapeutic betterment of the client.

The opinion of other eminent thinkers confirms this assertion.  Let me cite some examples:

Wholeness is not achieved by cutting off a portion of one’s being, but by the integration of the contraries”.

― Carl Gustav Jung

“A man is whole only when he takes into account his shadow”.
― Djuna Barnes

“The individual does actually carry on a double existence: one designed to serve his own purposes and another as a link in a chain, in which he serves against, or at any rate without, any volition of his own”.
― Sigmund Freud

“Confront the dark parts of yourself and work to banish them with illumination and forgiveness.  Your willingness to wrestle with your demons will cause your angels to sing”.

― August Wilson

Two decades after Dr Schwartz’s discovery that the human psyche is not unitary but composed of ”parts” has led him to restructure his psychotherapeutic approach entirely.

While in Diane’s case, he discovered that he could mediate the different ”parts” of his clients, he now understood that he had to mediate his own ”parts” as well to be successful in providing curative therapy.

You will see in the following case study how Dr Schwartz integrates and acknowledges both of his own ”selves” and the ”selves” of the client:

I am meeting for the first time with an anorexic client, Margie, in a residential treatment centre where I am a consultant.  She has fought with her anorexia for 19 years and has found that whenever she starts feeling better about herself, she stops eating.  Before the session, I focus on my internal world – to centre myself.  I hear a familiar voice of fear saying that she is obviously very fragile and I should not do anything to upset her.  I tell that part of me that I will be sensitive to her condition, and ask that it trust me and let my heart open again.  I focus on my heart and sense the protective crust that had enveloped it as I approached the time of the session melt away.  I can feel more sensation now in my chest and abdomen, with vibrating energy running through my limbs.  I feel calm and confident as Margie enters the office and sits down.

She looks like a cadaver and has a feeding tube in her nose.  Her movements are controlled and rigid.  She eyes me warily.  At once, I feel great compassion for her and respect for the parts of her that do not trust me.  And may not want to work with me.  I am not invested in a certain outcome for this session.  I would like to help her, but I will be fine if she chooses not to let me in.  I am curious about what her anorexia has been up to all these years, yet I am certain that it has good reasons for doing this to her.  I feel the energy in my body, extending nonverbally through my heart toward her, and trust that at some level, she can sense it.  I am confident that, if I can remain in this state, whatever is supposed to happen will – I do not have to make anything happen.

I introduce myself and tell her that I am good at helping people with the parts of them that make them not eat.  I ask Margie where she finds that voice of anorexia in her body and how she feels toward it.  She closes her eyes and says it is in her stomach, and she is angry at it.  She says that it tells her that it is going to kill her and that there is nothing she can do about it.  I feel a jolt of fear clenching my gut and hear a familiar inner voice saying, “it’s determined to kill her and is succeeding.  What if you say something that makes it even more determined!” Again, I quickly reassure the fear with words like, “Trust me.  Remember that if I stay present something good always happens”.  My abdomen immediately relaxes, and the soft, flowing energy returns to my body.

In a calm, confident voice, I tell Margie, “It makes sense that you’re angry with the eating disorder part because its avowed purpose is to screw up your life or even kill you.  But right now, we just want to get to know it a little better, and it’s hard to do that when you’re so angry with it.  We’re not going to give it more power by doing that – just get to know more about why it wants to kill you.  So see if the part of you that’s so angry with it is willing to trust you and me for a few minutes.  See if it’s willing to relax to watch maybe as we try to get to know the eating disorder part”.  She says okay, and when I ask how she feels toward the eating disorder now, she says she’s tired of battling with it.  I have her ask that part to relax and step back too, and then another part that was very confused by the disorder.  Remarkably for someone in her condition, each time she asks a part to step back, it does.  Finally, in response to my question of “how do you feel toward the eating disorder now?” she says in a compassionate voice, “Like, I want to help it”.

— Dr Richard Schwartz

No matter how often I read the story above, every time I get to the point where Margie shows some form of emphatic understanding and love for the anorexic ”part” in herself I get goosebumps and teary eyes.

Painting by Gloria Perez Herrero

Margie’s superego, the punishing sub-modality within herself expanded to a point where it told her that she does not deserve to eat anymore.  To show some kind of compassion for that “part“ of herself that nearly punished her out of existence deeply moved me.

