Is it a habit, an obsession, a compulsion or an addiction?

Compulsion and addiction each involve a perceived lack of control by the individual facing them. However, there are some key differences.

Most all of us exhibit habitual behavior, for instance looking both ways before crossing the road, but compulsions and addictions refer to those instances where these behaviors disrupt an individual’s ability to function.

We’ve all avoided stepping on the cracks between paving stones on the way to school: that was no mere habit, but a compulsion, since we thought there would be an undesirable outcome if we didn’t perform the ritual. Likewise, common compulsions include repeatedly making sure the gas is turned off when leaving the house and making sure the lights are ‘properly’ out by switching them on and off again.

Compulsive actions and behaviors offer temporary relief from anxiety — in turn, the need to reduce this anxiety is what drives the compulsive behavior. Sometimes an obsessive thought relates to the compulsive behavior (such as fear of germs and hand-washing), but often the compulsive behavior has no clear relation to anything in particular, like performing a superstitious ritual of walking all the way around one’s car before getting in.

Understanding Addiction

The term addiction is used to describe a recurring compulsion by an individual to engage in some specific pleasure-seeking activity, despite harmful consequences to the individual’s health, mental state or social life. Like when one reaches for a cup of coffee, the pleasure center of the brain receives stimulation so the action is repeated. Not all doctors agree on what addiction or dependency is. The term is often reserved for drug addictions to psychoactive substances that alter the natural chemical behavior of the brain, defined by tolerance to the drug, withdrawal symptoms and inability to decrease the amount consumed, but it is sometimes applied to other compulsions such as problem gambling and compulsive overeating. Many people, both psychology professionals and laypersons, now feel that the term addiction should be made to include psychological dependency on such things as gambling, food, sex, pornography, computers, work, exercise, shopping, and religion. Although these are things or tasks which, when used or performed, do not fit into the traditional view of addiction and may be better defined as an obsessive-compulsive disorder, withdrawal symptoms may occur with abatement of such behavior.

Obsessions

Obsessions are persistent ideas, thoughts, impulses, or images that cause anxiety or distress. Repeated doubts and the need to have things in a particular order are some of the more common obsessions. The individual with obsessions usually attempts to suppress such thoughts or impulses or to neutralize them with some other thought or action (i.e., a compulsion). A compulsion, then, is a feeling that you have to do something to relieve the obsessive thought or doubt. A compulsion is a physical or mental act that you perform over and over–the act of an obsession. Common compulsions include counting, washing, arranging and checking things again and again. When these tendencies are exaggerated, like when having to perform a ritual of making sure the front door is locked 10 or 20 times every time you go out, the behavior has escalated to an obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). Such behavior then becomes time-consuming and interferes with normal daily routine.

Perhaps the most famous of all OCD sufferers was the billionaire entrepreneur Howard Hughes (‘The Aviator’), who spent his later life mentally and physically incarcerated by his own fears of contamination and elaborate cleaning rituals.

No one is sure why people have OCD. New research suggests that OCD may be related to atypical functioning of the circuitry in a part of the brain called the striatum. Whatever the reason, there seems to be an inappropriate response to anxiety in the deeper, primitive part of the brain that is not involved in reasoning. The cause of OCD is probably a mix of many factors including neurobiological, environmental influences and the way we think.

A link between addiction and OCD was illustrated when an assessment of 50 alcoholic patients revealed that 12% had OCD, 5 or 6 times greater than in the general population.

Addictions are often refractory to addiction rehab treatment, but patients treated for substance abuse and OCD showed greatly reduced OCD symptoms and higher overall abstinence. rates.

A research has shown that dopamine causes euphoria or the feeling of being high. This hormone is considered the master molecule of addiction. The pleasure of dopamine has the power to form both healthy and unhealthy behaviors. Thus, its presence is a factor to consider in compulsive behavior or any sort of addiction .

