Addiction Recovery: Needs, Motivation, and Obstacles

An addictive behaviour often starts out as an attempted solution for a previous problem. This is true whether the behaviour is substance use, over or undereating, excess technology use, sex addiction, or overworking. It can be a way of boosting a low mood resulting from depression, grief, or disconnection. Or it can be a means of soothing a nervous system that has become overactive due to anxiety, stress, or trauma. These are just a few of the many possible roles an addictive behaviour can play in someone’s life. 

As the consequences of the behaviour start to accumulate, the original motivations start to be obscured by the problems being caused in the present. At this point, it’s easy to narrow your focus to reducing or stopping the addictive behaviour rather than trying to understand its’ origins and the pain that fuels it. The way the issue of addiction is framed and understood directly impacts the strategies that will be used to address it. 

In this post, we'll explore how to disentangle the addictive behaviour from the original issues that fostered it. By doing so, you'll be able to gain greater awareness of your underlying needs; increase clarity about your motivations for change; and have the opportunity to plan for likely obstacles you’ll encounter on the path to recovery. 

Decisional Balance Exercise

An overly simplistic way to think about addiction would be to classify it as harmful and highlight the benefits of gaining freedom from it. Though there is a measure of truth in this viewpoint, it denies important aspects of the situation, mainly that the addiction is serving a purpose in the person’s life and that change also involves costs and challenges.

Most people living with an addiction are well aware of the costs of their behaviours and long for the gains that stability or abstinence would offer. And yet, they remain stuck or struggle to sustain changes. In my experience, a critical starting point to building the foundation for lasting change is to examine all sides of the decision to continue with the behaviour or to make the change. 

Consciously or unconsciously, we often approach crucial decisions in our lives by doing a cost benefit analysis. A Decisional Balance Exercise makes this process explicit and promotes objectivity. 

Unconscious Benefits and Unmet Needs

The first step can feel counterintuitive, but you need to examine the benefits of continuing to engage in the addictive behaviour. Many people balk at this suggestion and would rather define the addiction as wholly negative in the hopes that this will foster motivation to refrain from it. Any behaviour that is sustained in someone’s life despite clear awareness of the significant consequences must on some level be perceived as offering a benefit - and it’s likely that the hoped for gains are viewed as important enough to suffer the costs.

So what type of benefits do addictive behaviours offer? Here are a few common ones:

Mood regulation: it can provide a temporary boost in mood or it can offer relaxation for those in an activated state

Pleasure: many addictive behaviours engage the dopamine system in the brain creating feel good chemicals

Numbing: a temporary relief from distressing thoughts or emotions as well as a means of forgetting difficult aspects of a current situation or memories from the past

Disinhibition: a way to reduce anxiety, particularly before or during social situations, and engage in behaviours that may otherwise be avoided

There are many more, but these suffice to reflect the perceived appeal of addictive behaviours. I say “perceived” because the behaviours may have previously offered such benefits but now no longer do so reliably.

The reason it's vital to unearth these benefits is twofold: 1) they may be unconscious and 2) they reflect important and valid unmet needs. We all wish for stable moods; experiences of pleasure; freedom from distress; and the ability to pursue things we value. When you develop conscious awareness of these needs, you’re in a better position to examine other means of fulfilling them.

Developing new coping strategies to regulate mood; cultivate joy; tolerate uncomfortable emotions; and manage anxiety become the focus of the work rather than the addictive behaviour itself. Ideally these new approaches will not require you to pay the high costs incurred from the addiction. That brings us to the next aspect of the Decisional Balance Exercise: motivation for change.

Positive and Negative Reinforcement: Dual Motivations

At this point in the exercise, it's time to look at the costs of continuing with the addictive behavior. For some, these may seem both obvious and painfully clear; however, the consequences of an addiction can often be denied, overlooked, forgotten, or minimized in ways that sustain the behaviour.

By speaking them aloud, and better yet writing them down on paper, you can deepen your motivation for change through a process called negative reinforcement. We're motivated to avoid incurring costs that result in emotional pain, financial consequences, deteriorating health, and severed relationships. In addition, the costs you're unwilling to tolerate reveal the things you value, such as your physical and emotional well-being and connection to others. 

The flip side of this motivational process is positive reinforcement. You can access this by considering what you stand to gain by sustaining change. For those who have experienced past changes in their addictive behaviour, you can draw on the experience of what improved in your life. This can be tangible evidence of the benefits that await you. It could be improved physical health, the restoration of important relationships, or a greater sense of self-worth.

For those who have yet to experience a period of change, this offers an opportunity to give voice to your hopes for what a transformation would create in your life. Again, this process will highlight the things you value most.

Motivation is an essential fuel for recovery and healing. It’s crucial to have clarity and easy access to your motivations in order to sustain investment in the process and bolster yourself during times of doubt or difficulty. The road to change is never linear, rarely brief, and often involves challenges, so you need to ensure that you know why you're willing to persevere.  

Planning For Obstacles

It's important to be realistic about the obstacles you're likely to encounter as you try to alter long-term habits. A means of accessing potential stumbling blocks is to consider the perceived costs of changing the behaviour. There are multiple benefits to doing so, including developing compassion for past unsuccessful attempts to make change; identifying areas for further skill development; and setting therapy goals to address these issues pre-emptively. 

For example, if you have historically had setbacks with addictive behaviours when experiencing uncomfortable emotions such as stress, anxiety, sadness, or grief, it would be necessary to cultivate practices to better tolerate these feelings; develop emotional regulation skills; and access supports at such times. This may require you to enhance your ability to identify and articulate what you're feeling and in turn what you're needing to regulate. You may benefit from increasing your engagement with support systems that feel both safe and accessible during times of need. 

When you better understand what has derailed your past efforts or what has prevented you from setting out to change your behaviour in the first place, you'll be better equipped to utilize therapy sessions to build your repertoire of coping in ways that enhance confidence and effectiveness.

A Personalized Map

By using a Decisional Balance Exercise, you create a map for your healing. You’ll gain a compassionate understanding of the path that led to the present moment and the route to moving forward.

In summary, here are the important takeaways from this exploration:

Benefits of Continuing With Addictive Behaviour: clarify the appeal of the entrenched behaviours and identify unmet needs that can be addressed through therapy

Costs of Continuing With Addictive Behaviour: break through denial and minimization and develop motivation for change through negative reinforcement

Benefits of Changing the Addictive Behaviour: allow yourself to remember or imagine what you stand to gain as a means of fostering hope and enhancing motivation through positive reinforcement

Costs of Changing the Addictive Behaviour: identify potential obstacles to pursuing or sustaining efforts to change and utilize therapy to develop skills to overcome them

An addictive behaviour can begin as a friend. Something that feels like it’s there when you need it and asks no questions of you. However, it can end up feeling like your worst enemy. Ultimately, only when you understand your own personalized relationship with the behaviour can you begin to comprehend its’ meaning in your life. Once that becomes clear, so too do the steps needed to move towards recovery.