The Dissociative Table

While I have never been anorexic and thank god for that, I decided to go full soul striptease mode in this article to show you that I know what it is like to be tormented by my spirits.  I think that if you are honest with yourself,  you also have some “parts” within you that you are at war with.

One of the reasons why I was depressed for years was because I was living in a constant state of playing tug of war with my inner ”parts”.

Rather than accepting, negotiating, and integrating my different ”parts” I hated everything about me that was not virtuous.

The moment I stopped my attempts to eradicate my ”weak” or ”ugly” ”parts” and instead started to converse with them was when I started to heal and stopped living in a tyrannical relationship with myself.

Jay Early, a psychotherapist, put it best when he said:

The human mind is not a unitary thing that sometimes has irrational feelings.  It is a complex system of interacting parts, each with a mind of its own.  It is like an internal family — with wounded children, impulsive teenagers, rigid adults, hypercritical parents, caring friends, nurturing relatives, and so on”.6

Each ”part” of yourself, even the ”parts” that you do not like, were once born to protect you, and most of them have a time and place where they still can be useful to you.

Some of your ”parts” are friendly and perfectly socially acceptable, while others were born to protect you against yourself or external threats.

What I am trying to say is: Being a human being is an internal team sport.

If you are not everything you could be, it could be helpful to call an ”internal team meeting”.

A perfect technique for that occasion is The Dissociative Table developed by George Fraser in 1991.7

The technique consists of inviting all of your ”inner people”, ”parts”, ” alter” or ”ego-selves”, or whatever you like to call them, to gather around an internal table and sit down and talk.

The goal of that technique is to get to know your different “parts” and discuss what an optimal pathway through life could look like for you.

The purpose of this exercise is to move away from internal conflict and towards psychological fusion.

Illustration by Ayan Mukherjee

There are three ways you can mediate this internal gathering:

  1. You do this with a therapist.
  2. You close your eyes and meditate with this exercise.
  3. You write about this internal conversation.

For me personally, I prefer to use writing and meditation for this technique because I was not successful so far in finding a therapist who is familiar with ego states.

Here is how I used Fraser’s dissociative table technique for myself:

Mediation

  • Do some deep breathing exercises or something that helps you to relax (no alcohol allowed).
  • Close your eyes.
  • Picture yourself sitting in a secure and safe room with a beautiful oval table.
  • One after another, you see people sitting at the table, those people are your different ”parts”.
  • What do your sub-modalities look like?  How many are they?
  • Allow each of your ”parts” to introduce themselves to you.
  • Interview them and ask them what they want and what they think is best for you.
  • Some questions that I like to ask my ”parts” are:
    • The name of the ”part”
    • When and why the ”part” was created
    • What does the ”part” look like
    • What does the ”part” want
    • How does the ”part” talk
    • What does this ”part” feel like and when do you feel it
    • How does this ”part” make you behave
    • How does this ”part” make you see the world
    • How can you integrate this ”part” into your life
    • What pain has this ”part” caused you
    • What pain has this ”part” protected you from
    • What benefits will you gain if you make this ”part” an ally of yourself
  • When you want to end the conversation make sure to thank all of your ”parts” for coming, remind them that you are all in this together and that all ”parts” should work together to make this adventure everything it can be.
  • Open your eyes.

While meditating about your ”parts” can be curative by itself, I had the most success in writing about the different sub-modalities that reside within myself.

Unknown artist

While my modes of being are distinctive and unique to me, schema therapists have found that people often have very similar ”parts” in themselves.8

Below, you will find a couple of ”parts” that my coaching clients have identified within themselves:

The Workaholic

The workaholic equals their productivity with their self-worth.  They love to be busy, and they willingly ignore the host’s basic human needs for play, love, balance, and recovery.

They love being admired and praised for the long hours they put in and is more concerned with their projects than with their own physical and psychological well-being.

They neglect the people around them and is often confused about the origins of their unhappiness.  Their primary way of coping with pain is to drown themselves in work.

Painting by Eric Chow

Symptoms: Exhaustion, relationship problems, isolation, feelings of meaninglessness, ignorance of human core needs, feelings of inadequacy, loneliness.

Example: “My way of showing love for my family is by putting in the work to create a better future for them, to give them opportunities I did not have”.