With that dopamine’s control on addiction, why not exploit it to form good eating habits. You can form good behaviors by making what is good for you as enjoyable as possible. You don’t get hooked to a certain food if you don’t love the taste out of it. Eating spinach just because it is healthy when you hate it will not work. When you make healthy eating an enjoyable, taste-filled experience, you will want to do it again and again. Neurons and synapses will form new patterns. Red lights will trigger the desire for juicy watermelon. Hunger will shout, cantaloupes! The cravings for unhealthy foods will fade like a bad dream. No more cravings for fat, salt, sugar and chemicals, the body’s biochemistry is rebalanced to a clean bloodstream filled with vitamins, minerals, enzymes and natural fruit sugars. Its a sort of preconditioning your system to adapt with the new food.

Creating Healthy Triggers and Associations

We always tend to associate events or images to certain foods. These mental associations are the triggers for that food. Hot summer days can trigger the urge for ice cream. Campfires can trigger the urge for marshmallows. Baseball games trigger urges for hot dogs. Seeing a donut store can trigger an urge for coffee. The golden arches of McDonalds can trigger an urge for a hamburger.

Food triggers are worth millions. Every food company on earth hopes to brand there products to images and events that triggers, emotions, feelings, and memories that causes the urge to eat, buy or consume. The marketer’s dream is millions of consumers with subconsious triggers programmed, by the media. If you see the Golden Arches of MacDonald’s and your car makes an automatic turn to the checkout window, you may be one of them.

If we want to stop craving for unhealthy diet, create triggers for healthy foods you want to eat. Here is how to do it. Imagine a bright orange cantaloupe, packed with beta-carotene and enzymes, ready to nourish every cell, as good for you as it is low in calories. Imagine enjoying a plate of chilled cantaloupe slices, sensing peace and comfort coming over your body. See yourself relishing every bite and being joyful of God’s blessing. See your body being flooded with nutrients and making you feel so good, so alive. Feel the warmest, most comforting feeling and connect it with the taste of cantaloupe. See yourself after eating a plate of chilled cantaloupe slices. Savor the feeling of contentment. Now when you eat a cantaloupe, enjoy it to the fullest, relishing every moment. If you do, dopamine will help you to form the healthy triggers.

Be careful, some people have overused this trigger-creating technique and developed a serious cantaloupe addiction. We are thankful for the 12-step program, Cantaloupe Eaters Anonymous.

The closer we are to receiving pleasure, the more we think of it. We remember the pleasure and we want it again. We remember the enjoyment, and forget the negative effects.

When we want pleasure, we replay the best part of the experience. We build anticipation by remembering the pleasure over and over again, like listening to a favorite song without playing the rest of the tape. We rarely play the tape to the end. Who wants to see all the images of depression, sickness, obesity, guilt and all the other fun stuff that goes with indulgence?

When a drug addict thinks about a drug, he remembers the rush. Reliving the experience of pleasure builds anticipation. As he focuses on the rush, the more the anticipation increases the desire for pleasure. He ignores the loss of money and health, the pain of withdrawals, jail and all the negative consequences associated with drugs. Drug addicts and alcoholics have pleasure-centered thinking. If they forced themselves to look at the entire picture, they would not be using drugs.

We do the same with food. We become fixed on the pleasure. Instead, we need to force ourselves to look at the consequences of overindulging: greasy skin, pimples, cavities, rolls of ugly fat, and disease-rotted flesh from a body overloaded with food additives.

Compulsive behavior is based on destructive pleasure associations.

Twenty years of propaganda has an impact. We come to believe that cravings are good for us, a part of normal life. No point fighting them. It’s time to strip away the mask and see the raw ugliness hidden below. Cravings are powerful forces leading us to death and destruction.

To overcome cravings, you need to run an anti-brainwashing program to clean out the junk from childhood. Not only was your mind filled with reading, writing and arithmetic, but mind-washing thoughts as well, skillfully placed by the mentors of negativity. Like a computer virus, they infect your life by infecting your thinking.

With cult-like force, they infiltrated the education system. Your teacher, your guidance counselor, or your school janitor may have been one of them. Even your parents may have fallen under the spell.

The only way to detect this hideous fraternity is by their common language. If you say, “it’s a beautiful day,” they respond with, “what’s good about it?” You mention singing birds. They complain about bird poop. You mention sunshine; they grimly suggest skin cancer. Every word carries the dark force of criticism, fear and complaint. Nothing is sacred. Nothing is cherished. Nothing has value.

