The Addiction Is Not The Problem!
Picture this. It’s 11am, you’re sitting at your desk with your phone next to you. You tell yourself that you’re working and you will check your phone later.
But then….
A WhatsApp message from your best friends pops up. You pick up your phone and reply, but then while you’ve got it open, you might as well reply to everyone else. Your best friend replies and you get into texting back and forth. Once you’ve done that, you might as well check instagram. It’s now 11:15am. Now that you’ve checked instagram, you might as well check Twitter and see what’s trending.
Then at 11:25am, you finally put your phone down and swear to not touch it again until lunchtime.
At 12pm, you then get a message from your sibling and you repeat the entire cycle….
On the surface, it is easy to label the issue here as a “phone addiction” or a “social media addiction.” I mean what else could it be? As soon as a DM pops up, you reply. You mindlessly scroll social media and lose track of time. It could only be a social media addiction, right?
WRONG!
This is a classic trap that exists in society — to only look at the surface level problem and assume that is actually the problem. Another great example would be to assume that alcohol is the problem with an alcoholic, when in reality it is not the problem at all.
So what is really the problem?
Well, it sounds pretty simple, but it is really quite deep rooted.
The problem is the void. The deep-rooted, emotional voids that we fill regularly using toxic outlets given their ability to provide a surge of dopamine in a short span of time. This is where the notorious phrase “instant gratification” comes in — an outlet is able to make you feel very good, very quickly. But oftentimes, these outlets are toxic: alcohol, drugs, social media, pornography, and video games. We tend to give up on the healthier dopamine-releasing activities (going for a walk in nature, working out, or meditation), since they take exceptionally longer to provide us with the same level of dopamine compared to a toxic dopamine activity. So we therefore resort to toxic dopamine activities to fill our emotional voids.
But, where do these emotional voids come from?
Well, we all have something within us known as an “inner-child.” The inner child essentially reflects our distinct upbringings — some were fun and loving, some were just okay, and some were unfortunately traumatic.
On a micro level, the effects of our upbringings therefore left different “scars” on us. These “scars” created deep emotional holes within us. And as humans we are impatient and want to constantly feel better, so we fill these emotional holes in the shortest amount of time. On a macro level, we do that using the toxic outlets as I described above.
Oftentimes, however, we only resort to toxic outlets whenever a situation triggers us. For instance, suppose you were shouted at a lot as a child, and it constantly made you feel insignificant, humiliated, or as if you cannot do anything right. This would likely have created a scar of poor self esteem. A common way to feel better about yourself is to indulge in high-dopamine activities, such as drinking. So, let’s say you one day get shouted at by your boss. It would trigger a scar of poor-self esteem and you would immediately want to feel better, so you resort to getting drunk after work.
If this happened often, you’d likely develop into an alcoholic and most people around you would assume that you have a drinking problem of some sort. When in reality, you don’t have any sort of drinking problem. You’re just emotionally triggered, want to feel better quickly, and use alcohol to remedy that.
Take a look at the void tree I drew up, it shows how most surface level problems for someone with self-esteem issues are truly driven by root level wounds. The experiences that occurred during the person’s childhood (such as getting kicked off the soccer team) created scars. These scars, when triggered, cause the person to indulge heavily in toxic habits such as binge drinking and people-pleasing.
So what is the solution instead?
How can we address our inner-child wounds in a healthy way?
In my next newsletter, I will discuss the inner-child more in-depth and show you secrets to address your childhood wounds in a healthy way that I wish I’d known earlier on in life.
Stay tuned!
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© Theo Anthony 2024
