ARE YOU DRINKING TOO MUCH?
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Alcoholism is always the last addiction anyone picks up on. Alcohol is legal and easily obtainable which means that theres more people using it and less people concerned about that use. Unlike drugs, the police and other agencies will quickly pick up on drug users and even devote entire teams to combat the sale, and spread of harmful drugs. Alcoholism just seems to slip through the cracks.
We are led to believe that we become addicted to the drug and the alcohol itself but what if i told you that wasnt entirely true? Let's take smoking, for example. See, if you ask someone what's the addictive component in cigarettes, they usually say it's nicotine. That makes sense. But if that were the case, why are nicotine replacement therapy not 100% effective? 'Cause if you're good at reflecting and you trace the patterns, you start to see a recurring theme when people start smoking.
For starters, it's usually during a time in their life where they're feeling relatively bored, alone, stressed, disengaged, disconnected. So their stress levels are high it's either at work or study or whatever. Then they have a break and the stressor levels decrease a bit, and that's when they have a cigarette. Then they go back and then their stress levels are high again, and then they have a break and that's when they have a cigarette. Then they go back and then stress levels decrease and the same pattern continues. The brain starts to say, "Hang on a second, something is going on here that decreases my stress levels."
The other thing is very few people start smoking alone. Most people start smoking as a social smoker. They're feeling disengaged, disconnected, and then they have a break and what are they doing? They're having a smoke with other co-workers, other students where they're kind of opening up, and talking, and they're feeling more connected. All nicotine really does is it stimulates the brain so that we feel a little bit more inclined to kind of open up and connect. Caffeine has a similar effect, not quite as strong.
So at each of these times, we go from feeling bored, disengaged, disconnected to feeling more connected and the brain eventually picks up on the pattern. So then later on after a while when the pattern and the habit develops, they're sitting at home feeling bored, stressed, or disengaged, disconnected, and they can't understand way part of them is screaming out for that thing that they were doing at that time. Their neurology is essentially trying to get back to those feelings long after the original experience and they forgot all about it.
Let's say then you take a kid who grows up in a home feeling relatively disengaged, disconnected with their family, with the exception of when they all sit down, and open up, and talk, and engage, and connect with each other over a meal and then with repetition, over the years when they grow up, they can't understand why every time they feel stressed, bored, disengaged, or disconnected, they feel this urge to kind of eat for comfort. Even when they're not even hungry, they just need to eat for the comfort of it and they can't figure out where that started because most people don't spend a lot of time reflecting and looking for recurring patterns.
Have you ever watched the movie about The Founder about Ray Kroc who started McDonald's? He was this middle aged guy who was feeling really disengaged, disconnected, didn't have a very good home relationship with his wife and daughter, but when he was going around selling these McDonald's franchises, he was selling them to mums and dads who bring their kids and they go, "Hi, Ray. How's it going?" and he was like part of the family. He was like the father figure.
The recurring theme with McDonald's when they first started out was McDonald's is family and it worked brilliantly for them. They now are the most successful fast food franchise in the world because they promoted that image of bonding and connecting, which humans growing up need to do.
People need to, for young people especially nowadays ... where's my phone? If they can't bond or feel engaged or connected with people in real life, there's always a substitute. Now people, young people especially are literally, literally addicted to their phone. Instagram is particularly addictive for young people because you could put a filter on the world. You don't have to see reality. That doesn't feel good. You can get this filtered and I believe it and then ...
Snapchat is even better because it's like it relies on the impulse mechanism. Just post something and it's gone so you don't have to worry about the consequences. So our planfulness abilities are just getting worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. As a Sydney hypnotherapist, I expect to be very busy over the next 20 years. If you would like to learn a little bit more about the rat park experiments and the psychological reasons behind many addictions, please download your FREE eBook above. If you would like to learn more and really start overcoming your own addictions and drug dependancy, you should grab the full book below, and if you are like most people and cant really be bothered reading you can listen to it by clicking on the link to the audio edition of 'The truth about addictions'.
For starters, it's usually during a time in their life where they're feeling relatively bored, alone, stressed, disengaged, disconnected. So their stress levels are high it's either at work or study or whatever. Then they have a break and the stressor levels decrease a bit, and that's when they have a cigarette. Then they go back and then their stress levels are high again, and then they have a break and that's when they have a cigarette. Then they go back and then stress levels decrease and the same pattern continues. The brain starts to say, "Hang on a second, something is going on here that decreases my stress levels."
The other thing is very few people start smoking alone. Most people start smoking as a social smoker. They're feeling disengaged, disconnected, and then they have a break and what are they doing? They're having a smoke with other co-workers, other students where they're kind of opening up, and talking, and they're feeling more connected. All nicotine really does is it stimulates the brain so that we feel a little bit more inclined to kind of open up and connect. Caffeine has a similar effect, not quite as strong.
So at each of these times, we go from feeling bored, disengaged, disconnected to feeling more connected and the brain eventually picks up on the pattern. So then later on after a while when the pattern and the habit develops, they're sitting at home feeling bored, stressed, or disengaged, disconnected, and they can't understand way part of them is screaming out for that thing that they were doing at that time. Their neurology is essentially trying to get back to those feelings long after the original experience and they forgot all about it.
Let's say then you take a kid who grows up in a home feeling relatively disengaged, disconnected with their family, with the exception of when they all sit down, and open up, and talk, and engage, and connect with each other over a meal and then with repetition, over the years when they grow up, they can't understand why every time they feel stressed, bored, disengaged, or disconnected, they feel this urge to kind of eat for comfort. Even when they're not even hungry, they just need to eat for the comfort of it and they can't figure out where that started because most people don't spend a lot of time reflecting and looking for recurring patterns.
Have you ever watched the movie about The Founder about Ray Kroc who started McDonald's? He was this middle aged guy who was feeling really disengaged, disconnected, didn't have a very good home relationship with his wife and daughter, but when he was going around selling these McDonald's franchises, he was selling them to mums and dads who bring their kids and they go, "Hi, Ray. How's it going?" and he was like part of the family. He was like the father figure.
The recurring theme with McDonald's when they first started out was McDonald's is family and it worked brilliantly for them. They now are the most successful fast food franchise in the world because they promoted that image of bonding and connecting, which humans growing up need to do.
People need to, for young people especially nowadays ... where's my phone? If they can't bond or feel engaged or connected with people in real life, there's always a substitute. Now people, young people especially are literally, literally addicted to their phone. Instagram is particularly addictive for young people because you could put a filter on the world. You don't have to see reality. That doesn't feel good. You can get this filtered and I believe it and then ...
Snapchat is even better because it's like it relies on the impulse mechanism. Just post something and it's gone so you don't have to worry about the consequences. So our planfulness abilities are just getting worse, and worse, and worse, and worse. As a Sydney hypnotherapist, I expect to be very busy over the next 20 years. If you would like to learn a little bit more about the rat park experiments and the psychological reasons behind many addictions, please download your FREE eBook above. If you would like to learn more and really start overcoming your own addictions and drug dependancy, you should grab the full book below, and if you are like most people and cant really be bothered reading you can listen to it by clicking on the link to the audio edition of 'The truth about addictions'.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FULL EDITION
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