You keep telling yourself that you can stop whenever you want to right? Well, it may not be as easy as you think. There are addictions out there where people don’t believe they are addicted and that just makes it harder to break the addiction. Here are a few things that you may want to watch out for:
1. Social Media
Instagram, Facebook, Twitter…you know the rest. New studies show that you might be among the growing number of social media users who really are hooked. The random pace of posts affects your brain the same way that cocaine does.
We know that social media triggers the release of dopamine in the brain, since it can be rewarding. But social media sites and apps are designed to keep users stuck in what experts call a dopamine “feedback loop.”
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When you check your phone for notifications or new updates, it triggers anticipation. And if you get a positive reaction — such as more views or likes — dopamine is released in the brain. As a result, it’s hard to put down the phone.
Sharing details about yourself with others also creates a rush of positive feelings that leave you wanting more.
Signs that you may be addicted to social media:
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- Spending a large amount of time on social media
- Thinking about social media often when you’re not using it
- Spending less time doing other activities or hobbies in order to use social media
- Spending less time with others in order to use social media
- Using social media to the point that it gets in the way of different areas of your life, like work, school, and relationships
- Experiencing feelings like anxiety and irritability when you can’t access social media
- Using social media as a way to cope with unwanted emotions
How to Treat It:
Therapy is often the best way to treat behavioral addictions like social media addiction. Because social media is relatively new, treatment options are still limited. More research is needed to discover ways to help people control their relationship with social media.
However, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is used to treat internet addiction, and it can help treat social media addiction. CBT may be offered in an individual or group setting. The key parts of CBT include:
Understanding how your thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are related
Identifying and changing negative thoughts and beliefs that contribute to unwanted behaviors
Teaching coping skills to manage unwanted feelings
2. Masturbation
Can’t stop pleasing yourself — or looking at porn? Doing it more, enjoying it less, and risking too much to do it? Maybe you have a strong sex drive. But there could be much more going on that you’re not letting on. If you have hypersexual disorder, your brain may be wired like that of someone with a drug or gambling problem.
Although masturbation is a healthy practice in moderation, excessive masturbation may bring with it many negative consequences.
Common symptoms of masturbation addiction include loss of sensitivity, lack of impulse control, shame about masturbation, guilt about masturbation, overstimulation from excess masturbation, and sexual dysfunction.
Signs of a masturbation problem might include:
- Masturbating takes up a lot of your time and energy
- Your home, work, or personal life is suffering because of masturbation
- You might be late to meetings, cancel events, or leave social appointments early to masturbate
- You masturbate in public or in uncomfortable places because you can’t wait to get home
- You masturbate even when you don’t feel aroused, sexual, or “horny”
- When you feel negative emotions—such as anger, anxiety, stress, or sadness—your go-to response is to masturbate for comfort
- You feel distressed, upset, or guilty after masturbating
- You masturbate even if you don’t want to
- You find it difficult to stop thinking about masturbation
- When not masturbating, you experience craving or withdrawal symptoms
How to treat it:
Remove Triggers
Take proactive steps to remove pornographic content from your surroundings and try to control access to it. Identify your triggers and soft spots of temptation and switch to alternative activities during those weak times.
Reduce Time Alone
Limit solo time by pursuing social interactions and participating in activities in public settings. By minimizing opportunities for isolation, you can decrease the likelihood of giving in to the urge to masturbate.
Find Hobbies
Redirect your energy towards creative pursuits such as writing, playing an instrument, or engaging in physical exercise. By channeling your focus into productive activities, you can reduce the desire for masturbation.
3. Tattoos
Tattooing becomes problematic when it exceeds one’s ability to control it. That is, even in the face of no longer wanting tattoos, one continues getting them to resolve an impulse. Internal dialogue may become a vicious debate in which the impulse always wins. Despite all logic and reason, tattooing continues despite personal and social consequences.
Signs that getting tattoos is becoming a problematic behavior include but are not limited to:
- Spending too much money on tattoos
- Struggling to find employment due to professional appearance concerns
- Health consequences (i.e., allergic reactions, skin infections, bloodborne diseases)
- No longer finding meaning or appreciation in tattoos on one’s body
How to treat it:
Therapy
– Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is a therapy that can help you figure out which thoughts and behaviors are not healthy and how to replace them with healthier ones.
– Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can help you to control your emotions better, deal with difficult situations, and be more aware of the present moment.
Medication
There is no medication available to treat tattoo addiction. But doctors may prescribe medication to help with mental health problems that make people want tattoos, such as depression, anxiety, or OCD.
Self-care activities
- Make a list of reasons why you need to quit
- Set realistic goals
- Avoid triggers
- Find alternative ways to deal with your triggers, like journaling, meditation, or exercise
- Find a support group or an online community
- Take up a hobby that will distract you from the urge to get another tattoo
- Find healthier ways to express yourself, like singing, painting, or knitting
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4. Exercise
A good workout can help you get over addictions, just as long as you don’t become hooked on the activity itself. Exercise helps your brain learn, which can speed recovery. But are you chasing that perfect body or the high that your body feels every time you workout?