Yes, this means that I will not make it to my kid’s baseball games and yes this means that I cannot go to the movies with my wife, but that is my role, that is who I am, that is what being a man means.  We work.

Tired?  In my line of work, there is no tired; there is no sick; there are results, and results do not come from anything else but from putting in the hours.  Of course, I feel lonely and unhappy, but success has a cost, and I am willing to pay for it“.

The Depressed Self

The depressed self is a mode that gets activated when one person thinks they are defeated by life.  The depressed self gets activated when a person has their human core needs not met and is not operating on a sufficient level on their eight dimensions of life.

The depressed self feels that the current life path is only bringing more misery towards the host, so they feel that the proper course of action is to protect themselves from everything by freezing, hiding, and numbing the host.

The depressed self is concerned with detecting the immediate threats in the world and are ignoring any positive signs because they are focused on survival, and they do not care about happiness.

Artwork by Shawn Coss

Symptoms: Lethargy, constant pain, avoidance, fighting with the partner, feeling tired, hopelessness, melancholia, numbness, behavioural paralysis, short term thinking, bad coping habits, self-mutilation, suicidal voices, anxiety.

Example: “When I’m in a depressed state, it’s hard for me to get out of bed.  Showering becomes a victory.  Leaving the house becomes a miracle.  All I want to do is sleep.

I feel strong feelings of hate and disgust towards myself, and it is impossible to trust the people around because let us be honest, who stays with a miserable person like me.

Being around other people is a drain, I often do a bad job of hiding my misery, this is why I choose to be alone for now, so I do not pull other people down with my horsecrap.

I know I am not enough, and sometimes I worry if ever will be“.

The Drug Abuser

The drug abuser is a “part“ that is concerned with instant gratification and instant pain mitigation.  They are concerned with the now and willingly throws away health and prosperity in the future for their anxiety and responsibility liberation.

They turn a blind eye to the long-term consequences of their toxic behaviour and accepts negative consequences for their physical and psychological health.

The drug abuser uses unhealthy habits to ease their existential anxiety, and they often have very intelligent ways of rationalising and even romanticising their pathological conduct.

Painting by Valerie Patterson

Symptoms: Drug use, overeating, lying, rationalising, self- medication,  having toxic relationships around him, procrastination, freezing, mania, unprotected sex, financial mismanagement.

Example: “When I drink, I’m a different person.  Normally, I’m quite introverted, and there are few people whom I click with naturally when I drink, I feel that I’m funnier and people are attracted to me.

I do not have much joy in my job and do not get me started on my relationship… but when its Friday night, I am the heart of the party, and I am…like somebody else.  I talk differently, dress different, and I make different decisions.  Of course, there is a price, I am often hungover and in a bad state at the end of the weekend.  But hey, we all have that right?”

The Ashamed Fourteen-Year-Old

We all have times where we were hurt, where we encountered malevolence, and where our perception of who we thought we were was damaged or even shattered.

Traumatic and psychological catastrophes often give birth to new “parts“ whose job it is to protect us in the future from that traumatic source of danger.

While it is helpful to create a coping persona to help us survive being mobbed in preschool or something similar, this “part“ should probably not be the primary decision maker for the rest of our life.

Painting by Annie Ravi

Symptoms: You still dream about painful experiences that are more than eighteen months old, compulsiveness, snapping at your partner, drug use,  avoidance, nightmares, black and white thinking.

Example: “Just the thought about my upcoming talk scares the living daylights out of me.  When I was fourteen, I was stuttering very badly, and I remember Mrs Jones, my English teacher forcing me to talk in front of the entire school.  I was so so afraid that I stuttered horribly.

Dozens of kids pointed at me and laughed at my expense.

To this day, when I talk in front of a group of people, I sweat like crazy.

I avoid situations like that every time I can.

Filters Of Life

So why does all of this matter?

Why did I choose to share with you the weird composition of my psyche?

Why did I tell you about the mental makeup of my murderous classmate or the psychology of anorexic girls?

I decided to write this article because I believe that the quality of your inner dialogue either makes or breaks you.

Another reason I wrote this article: NOBODY EVER TOLD ME THIS SHIT.

I have had to learn very painfully over the years that each of my psychic “parts” has a place and a purpose.

Not knowing that there are spirits that need to be governed makes you a slave to your emotional entities because you never even realise that you are entangled in a constant war for the steering wheel of your life.

