Imagine that you are taking a puff of a cigarette, a slug of whiskey, a snort of cocaine, a shot of heroin, or a toke of marijuana. Put aside first whether the drugs are legal or not. For now, just concentrate on the chemistry. The moment you take that puff, that slug, that snort, that shot, that toke, trillions of potent molecules rush through your bloodstream before finally reaching your brain. Once they settle there, these molecules will set off a cascade of electrical and chemical events, a type of neurological chain reaction that will ricochet around your skull and rearrange your mind’s interior reality. And before you know it, you are addicted.
Everyone in this world has his or her own addictions. Too much of something is bad enough and when your addictions go overboard, you should know that it is time for you to stop them before they gain full control of your system, before you reach that point of no return.
In this book, expect to learn the most effective and useful tools that can help you break free from your bad addictive habits so that you will be able to live your life to the fullest.
Addictions are things that you need to deal with right away or else you will end up being eaten by your bad habits, and when you want to get out of their strong hold, you can no longer do anything because it is already too late.
For you to effectively stop your addictions, the most important thing that you have to do before anything else is to learn what addiction really is. By doing this, it will be easier for you to determine if what you are experiencing right now is truly an addiction or just a simple inclination to do things.
Introduction to Addiction
By definition, addiction is a kind of condition that takes place when a person ingests a certain substance (e.g. cocaine, alcohol, nicotine) or engages in a particular activity (e.g. shopping, gambling, sex) that can give pleasure but the continued use or act of which can become compulsive and interfere with one’s ordinary responsibilities in life, such as health, work or relationships. Users are usually not aware that their behaviour is out of control and is starting to cause problems, not only for themselves but also for the people around them.
There are different types of addictions; one of them is described as physical addiction. It refers to the biological state wherein the body adapts to the presence of a drug to the point that the drug no longer gives the same effect, a situation referred to as tolerance. Due to tolerance, biological reaction of withdrawal can take place when the drug has been discontinued.