Breaking the Addictive Cycle
By: Never Sugarcoated
Tags: Trauma, Recovery, Mental Health, Addiction, Self

Breaking the Addictive Cycle

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels | Edited by Never Sugarcoated

I am an addict. I know, I know, the term “addict” is questionable and outdated. But I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me. And I identify as an addict.

When I first got sober, a friend asked me how I was sure I was an addict. Aside from regularly waking up in strange places, there was a distinct behavior pattern before, during, and after my addictive benders. Upon explaining this cycle to my friend, she never asked me if I was an addict again.

This is not a scientific explanation of addiction—it’s about as anecdotal as it gets. But in case it’s helpful to someone else, I want to share what my addiction looked like and what I’ve learned about myself through therapy and recovery.

The Cycle of My Addiction

My benders typically ran through three phases as part of a larger cycle. I spent the majority of my life in at least one of these phases, but toward the end of my downward spiral, I experienced all three phases, more or less simultaneously.

Phase 1: The Whirlwind

When the Whirlwind strikes, I feel the need to vacate the premises of my mind immediately. It’s a full-body experience —a manic, racing energy that jolts through me like a thousand cups of coffee. I cannot and will not be inside myself anymore; I am crawling out of my skin, desperate for an escape. It’s different than anxiety or a panic attack. It feels like a perverse rush of desire.

Sometimes, the Whirlwind is triggered by an acute, emotional event, but usually, it slams me from completely out of the blue. Once it begins, I’m willing to do anything to get away from myself and will reach for the nearest vice. Put simply, I need to get the fuck out of here, now.

Phase 2: The Obsession

Once I select my route of escape in the form of substance or behavior, the Obsession begins. No matter which poison I choose, there is never enough to satisfy me. I need dopamine hits at increasing speed and volume to maintain my fleeting high.

Suppose I can’t continue engaging in the chosen behavior, whether because there’s none left or I am physically unable—I will somehow find a way to stay high. The Obsession phase grants me what seems like an endless supply of energy toward the chase. It is desperate and feral, driven by a hunger for which there is no satiation.

At some point, I stop living and become a mindless host to the quest for escape. I am a slave to the Obsession, and it’s not fun; I’ve lost control.

Phase 3: The Switch

To prove that I don’t have a problem, I pull the Switch. The Switch is a relocation of the Obsession under the guise of “changing it up.”

I don’t need alcohol; I need a boyfriend!

I don’t need a boyfriend; I need sex!

I don’t need sex; I need pot!

And just like that, the Obsession finds a new home.

Unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time before I burn out on one vice and switch over to another. It’s an endless cycle.

Sometimes, the Switch phase doesn’t involve switching so much as a new addition to my addiction lineup.

For example, even though I switched from booze to pot, I added toxic relationships. When those relationships ended, I switched back to booze and poured myself into work. When I burned out on work, I switched back to pot and added exercise.

You get the picture.

My life was a perpetual game of whack-a-mole. Just as I got one addiction “under control,” another one immediately popped up, provoking me to prove my power over it. I desperately tried to regain control by mixing and matching vices, hoping I’d discover the winning combination for homeostasis. But it was a tireless pursuit.

Breaking the Addictive Cycle in Sobriety

I’ve been alcohol and drug-free since early 2017. While I did switch over to disordered eating during early sobriety, I am now in recovery from my eating disorder, too. Getting sober was tough, but it was my first step toward breaking the self-destructive cycle that ruled my life.

In my few years as a sober woman, I’ve learned many valuable lessons about myself and my addictive personality, but the two following insights stand out.

01. I need to deal with difficult emotions, no matter how painful

I realize now that the Whirlwind phase never actually came out of nowhere. It was always rooted in thoughts and feelings that were too painful for me to deal with—memories and moments I’d unknowingly buried alive.

Through therapy and a recovery program, I discovered and revisited some of my most painful events and traumas—experiences I thought I had “gotten over.”

But I hadn’t. Those experiences boiled just beneath the surface and took form in the seemingly inexplicable, urgent Whirlwinds that directed me to abandon myself promptly. My unprocessed pain didn’t disappear. It shapeshifted.

My therapist explained this in a way that clicked for me. Picture your mind as two rooms connected by a narrow hallway. Room #1 captures your daily experiences, and Room #2 stores them as memories. Every experience travels through the hallway from Room #1 to Room #2.

But traumatic experiences get stuck in the hallway. This forces all new experiences to pass through the trauma before getting stored.

In other words, unbeknownst to me, my life was distorted by a lens of trauma. Every new experience was cloaked in years of unprocessed pain.

I believe wholeheartedly that my addictive personality was exacerbated by decades of unhealed, emotional wounds. Once I began dealing with the underlying reasons I needed to escape myself—finally acknowledging the traumas blocking my mind’s hallway—I didn’t feel the need to escape as often.

For me, living a fulfilling, recovered life means dealing with my emotions as they come up—no matter how badly I want to avoid them. I can no longer stuff them away and pray they never come back.

It doesn’t matter whether I think my feelings are unwarranted or completely justified. It’s not about judgment or shame; it’s about accepting, honoring, and processing my emotions.

02. I need to accept that I still have intense reactions to certain substances and behaviors

For some people, dealing with emotional trauma can break the addictive cycle. I witnessed this firsthand when my best friend started healing from her own painful life experiences. She no longer hops from one vice to another.

But for me, emotional Whirlwinds are not the prerequisite for addiction. While my addictions may have been jumpstarted by that gnawing need to escape the pain of my reality, the Obsession phase begins as soon as I experience the first buzz, whether on purpose or accidentally, regardless of my mood or mental state.

Let’s take my most merciless addiction, alcohol, for example. It’s not like I had to drink all day, every day. Even at the height of my alcoholism, I could say no if someone offered me a drink.

But as soon as I took that first drink, all bets were off. That warm buzzing at the base of my skull, the loosening of my limbs, the softening edges of reality—suddenly, nothing else mattered.

Once alcohol entered my body, my only desire was to get more alcohol into my body. Period. It didn’t matter whether I was at my own birthday party or a professional networking event. Once I started drinking, I couldn’t stop.

If you’ve not struggled with addiction, this might sound far-fetched. I still have trouble wrapping my head around it, and I’ve lived the damn thing! But it’s the truth, and for me, it’s not only triggered by alcohol.

I can get addicted to anything if it feels good enough — gambling, social media, sugar, sex, relationships, shopping, attention, achievement—you name it. And once I feel like I’ve lost control of one addiction, I’ll pull the old switcheroo and start up a new one. Unlike my friend, dealing with my painful emotions and traumas didn’t release me from my addictive tendencies.

In early recovery, this really bothered me. I assumed that going to therapy and abstaining from alcohol and drugs would eliminate my overarching inclination toward addiction.

I spent countless hours researching addiction. I believed that if I could understand why I got addicted to things so easily, I could change myself. I’ve read hundreds of books and peer-reviewed articles—each with its own plausible take on why addiction happens. But despite all my research, I never found a concrete, all-encompassing answer to the question: “Why am I an addict?”