If you are currently not happy with how the world manifests itself to you, it might be the case that your brain is currently governed by one of your ”parts” who is seeing the world in a way that is unhelpful to you.

Unknown artist

Just like we use filters for Instagram to make our pictures look a certain way, each of our ”parts” has a unique perception that allows you to see things that are relevant to the goals of that mode of being.

I am sure you have experienced this:

  • When your inner critic had the steering wheel, and all you could see was what was wrong with you.
  • When your inner hero had the steering wheel, and you could not help yourself but see all of your problems as possibilities for growth.
  • When your inner drug abuser had the steering wheel, and all you cared about was losing yourself in the night as if there would not be a tomorrow.

Being aware of who it is that governs your behaviour can be a matter of life and death.

And, nobody knows this better than Kevin Hines, the man who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge because his inner terrorist convinced him to do so.

The moment you start to meet and view your undesired psychic parts with compassion, understanding, and curiosity is the moment when you will heal and unlock your potential.

Success is not a one-man game, align your “parts“, and work together to make your life everything it can be.

Thank you for reading,

Yours

Daniel (and all the other “parts” that reside within me)

 

Am I An Addict? 6 Signs Of Addiction

How Do I Know If I Am An Addict?

I found the answer to this question in the most bizarre way possible.  I was travelling alone in Colombia, and I attended the breakfast electro festival in Medellin.  It was crazy.  6,000 people, hot Latinas, rollercoasters, and cocaine everywhere.  A weird spectacle.  I already was a couple of weeks in Colombia, and I drank and partied every opportunity I had.  It was great.  Or at least this was what I told myself at that time.  I was in bad shape.  My body and spirit were weak, and I began to walk on my last pair of legs.  I was driven by the fear of missing out and the addiction of more—sensation seeking at its best.  I was running away from my responsibilities, my university, and my obligations.  Or in short, I was running away from myself.

It finally came crashing down when I met two travelling hipsters who suggested that a great way to enjoy my last weekend in Medellin was to try ecstasy for the first time.  I thought this was a great idea, try everything once, right?!

Well, I had no idea how to dose the drug, and since I am a big guy, the guys suggested that I take everything at once.  For 30 minutes, I did not feel any effect.  Then suddenly, boom.  Within the next few minutes, I stumbled into the worst trip of my life.  I still remember searching desperately with my eyes for my buddy.  I could not talk properly anymore, but he saw the h.e.l.p letters written all over my face.  I then managed to stutter out some words after which he finally took me to the ambulance tent.  I still remember trying to explain to the Colombian nurse in my broken Spanish that I had an overdose of ecstasy and that I need water.

She, of course, did not understand.  It was a hilariously weird situation.  She finally asked me “are you ok, mister?”

I said that I am not.

That I need help.

In this very moment, I was done glamorising my excesses around the world.

I was by no means ok, and I had gotten myself in this mess, so maybe I should get help to get out of it.

I ran out of lies to tell myself, and places to escape to.

I lied to myself that I was ok, that this was fun, that I had a blast, that I needed no help, and finally, I was honest again.

The epiphany that the entirety of planet earth is not enough to outrun yourself is a frightening feeling.

Addiction and substance abuse feel like a prison that you take with you everywhere you go.

I was alone on the other side of the world in an ambulance tent, and I was no longer able to live in denial.

I was giggling, unable to cope with the situation, this must be rock bottom, right?

It felt like a breakdown.

What it really was,  was a breakthrough.

I wrote this piece because there are many people dear to me who are in desperate need of such a breakthrough, a liberation from their own self-destructive character.

I choose to write today’s article because people left and right from me are suffering from addiction, and are not even aware of it.  Diagnosis is always the first step.  You cannot fight an enemy that you cannot see.

Escaping from your pain creates more pain.

So how do you know if you are an addict?

This question is something only you can answer.  Many tests give us a pretty good idea if our behaviour is addictive.

I am not a big fan of these tests.  It all comes to another question, in my opinion; is your life controlled or dominated by a drug?

Is the drug that you are using getting in the way of you doing the things you genuinely want to do?

Most commonalities of all addictions include health problems, failure to meet your responsibilities at work or home, impaired control, social impairment, and risky sexual behaviour.

It is so hard to wake up from an addictive mindset because addicts create an entire world around themselves where their behaviour is normal.