Signs of exercise addiction:
- Having to exercise more and more to get their “runners high” or “exercise high”
- Trying to reduce or even completely stop exercising and not being able to
- Setting a specific amount of time to exercise and constantly exceeding it
- Spending a significant amount of time thinking about, preparing for, and engaging in exercise
- Prioritizing exercising over other important events and activities such as work, school, and personal relationships
- Continuing to exercise despite knowing the negative consequences it is causing
- Experiencing withdrawal symptoms when not exercising (e.g., irritability, anxiety, and sleep problems)
- No longer getting any joy out of exercising
- No longer improving their overall quality of life
- Continuing to exercise despite health concerns, such as injury or health risks from particular physical activities
As with other types of addictions, someone suffering from an exercise addiction can experience withdrawal symptoms when they are not working out. Some of the withdrawal symptoms of exercise addiction include:
- Irritability
- Anxiety
- Restlessness
- Sleep issues
- Mood swings
How to treat it:
Unlike substance addiction, rehab isn’t necessary for treating an addiction to exercise. The most successful treatment for exercise addiction is psychotherapy, including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT).
Psychotherapy, or “talk therapy,” helps patients identify and work through any underlying reasons behind developing their exercise addiction. This type of therapy offers new, healthier ways to deal with triggers or cravings in the future.
Sometimes, healthcare providers may prescribe certain medications to assist you during treatment. While there is no FDA-regulated medication specifically for exercise addiction, your doctor might recommend medications to address other mental health conditions (e.g., stress, anxiety, or depression) that might have contributed to developing an addiction to exercise.
5. Shopping
We’ve all bought something we don’t really need. If that continues to happen, what you’re really looking for might be some dopamine, the feel-good chemical for your brain. It could also mean you have impulse-control problems or anxiety issues. If you are hitting the stores a little too often — or the click “purchase” online a little too much, it can cause financial, legal, and social problems.
Signs that a person might have a shopping addiction:
- Always thinking about things they plan to purchase
- Being unable to stop their compulsive shopping
- Experiencing a rush of euphoria after buying something
- Feeling regret or guilt about things they have purchased
- Financial problems or an inability to pay off debts
- Lying about things they have bought or hiding their purchases
- Opening new credit cards without paying off balances on existing cards
- Purchasing things they don’t need
- Shopping when they are stressed or sad
How to treat it:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
– the action-oriented approach of CBT involves working with your therapist to understand better how shopping addiction has impacted your life, and how your emotions, thoughts and behaviors are contributing to the urge to shop excessively. This can also be conducted in a group setting, where other people are going through the same issues as you provide a reassuring support network as you learn how to control compulsive urges.
Taking part in CBT sessions will enable you to learn more positive coping techniques and alternative methods for receiving the same pleasurable effects that shopping gives you, without being detrimental to your everyday life.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
– DBT aims to help you manage compulsive urges to shop by incorporating a mixture of group-based skills training and individual therapy. It involves mindfulness and emotional regulation as methods you can use to resist the temptation to shop.
Medication
Aas shopping addiction can involve co-occurring mental health conditions, such as anxiety or depression, you might need medication to relieve the symptoms of these conditions first and foremost, which can have a beneficial effect on your compulsive shopping behaviors.
6. Plastic Surgery
Some people can’t get enough nips and tucks. That’s because many of them have “body dysmorphic disorder” and are obsessed with defects only they can see. This problem is caused by some of the same brain chemicals that play a role in addiction.
While having multiple cosmetic surgeries may seem like an addiction, the underlying reason is usually tied to Body Dysmorphia Disorder (BDD). It is characterized by an obsession with appearance, or with specific flaws that are either real or imagined.
People with BDD experience symptoms that can cause significant distress.
These signs and symptoms can include:
- Obsessing over appearance
- Compulsive mirror checking
- Experiencing significant distress over small or nonexistent flaws
- Covering up or masking one’s appearance
- Seeking appearance-related affirmation
How to treat it:
Surgery may offer very temporary relief from symptoms, but comes with serious risks and does not address problematic thoughts and behaviors. Effective treatment for body dysmorphic disorder usually requires therapy that helps a person understand their obsessions, thoughts and behaviors.
12-Step Programs may also help. A mental health professional may also recommend joining a 12-step program to build a recovery support network. 12-step support groups provide a safe space for individuals struggling with any kind of addiction, where they can share their struggles and help one another achieve and maintain control over unhealthy habits.
7. Being Rejected by Love
This is kind of hard to believe, but people can become addicted to the pain of romantic rejection. This has actually been studied, and brain scans have been done on people showing that it’s similar to a cocaine craving. You could understand why someone keeps ending up in dead-end relationships? Or why their relationship never seems to work out? You know that guy who makes the worst relationship choices possible, or that couple who’s “madly in love” but breaks up every other weekend? They may just be addicted.
A study done at Rutgers University entitled, Reward, Addiction and Emotion Regulation Systems Associated with Rejection in Love, found that romantic rejection actually stimulates areas of the brain involved in motivation, reward, and addiction.
How to treat it:
Oftentimes, there is an underlying shame and void that needs healing and awareness. Additionally, obsessiveness and anxiety can occur that love addicts cannot fix alone. Therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) can help bring awareness to the love addict as they become mindful of their thoughts. Online therapy can also be an effective option for those with this kind of addiction and who may wish to opt for at-home treatment. Meditation can slow the feeling of anxiety and bring compassion to the individual suffering.
