Читать книгу We: A Manifesto for Women Everywhere - Gillian Anderson, Gillian Anderson - Страница 20
ОглавлениеAn addiction is any behaviour you are unable to stop repeating despite its negative impact on your life. It’s a medical illness, like cancer or hepatitis – not something you can heal through willpower alone – and it’s impossible to make much real progress if you’re in active addiction.
The good news is that there is great help out there. There are now 12-step fellowships that can help with any addiction you might have. At the back of this book are links to their websites where you’ll find self-diagnosis questionnaires and information about how to access the support that is freely available (here).
One of the most cunning symptoms of addiction is denial. If you find yourself tempted to minimize your behaviour, please don’t. Ignoring it will cheat you out of a whole new way of life.
Addiction to substances like drugs, alcohol or food are widely known, but you can also be addicted to behaviours like shopping, exercising, gaming, gambling, care-taking, loving and sex. Basically you can become addicted to anything that changes how you feel. A temporary period of abstinence from a substance or behaviour doesn’t mean you no longer have a problem. Addiction is a progressive illness, so in its early stages you may be able to kid yourself that you’ve got it under control. Long term, though, it only gets worse. So if you find you’re unable to control yourself around a particular substance or behaviour then you should jump straight to the Resources section here.