They have stubbornly made a decision to think the worst. You can’t change that, but you can defend yourself against the onslaught of these malignant thoughts.
It is time to put the brakes on defeatist thinking and alter your mental dialogue.

Evaluate what you are thinking. Are your thoughts inspiring, uplifting and encouraging or a stewing cauldron of worry, fear and doubt? Watch your thoughts. (No converter required.) Is your brain signal positive or negative? You will quickly realize how the negative thoughts have a far greater impact than the positive thoughts. If the thoughts you are thinking are negative, it’s time to replace them with positive, uplifting, warm, fuzzy, nice thoughts.

It’s not easy. You can start out encouraging yourself and end up thinking weird and depressing thoughts. You may think a positive thought like “It’s all going to work out.” And there is this depressing response saying, “no it’s not, my life is falling apart.” It is here that the battle is fought. Stop fighting and negativity wins because you have decided to believe it. You have to fight with truth, repeating the uplifting thought until you believe.

The desire for comfort carries us on the path of least resistance. It is the easy way out. Who wants to swim upstream, when we can go with the flow? But the flow is going downhill to end in a stagnant cesspool of fear, worry and obsession. Going with the flow has a pay-off; we are doing something that is easy. And if we don’t, we have to face our fear. It is easier to be consumed with worry than to do something constructive. You need to strive against the current of negative thinking, facing its power. It may feel like a raging current but the strength will come. Success is upstream, a place of freedom, joy and hope. It is the place we want to be.

Negative thoughts are hard to fight. They are like that floating pink elephant. The more we try not to think of them, the more they barge into our thinking. The solution is to deflect obsession to become encouraging thoughts. We have to re-channel the energy of obsessive, fear-ridden thoughts toward confidence-building thoughts.

Scientists are discovering that psychological addiction has a common factor. All mood-altering drugs elevate levels of the neurotransmitter in the brain called dopamine. Tobacco, cocaine, heroin and caffeine elevate dopamine levels and cause a feeling of euphoria. Dopamine may be the master molecule of addiction.
Neurotransmitters, such as dopamine, control how the brain works and what we feel. When you feel pleasure from eating, falling in love, or receiving a compliment, it is dopamine that causes the feeling. Every experience that humans find enjoyable may be linked to dopamine whether it be listening to music, savoring chocolate, enjoying sex or shooting heroin.

Fifty neurotransmitters have been discovered to date. At least a half dozen are associated with addiction by causing a feeling of euphoria. Serotonin is another interesting neurotransmitter. It has a sedating effect. This neurotransmitter can be affected by rhythm such as stroking hair, slow, deep breathing, or a rocking motion.

It is possible that the desire for the serotonin effect enforces repetitive habits such as nail biting, playing with hair or nose picking. There is a repetition and a rhythm to these habits. It may be an unhealthy attempt at trying to gain comfort from the serotonin effect. Starches have been known to have a calming effect on the brain due to increased levels of serotonin. We are using junk food, starch, drugs, and bad habits to adjust our feelings through stimulating our neurotransmitters.

The pleasure effect of neurotransmitters is designed by God to form healthy, natural dependencies. A wholesome pleasure motivates us to find good tasting food, comfortable shelter, and loving relationships. Dopamine and serotonin reinforce healthy actions and behaviors.

Dopamine has a powerful ability to form triggers. During pleasure, neurological pathways are being formed that will trigger a physical and emotional reaction to repeat that pleasure. We know it as an urge. We feel compelled. Our minds can become fixed on pleasure until we think of nothing else.

Intense pleasure forms the most powerful triggers. For this reason, sex, drugs and food create the most powerful urges. A syringe, rolling papers, an X-rated video, McDonalds, or anything that is associated with the pleasure becomes a trigger for these powerful urges. Compelled by an urge, we feel pulled toward pleasure like steel to a magnet. The emotions overdrive and our body quivers with adrenaline. An addict may shake and sweat with the anticipation of pleasure. A tennis player may also experience the same reaction before a championship. The body and mind are being prepared for action.

Urges are powerful at motivating us towards good or towards evil. We can feel the urge to pray, the urge to be kind, the urge to create or build, or we can feel the urge to destroy. Yet, even the most powerful urge cannot negate our responsibility. We can never blame an urge for the action we have formed, built and accepted. We have given it a power from the thoughts that we allowed it to form.

