Breaking Addiction Quotes

“Why understanding the purpose of addiction matters: Because it explains why people with addictions are not weaker than people without addiction: people suffering with addictions put up with helplessness just like everyone else as long as it doesn’t involve major issues for them.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction – An Alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous Guide to Understanding Emotional Root Causes and Lasting Recovery

“Whether you can break through your addiction depends on whether you can find a “good-enough” solution to your helplessness trap.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“When people feel that they cannot act directly against helplessness (usually because it would make them feel too guilty or anxious) they resort to a displaced action—the addictive behavior. Consequently,”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“Getting to know the defensive styles you use when faced with something uncomfortable can be extremely helpful in catching the key moment in your addiction.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“We know that the particular form of an addiction is just a displacement—an action that gives a sense of empowerment in the face of helplessness—”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“The fact is, if you suffer with an addiction you are not different at all from anyone else. “But,” you may argue, “not everyone has an addiction!” True enough, but there is an important response to that point: virtually everyone has a psychological or emotional problem of some kind.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“Addiction is a behavior intended to reverse a profound, intolerable sense of helplessness. This helplessness is always rooted in something deeply important to the individual.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“The purpose of addiction must lie in the inside world, where what is at stake are feelings central to emotional survival itself. If this is the case, then nobody would be surprised to find that it overrules even the most important external causes.”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction

“By devoting time to the consequences of behaviour it is also easy to overlook the fact that these consequences were not intended. We already know that addictions are a solution to an internal problem, not an attempt to create external problem for oneself or others. There is an even more fundamental problem with spending your time and effort thinking about the effects of addiction. The more time you spend on that, the less time you spending doing something truly valuable: looking at the causes of addiction”
― Lance Dodes, Breaking Addiction: A 7-Step Handbook for Ending Any Addiction – An Alternative to Alcoholics Anonymous Guide to Understanding Emotional Root Causes and Lasting Recovery