A sick world.

This is why it is so hard to spot addictive behaviour at first because often, you are not violating the code of conduct of your environment.

In general, addicts and people who are using build a happiness trap around them.

A circle that gives them joy, coping, excitement, connection, and validation but is driven by a drug that at the end, will leave you in a worse state you entered in.

A circle of deterioration.

It does not matter if you snort it, drink it, inject it, smoke it, or put it up your ass.

All drugs are painkillers.

So we need to stop asking why a person is weak and uses, and start to ask, “what is it that this person is grieving about”?

Where is all the pain coming from, and can we help to ease this pain in a good way.

6 Signs You Might Be Addicted(2)

Importance

The first sign that you might be addicted is how big of a space is that your addicted behaviour or drug is taking in your life.  When you meet your friends, is alcohol always present?

If your drug of choice is taking up a big part of your life, that is a red flag.

How much are you doing other things?

If you are using more and more time for your addictive behaviour, it is essential to know that we only have 24 hours.  This means that to sustain your addictive lifestyle, you need to carve out time from other areas of your life.  Maybe you do not go to the gym as much as usual; you neglect your university or job, or other parts of your social life.

The unconscious decision to live a life of addiction is, at the same, a decision to not have time for positive and healthy activities.  When was the last time that you had a weekend where you came back healthier and happier and more energetic?  Time is limited, be very aware of what you do because it determines what you do not do.

Disruption

The second sign that you might be addicted is that your drug or addictive behaviour is getting in the way of your life, the things you genuinely want to do and your relationships.  Maybe you want to get in shape, and you never get yourself to work out because you are too weak from your weekly excess.  Are things that used to be important for you like certain hobbies, not as important anymore?  Did you give up on some personal goals?  Are you ignoring some of your responsibilities because of your addiction?

And, the most critical question: are you getting better or are you getting worse?

If you feel that your addiction is getting in the way of your motivation, this is a huge red flag.

Who are the five people you spend the most time with?  Are they all addictive personalities?  If so, this can give you valuable information about what kind of social system you are living in.  Again, addicts create a system around themselves in which their behaviour is normal.  So, you need to critically evaluate not only your behaviour but the norm of your social environment.  Sometimes it is not you who is sick, but you live in an environment that is dominated by addiction and deterioration.

Ask yourself: If you do not change anything in your life, where will you be in three years, socially, health-wise, career-wise?  If you do not stop your undesired behaviour, what will it eventually cost you?

Prevalence

The third sign that you might be an addict is Prevalence.

Do you find yourself doing the addictive behaviour more and longer than you originally planned?  This is typical, I am going to have only two beers, and then you end up getting smashed till the night is over.

When you look at the 365 days of the year, how many days is your addictive behaviour present in the form of you using, or you dealing and feeling with the consequences (hangover, for example)?

Addiction is in the business of more.  Your body adjusts to the drug, and with time, you need larger and larger doses to reach your preferred high.  Is your addictive pattern changing other habits?  Maybe it is hurting your eating habits, sleep rhythm, or your appearance.  Did somebody tell you lately that you do not look as fresh as usual?  Is your bank account bleeding because of your residual excesses?

Are you making excuses for it?  Maybe you say this is just the way I am?  If your addictive pattern is becoming more impossible to hide, it is time to talk to someone.

Risky Behaviour

Another sign that you may be an addict is you having risky behaviour.  Is your addictive behaviour hurting you socially, financially, career-wise, or even health-wise?  Maybe you are having unprotected sex when you are high, or you cheat on your loved one, or you get in trouble with the law because you drove home from the party drunk?

Those are all big red flags.  If your current way of going through life is putting your health, your education, your dreams, your job, and your social connections at risk, you may need to re-evaluate if you have a problem or not.

What about your psychology?  Anxiety, depression, memory problems, and difficulties with concentration can all be side effects of an addictive pattern.

Nobody wants to be an addict.  If you feel that you have something to hide, that you are ashamed of your behaviour, you should talk to someone.

Withdrawal Symptoms

The fifth sign that you might be an addict is that you have withdrawal symptoms.  Any time a drug is absent, the withdrawal symptoms kick in.  This can vary depending on the kind of addiction that you have. Still, if you have physical symptoms like restlessness, resentfulness, or being highly irritatable or defensive, it can be because you are in withdrawal.  If you often deal with withdrawal symptoms, like fatigue, or headaches, your body is telling you that he is not ok.

