The Compulsion Merry-Go-Round

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When you cannot control when to begin or quit a substance or behavior, you have a compulsion. Compulsive overeaters have the urge to gorge until they feel sick, shopaholics can't control the urge to acquire all sorts of stuff they don't require. Many don't even open the bag when they get house but toss it into the back of the closet. Online addicts cannot remain away from porn web-sites or blogs, and compulsive exercisers cannot stop either.

Following counseling individuals with eating disorders for several years, I saw that at least sixty percent of my clients were sober alcoholics or addicts, commonly in Twelve-Step programs for drugs or alcohol. They had given up the deadlier addictions, but they had been stuck in the thrall of food. As time passed I began to notice that a lot of had been also compulsive spenders. At initially they in most cases did not talk about these behaviors, not since of shyness but due to the fact they didn't think of them a issue compared to alcohol, drugs, food, and "really like too much" relationships. Some described themselves as "compulsive personalities."

The problem is not alcohol, drugs, food, shopping, sex or exercise. These are the solutions. The actual dilemma is that most of us do not know how to cope with the ups and downs of our lives. We run away from discomfort and mask our discomfort and fear with temporary escape or longer-term oblivion. We keep performing this until the answer becomes a full-fledged problem with a life of its own.

When a number of of my eating disorder clients stopped compulsively bingeing or purging, they usually turned to other compulsions. I bear in mind a woman who started to get her eating under control and then resumed smoking following having given it up for years. She had begun to function in a stressful new job with a boss that was tough to please. She was terribly angry and frustrated. Rather of dealing with her job predicament, she took up smoking again.

One other binge eater started to buy clothing, six of a kind at as soon as, just after she quit stuffing herself with food. Other customers revealed that they resorted to distinctive compulsive urges at distinct times. Paul overate most of the time, but when he was emotionally distraught he sought sex compulsively. Norma Jean binged or shopped. Stephanie got drunk, used drugs, drank substantial amounts of coffee, loved too substantially, binged and purged, smoked, and maxed out her credit cards.

Switching from 1 compulsive act or substance to an additional is named "switching deck chairs on the Titanic." It became evident to me that the urge to use pleasure to mask pain is the outward evidence of inner turmoil. Most compulsive individuals who give up 1 destructive habit will find a different way to medicate their discomfort unless they deal with the underlying challenges that are producing the emotional discomfort.

Thus, most of my clients had a lot more than one behavior or substance that they abused. Why does a individual overeat at times and overspend or drink too a lot at other times? Cora was a compulsive spender who decided to study her destructive behaviors. What she came up with is some thing I call the Hierarchy of Compulsions. Cora created a list of all the behaviors she couldn't control. In addition to shopping she listed working too a lot, list making, washing the floor, movies and popcorn, gardening, overeating ice cream, sex, watching Television, and cutting her toenails. For every single behavior she rated the feelings that triggered her urges and rated the intensity of the feeling from 1 to ten with ten becoming the most intense.

Compulsive spending occurred when she felt the most helpless or hurt. Feeling much less helpless also led her to wash the floor, garden and cut her toenails. Feeling overwhelmed was associated with list making, movies and popcorn, Tv watching and escape into reading, when anger led to binges of sex, ice cream, and moving the furniture about. As she became conscious of how she employed everyday activities in a compulsive manner to avoid feeling her feelings, she was prepared to deal with the experiences that triggered the feelings. Then she was able to focus on solving the underlying issues rather than attempt to just quit the behaviors.

The frequent denominator for all compulsive behaviors is that they provide a distraction from painful troubles. The have to have for avoidance can be so powerful that some men and women turn spending, jogging, cleaning, reading, masturbating, watching soap operas, or gardening into addictions. 1 way to acquire out is to make a list of your out of control behaviors as Cora did and appear for the situations or relationships that you are running away from resolving. You will learn new ways to feel about yourself and new techniques to curb compulsive behaviors.