Addiction can feel like an inescapable grip that tightens with each passing day. We know the behaviours run contrary to our deeper interests, but we find ourselves unable to resist at key moments. In most cases the behaviours that keep us hooked are so insidious that we barely notice how much of an influence they have over us. After all our lives are more or less still intact.

We aren’t out in the streets scavenging for our next fix, we are in our homes ‘relaxing’ after a long stressful day at work. We aren’t addicted to our phones; we are just decompressing from work. We need that glass of wine to unwind from the day. It’s not a big deal that we are now on the 5th episode of that show we love so much, it’s just a way to pass time in the evening.

In hindsight we will come to understand how much of ourselves we truly harmed and neglected, and yet the first step to freedom feels out of reach. What, if anything could help?

One plausible answer is this: we should try to notice when the urge to do the addictive behaviour arises.

The spiral of addiction thrives when we stop noticing. It might occur to us that nothing really happened before our desires arose, yet it is here that the key to breaking free lies. If we were to look carefully into ourselves, and study the answers that come up, we would notice that before any addictive behaviour, there is always a moment of feeling very badly about something.

The triggers can vary; someone is not as warm as they normally are, we were for the 100th time left out of a social event, someone was disapproving and mean. Yet they all stem from the same emotions: loneliness, a feeling of rejection, a belief of not being worthy, a sense of being unlovable, and shame.

The addictive behaviour is a response, it’s a Side B to a side A we haven’t explored. Addiction has nothing to do with loving what we are addicted to, but rather its about soothing and escaping from pain we haven’t addressed or understood. Being drunk silences our critical voices, and calms our nervous system, ecstasy pills free us from loneliness and makes us feel more connected, binge watching or scrolling frees us from the pain of being alone with our thoughts.

So to break the patter of addiction, we should notice the moments when for some reason we have become sad and hopeless and therefore are in the danger zone. We have to become better observers of our moods and strive to put a gap between the moment we are hurt and the moment we reach for our self-destructive solution.

If we manage to slow this process down, then we should be able to wake ourselves up from our impulses and perhaps say, ‘I am sad’ or ‘I am feeling really lonely and therefore I am in danger’. Just this realization will be half the battle.

And from here, we might ask a set of follow up questions: ‘What am I sad about? What do I currently need?’ We may close our eyes and let the answers come from our subconscious. Alternatively, we could practice the 5-Min Flow with a prompt more appropriate to the situation.

When we do start to notice our pain, then we can begin the process of self-soothing in more productive ways. We might find it strange to have sympathy or interest in our feelings of loss, self-hatred and abandonment, after all almost all of our life no one ever showed us how. But we can patch up the damage ourselves. We can replace addiction with self-compassion and understanding.

We can escape the path to addiction by first realizing that we are in pain and then asking: ‘What would be a kinder, healthier way of dealing with this pain?’