Reverting

Do you often say to yourself that you are going to quit or reduce your addictive behaviour, only to do the same the next weekend, maybe even more?

This is the classic symptom of ”I can stop any time if I want to, but right now is not the time for it“.

Have you ever tried to reduce the behaviour that you feel is addictive, only to see that your attempt was fruitless?

A big red flag is the feeling of not being in control.  Kind of like a person who stops making New Year’s resolutions because they are not going to follow through anyway.

This is a big red flag.  It means that a behaviour or substance is controlling you.  This can be you being a slave to your impulses, your pleasures, your anxieties, your fears, or your preferences.  You are beneath rational reason and reasonable judgment.  It all comes down to the most honest question, do you believe, from the bottom of your hearth, that this behaviour or substance is impacting the quality and health of your life negatively?

You only have one life; do you wish to live it like an addict?

Toxic Environment

You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.  A reliable way, in my opinion, to check if you are having troubles with a substance or addictive behaviour is to stop looking at yourself for a second and investigate your social environment.  How normal is it to use in your circle?  How many of your friends take drugs or have the same pattern you think you have?

Addiction is incredibly hard to spot because often, it is not seen as abnormal behaviour.  In our culture (Germany), it is, for example, not abnormal to get out every weekend and get so shitfaced that you cannot remember half of your night.  When we think of addiction, we still think of the classical heroin addict, who lives, eats, and breathes to get their next shot.

Alcohol was fathered in that we do not consider it dangerous or toxic anymore.  It is not a drug; it is a drink.  We drink alcohol in Germany when we celebrate a birthday; it is a psychological reward that we have conditioned to associate with something good.  New Year’s, birthdays, soccer games, coming home from work, and Christmas, alcohol is a celebratory drug at almost all occasions.

It is normal in Germany when we have a soccer game that everybody gets a beer.  Imagine a stadium full of 40,000 people all doing a little bit of cocaine.  The idea is weird, but this is actually what is happening.  A society that drugs itself daily.

I am not against drugs; I am against behaviour that gets in the way of people doing what they really want to do.

Evaluate and deconstruct your social circle.  Where do you usually meet?  Is it at the bar?  At the club?  Or in the library, or at the gym?

The reward of addiction is, in most cases, immediate fun, reinforcement, connectedness, and happiness.

What happens if you go cold turkey right now?  If you do not do alcohol for 3 months?  How will your friends react if you meet?  Will you be the odd man out?

We are all players in a social system.

We need to be self-aware and expose the system that we live in for what it really is.  This is the hard part about making steps towards sobriety, for example.  The realisation that your entire circle is held together by a drug, that you are all part of the wheel of self-destruction.  If this is the case, you need to escape or create a balance in your circle by adding more and more healthy people to your world, so it becomes abnormal again if you intoxicate yourself regularly.  This will be the hardest part because you need to leave people behind who you love.

Here are a few red flags that the Disorder Manual 5 lists as criteria to potentially diagnose a Substance Use Disorder.

Criteria for Substance Use Disorders

Substance Use Disorders span a wide variety of problems arising from substance use and cover 11 different criteria.  To be diagnosed with the disorder, you must display at least 2 of the following 11 symptoms within a year.  (2)

  • Consuming more alcohol or other substance than originally planned.
  • Worrying about stopping or consistently failed efforts to control one’s use.
  • Spending a large amount of time using drugs/alcohol or doing whatever is needed to obtain them.
  • Use of the substance results in failure to “fulfil major role obligations” such as at home, work, or school.
  • “Craving” the substance (alcohol or drug).
  • Continuing the use of a substance despite health problems caused or worsened by it. This can be in the domain of mental health (psychological problems may include depressed mood, sleep disturbance, anxiety, or “blackouts”) or physical health.
  • Continuing the use of a substance despite its having negative effects on relationships with others (for example, using even though it leads to fights or despite people’s objecting to it).
  • Repeated use of the substance in a dangerous situation (for example, when having to operate heavy machinery or when driving a car).
  • Giving up or reducing activities in a person’s life because of the drug/alcohol use.
  • Building up a tolerance to the alcohol or drug. Tolerance is defined by the DSM-5 as “either needing to use noticeably larger amounts over time to get the desired effect or noticing less of an effect over time after repeated use of the same amount”.
  • Experiencing withdrawal symptoms after stopping use. Withdrawal symptoms typically include, according to the DSM-5: “anxiety, irritability, fatigue, nausea/vomiting, hand tremor, or seizures in the case of alcohol”.