Food allergies can also cause an addiction-like dependence due to homeostatic disturbance. Your favorite foods are usually the ones to which you are addicted. You usually feel better immediately after eating the food that you are addicted to, but shortly afterward the allergic reaction produces a feeling of irritability. It causes flatulence, nausea, depression or headaches. Milk, wheat and eggs are the most common allergic foods. Each contains large protein molecules with strong glue-like bonds. If the appropriate enzyme necessary for digestion is not available, these protein molecules enter the blood undigested. The immune system attacks these fragments as if they were invaders. Homeostasis has been interrupted and if these foods are continually eaten, the body needs them for homeostatic balance, causing an allergen-based food addiction.
The brain has 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion connectors for memory alone. Each brain cell is dependent on homeostatic balance to function properly. High doses of sugar, salt, fat and caffeine can cause imbalances in the brain’s normal chemistry. Eating natural foods allows the brain’s chemistry to function normally. Natural foods assist homeostasis, supplying vitamins, minerals, soft fibers, cell salts and enzymes to assist the body in maintaining balance. In a balanced state, hunger is in relation to the body’s need for nutrition.

Eating processed food creates cravings for more processed foods. Eat fried foods, and you crave more. Eat cooked food, and you crave it. Eat sugar-filled food, and you crave it. The Hostess munchies are nothing more than disguised cravings for salt and fat. They promise satisfaction, but artificial pleasure never satisfies. It is a pleasure that gives by first taking. It steals valuable nutrition from your diet by feeding your body empty calories

Addiction is profitable. Cravings are good for business.
There is no mysterious ingredient. The Cadbury’s Crème Egg secret is out. Chocolate is drug-like in its effect. Artificial taste explodes in the mouth with crunchy, smooth, sweet flavors, supplying intense pleasure. Every texture and nuance of taste is contrived to stimulate your 9,000 taste buds into sending pleasure signals to the brain. The intensified pleasure effect is addictive. We don’t care about the additives or empty calories. Chocolate junkies crave a fix, driven by the desire for that chocolate pleasure. A pleasure for which we will pay any price, even our health.

Chocolate bars are loaded with salt, sugar, caffeine and fat, up to 300 calories per bar. Like a body that demands heroin for its balance, the body will crave sugar, salt and fat. Take candy from a sugar junkie, and look out! Quitting causes withdrawals. Remove sugar, processed fat or salt from your diet, and you will crave them. You will go through the discomfort of facing withdrawal similar to the withdrawal from drugs.
Strawberries and bananas don’t cause cravings. You never feel guilty about eating too many cantaloupes. You never hear little voices in the back of your head saying “eat, eat, eat cantaloupe.” No, because natural foods balance the body and physical cravings are caused by biochemical imbalance. Street drugs, alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, salt, saturated fat, refined starch and refined sugars cause cravings because they imbalance the body’s chemistry.

Addictive substances cause the body to become dependent on an unnatural substance for homeostatic balance. Removing it causes withdrawals. During withdrawal, the addict suffers through the painful readjustment as the body cries out for the missing substance. In a desperate attempt to maintain homeostasis (chemical balance), the body demands the very substance that caused the imbalance.

The body’s homeostatic balance is affected by diet. Consumption of massive amounts of sugar, salt, caffeine or fried foods drastically affects homeostatic balance. Natural hunger becomes distorted as the body craves the substances necessary for balance. The body reacts as it would to any addiction. Powerful cravings override the body’s natural needs.

Diets have a nasty habit of stirring up the past where all those painful memories live. When awakened, they crawl up the subconscious tunnel to poke holes in our self-worth. As we pull away from the comforting security blanket of food, we face the emptiness of our soul.

Job stress, family pressures, health conditions, worry and negative thinking intensify childhood pain. Life becomes a tangle of painful emotions, and dieting tugs on the string of that tangle. One pull and the soul says “Ouch! Don’t mess with this stuff, it hurts.”

On the surface, people may see you as a successful individual, but beneath there are painful issues that have never been resolved. If these issues are causing a desperate desire to escape through food, then no diet pill or exercise program will solve the problem. Dieting may work for a time, but eventually you’ll only have to face the pain of failure.

Addictive/compulsive behavior is a desperate attempt to find peace in an emotional storm of insecurity, disappointments and childhood pain. In that storm, it is impossible to maintain the focus needed for self-discipline. Like trying to rake leaves in a windstorm, the mind changes direction with every emotion that blows through. To gain self-control, you need to calm the winds of insecurity that are driven by distorted, negative thinking. You need to calm the storm and be at peace.

Getting Past Childhood Issues

Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% what you do with it. You may have been abused, insulted, faced illness and loss, but you can overcome the past. Bad things happen, and we can’t change that. But we can change the future. It is time to leave the past in the past and get on with life. It is time to stop feeling like a victim.

Depression is a pity party, anger only hurts you, resentment seals out love, and worry fixes nothing. Distorted thoughts get distorted results. Set your mind to what you can do, and then do it. Encourage yourself. Take action and your emotions will come into line; those painful memories will fade in the light of joy.

Eating is the easy way out, a dependable source of pleasure and comfort. An aching soul is eased for a few moments, but the emptiness and pain quickly return. Food can’t fix the past, but Christ can. With God, nothing is impossible. (Luke 1:37) He heals the broken hearted and binds up their wounds. (Psalm 147:3) Face your fear, because you have nothing to fear. When God is for us, who can be against us? When depression raises its ugly head, scorn it. Feelings are unscrupulous salesmen selling you something you don’t want. Don’t buy it. Look only at the facts. Why are you feeling this way? Get the points written on paper and look at them objectively. Is it really as bad as it feels? Emotional issues are tiny battles you need to win. Make your decision, then stand by it. Do what you can, and leave the rest in God’s hands.

Run from fear and it will become more frightening. Run from a problem and it will grow into a Goliath. You are ready for the challenge. Face your Goliath with courage. Face it and overcome it. Face your fears and insecurities and your pain will turn to freedom and joy.

Compulsive behaviors are formed in the subconscious.
The brain weighs only a few pounds, but it is hundreds of times more powerful than the fastest computer. Within the brain’s deeply furrowed cortex lies a wellspring of memory, dreams, alertness and self-awareness. Neurons hum with activity — networking, processing, and acting with lightning speed to interpret the messages from the sense organs. The temporal lobe, association cortex, corpus callosum, and the left and right hemisphere act like players in an orchestra to transform the constant influx of signals into a cohesive interpretation of the inner and outer world.

Even with today’s high-tech diagnostic tools, the brain is like an iceberg—hiding more than we can see. Below the surface are the workings of the brain hidden from the conscious. It’s called the subconscious. It does most of the work you take for granted.
Imagine trying to walk while figuring out what blend of digestive juices your pancreas needs to digest the pizza that you ate for lunch. Imagine sending millions of enzymes, one by one, into that sticky, half-digested pizza sludge looking for a nutrient. Meanwhile, your heart needs regulating and you’re getting a little confused in organizing the 100,000 chemical reactions the mind performs each hour to maintain homeostasis (balance). And you thought making your eyes rotate in two different directions is hard! If these reactions were not hidden from us, we could not function. Automatic functions let our brain focus on the most important things.

To develop any skill, we train our bodies to react, then refine that reaction so we gain control with ever-increasing complexity. A concert violinist plays with ease because he has developed a complex array of automatic reactions. It is much like writing a program for a computer.

Consider the brain a bio-computer and you, its haphazard programmer. You have been inputting data and setting up programs since childhood. Every smile, criticism, kind word and insult is a source of data. But much of that data was false. Through corrupted data, you may have come to believe that you are clumsy, useless, hopeless, fat, ugly, stupid, weak and cowardly. Those beliefs have determined your actions and powerfully affected your thinking process. Each distorted thought has entered the subconscious, stirring waves of emotion, shame, guilt, fear and rejection, each wave adding to the overwhelming feeling of worthlessness. A feeling that shouts, “you are a failure!”

It is easy to give up. You don’t have to try when you believe that you’re going to fail. But when you give up you feel helpless, empty, and want relief. The food industry is ready to profit from that emptiness.