These criteria are not meant to label you, I simply named them because they should give you food for thought so that you become better at spotting patterns and red flags in your behaviour.

Diagnosis always comes first.  Nobody can fight an enemy that they cannot see.

Questions To Ask Yourself If You Suggest That You Might Think You Have An Addiction(1)

  1. Do you feel a compulsion to consume drugs or alcohol to get through the day?
  2. Do you crave alcohol or drugs at a specific time every day?
  3. Have you ever sought medical attention because of your drug or alcohol use?
  4. Has anyone ever suggested you quit or cut back on drinking or taking drugs?
  5. Have you made promises to control drinking or using drugs, and broken them?
  6. Have you tried multiple times to stop using without success?
  7. Has your performance at school, work, or home been affected by your drug and alcohol consumption?
  8. Is your drinking or drug use jeopardising your job or business?
  9. Has your drinking or drug use interfered or caused problems with personal relationships?
  10. Has drinking or drug use led to financial difficulties?
  11. Have you become less ambitious or productive since drinking or using drugs?
  12. Do you always think about the next time you can drink alcohol or take drugs?
  13. Have you suffered from memory loss after using drugs or alcohol?
  14. Are you able to drink or use more drugs now without feeling the repercussions, compared to when you first started?
  15. Do you experience withdrawal symptoms after a period of time when you have not consumed drugs or alcohol?
  16. Do you go to extensive lengths to obtain drugs or alcohol?
  17. Do you remain intoxicated for several days at a time?
  18. Do you say or do things while intoxicated you later regret when sober?
  19. Is your drinking or drug use a means to escape worries or troubles?
  20. Do you drink or use drugs alone?
  21. Do you drink or use drugs because you are shy with other people?
  22. Do you drink or use drugs to build self-confidence?
  23. Are you experiencing sleeping problems due to drinking or drugs?
  24. Are you hanging out with old drinking or drug buddies you knew before rehab?
  25. Do you experience distress, anxiety, depression, restlessness, or feelings of aggression when you do not drink or use drugs?

If you have answered yes a couple of times, then it maybe should give you food for thought to talk to a friend and hear they honest opinion if they think you might are risking your health long term.

Case Study

David’s Story

By the age of 40, most people would have said I led a happy and successful life.  I was married with teenage children, had a well-paid professional job, and was actively pursuing hobbies in my free time.

But, behind the façade things were far from right.

My adolescent years had been unhappy ones, though I would keep it all to myself – the loneliness, oversensitivity, bullying, low self-esteem, and a desperate desire to be seen as successful by others.

As a student and later at work, there were times when I found myself drinking too much and making a fool of myself, but I thought everyone did that sometimes.  In my 20s and 30s, as the demands and responsibilities of adult life increased, the occasions when I drank too much became more regular, and when I had been drinking I lost my inhibitions, and my sexual behaviour became increasingly promiscuous.

I Did Not Want To Hear That I Should Stop Drinking

I realised that things were out of control and sought help through my GP and various counsellors.  But, I did not want to hear what they told me – that the solution for me involved stopping drinking.  I could not imagine my life without a drink and the escape it gave me.  I wanted to believe that I could control my drinking and associated behaviour, despite all of the evidence that I could not.

My wife and children suffered enormously, I missed work through sickness, I had periods of memory loss after drinking, and I felt increasingly hopeless.  Attempts to stop drinking provided brief periods of respite, but they always failed, and the drinking, uncontrolled behaviour, and my sense of shame and despair spiralled out of control.

Turning to Priory for Support

I found myself at the Priory after attempting suicide while under the influence of alcohol.  I was diagnosed with alcohol addiction, sex and love addiction, and unresolved childhood trauma.  To start with, I was not convinced about sex and love addiction, and just thought I did some bad things after drinking too much.  But, I did accept that if I continued doing what I had been doing, it would cost me my life.

Initially, I found it confusing, wondering what I was supposed to say in the group therapy sessions, and puzzled by some of the language, the rules, and procedures.  But the mist soon cleared.  I had imagined the Priory as a place for the rich and famous, but what I found was people from all walks of life, whose lives – like mine – were being destroyed by an addiction of one kind or another.