The diet industry has spent millions on putting a Band-Aid on a symptom. Our bodies are sick and overweight because our minds are filled with toxic thoughts that destroy self-worth, motivation and discipline.

We come to believe our problems with negative emotions are psychological. We may even seek medical cures. Minor results come, but most of the time we are discouraged. If you have been controlled by food, thinking obsessively and battling through each diet, you will find freedom. It will take work, but there will be no waiting for results. Everything you will learn in the following pages will increase your self-control by assisting you in disciplining your thought life. This understanding will help you gain control over not only your diet, but also many other areas of your life. As you start to feel more secure, your defenses will fall away, and you will feel the presence of God. There will be times when you will feel immersed in the comfort of peace. You will feel love in a way that you have never known. You will become emotionally stable. Discipline will be seen in the little things. You will smile easily, share willingly, laugh readily, enjoy life, have enthusiasm, and most of all, you will have a sense of joy and a feeling in the quietness of your soul that says… “All is well.”
Sounds too good. Like a miracle? Give your body a few weeks on a light diet of fruits and vegetables and amazing things will happen. Cells regenerate, the skin softens and veins are cleansed. The lymph glands, liver and kidneys detoxify as you experience the awesome wonder of healing.
Just as the body can recover from disease, the mind can also recover. God can heal emotional wounds, patterns of obsession, compulsion and addiction. But only if you fill your mind with encouragement. You have let your mind run its random course, only to find emotional pain that steals your self-control. It is time to recover your mind and let it be renewed.

Fixed on Food
Rebellion is an ugly part of the human character. Tell a rebellious kid not to do something and sure enough, he will do it. We don’t like to be told what to do (or what not to do). When we tell ourselves, “I will not eat that cake,” another defiant voice answers, “You’re not telling me what to do.” Then the battle starts between the ears. Trenches are dug. The side of selfish indulgence stubbornly hangs on to the desire to eat cake. It hears some great propaganda messages like “I deserve it. One slice won’t hurt.” We start to feel deprived. Precious pleasure is being taken away and we feel hurt. Emptiness and pain well up, resolve weakens.
We want to run from the pain into the comfort of food. Anticipation is revved to full power with a single focus . . . cake. Emotions redline on adrenaline ready for the impulse to bite. The side of self-control is desperate: “don’t think about those delicious chocolate flavors.” But it’s too late. The battle is lost!

Obsessions Are Built In The Mind

Think of a huge floating pink elephant. Now that you have the image in your mind, stop thinking about it. Now, take a break from reading and for one minute; do not think of it. Think of anything else but that floating pink elephant.
Trying not to builds the desire, forcing you to think of nothing but pink elephants. Keep trying not to think of them and you will become obsessed with pink elephants.
We create powerful obsessions with food by trying not to eat certain foods. The more we try, the worse it gets. Eventually, the only thing filling our minds will be the thought of that pizza and pop, or whatever we are trying not to eat.
You have trained your mind to think obsessively. As kids, we ate when hungry and stopped when satisfied. By adulthood, we deteriorated into pleasure-centered food addicts.

Compulsive Disorders are Caused by Distorted Thinking

Compulsive eaters are the first to admit that we are living in a mental mess. Life is a series of worries and frustrations. Our emotions are controlled by outside events. We fail by eating one cookie and confidence plummets. Feeling hopeless, we completely give up and throw off all sense of restraint. Then comes the feeling of failure:

“I am a failure.”
“Everything I do fails.”
“Life is the pits.”
“I shouldn’t, but…”

Psychology calls it abstinence violation effect, the psychological reaction to violating a vow of abstinence. Simply said, the effect is a feeling of failure. And for some, failure is devastating.

After failure comes guilt. Guilt never works, but we use it anyway. We beat ourselves with guilt in a feeble attempt to whip a tired, weary soul back to the battlefield. But the soul groans in defeat, “I have had enough. I don’t care about this stupid diet.”

Why is it so hard? Why is it so difficult to eat a little less? After all, we desperately want to eat right. It is our heart’s desire. We want to be thin, healthy, full of life, looking great and living life to its fullest. But instead we throw it away for 20 seconds of taste-bud pleasure.