For the first time, I found I was able, to be honest and open with my peers and the therapists about my addiction and its consequences.  The programme introduced me to Alcoholics Anonymous and other 12 step programmes, where I met people leading happy and successful lives in recovery.  I had always dismissed AA, but now I wondered what I could learn from the people I met.

My Recovery Journey

As well as gaining a better understanding of myself and my addiction, the Priory gave me a set of tools and strategies for sustaining my recovery in the outside world.  At the heart of the Priory’s approach is the importance of addicts supporting each other in recovery.  I found the weekly Aftercare sessions with other patients, who had been through the Addiction Treatment Programme immensely valuable.  I supplemented these with one to one therapy with an addiction therapist recommended by the Priory.

I have been in recovery for over two years now, and my outlook on life has changed completely.  I am at peace with myself and those around me in a way I never thought possible.  Life has its ups and downs, but I take it as it comes without trying to escape from the world or myself by reaching for a drink.  I no longer feel the need to drink and take pleasure in living each day for what it has to offer.

If I have one piece of advice for anyone struggling with substance or behavioural addiction, it is to ask for help.

I have absolutely no pleasure in the stimulants in which I sometimes so madly indulge.  It has not been in the pursuit of pleasure that I have periled life and reputation and reason.  It has been the desperate attempt to escape from torturing memories, from a sense of insupportable loneliness and a dread of some strange impending doom”.
―  Edgar Allan Poe

Negative Consequences Of Addiction

Brain Chemistry

The human brain is the most complex organ in the human body.  Although it may weigh less than 3 pounds, it somewhat mysteriously controls both your thoughts and the physiological processes that keep you alive.  Drugs and alcohol change the way you feel by altering the chemicals that keep your brain working smoothly.

Let us get into the science of things.  When you first use drugs, your brain releases a chemical called dopamine that makes you feel euphoric and want more of the drug.  After all, it is only natural to want more of the thing that makes you feel good, right?

Over time, your mind gets so used to the extra dopamine that you cannot function normally without it.  Everything about you will begin to change, including your personality, memory, and bodily processes that you might currently take for granted.

Health Complications

Drug and alcohol use impacts nearly every part of your body from your heart to your bowels.  Substance abuse can lead to abnormal heart rates and heart attacks, and injecting drugs can result in collapsed veins and infections in your heart valves.

Some drugs can also stop your bones from growing correctly, while others result in severe muscle cramping and general weakness.  Using drugs over a long period of time will also eventually damage your kidneys and your liver.

Infections

When you are under the influence of drugs or alcohol, you may forget to engage in safe sex practices.  Having unprotected sex increases your chances of contracting a sexually transmitted disease.  Sharing the needles used to inject certain drugs can give you diseases like hepatitis C, hepatitis B, and HIV.  You can also spread common colds, the flu, and mono from sharing pipes and bongs.

Legal Consequences

Drug and alcohol abuse not only has adverse effects on your health, but it can also have legal consequences that you will have to deal with for the rest of your life.  Many employers require that you take a drug test before offering you a job—many of them even conduct random drug tests even after you become an employee.  Refusing to give up drugs could end up making you unemployed, which comes with even more issues.

Driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol can lead to a suspended driver’s license, usually for 6 months to 2 years.  You will also need to pay hefty fines, and may even spend some time in jail.

Financial Problems

Drugs and alcohol are expensive, especially when you are using a lot and continuously.  Substance abuse also impacts your productivity and success at work and in school.  The time spent searching for, using, and recuperating from drugs can be better spent learning new skills to advance your career.

The legal issues tied to drug use will increase your bills as well.  Your car and health insurance rates may increase, and you will have to find a way to pay for arrest warrants, DUIs, and legal counsel.

Injuries and Death

If you use drugs and alcohol, you are more likely to experience physical injury or be involved in car accidents.  Even worse, you also have an increased risk of death through both suicide and homicide.

These drug-related deaths are on the rise, doubling since the early 1980s.  Alcohol specifically, results in 5.2 million accidental injuries, and 1.8 million deaths each year.  It is estimated that 1 out of every 4 deaths is caused by drugs and alcohol, according to the World Health Organisation.

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