#addictive behavior

now....i have another fic that’s around 35k words as of right now that’s still not finished and i’ve been uploading chapters since june 2019. if anyone wants to see poor peter spiraling into addiction then follow this link 

https://archiveofourown.org/works/21657889/chapters/51645811

if you’re trying to change a behavior of yours, congratulations- it’s a hard thing to do (and if you’re not, that’s okay too). 

One important thing I just wanna throw out there is the importance and effectiveness of POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT! 

Especially if you’re dealing with a behavior that is worsened by stress, punishing yourself as a method of trying to stop it may be unproductive, as it will add to your stress, and put you under a ton of pressure to stop doing the behavior. (of course, this may work for some people, but not for others).

Positive reinforcement can be more effective as the reward (whether it be a tangible thing or just a little “congratulations!” to yourself), is something that doesn’t add stress to the stress you may already have. And by doing something positive after not doing the behavior in question, you’re conditioning yourself to associate that good feeling with not doing the behavior! 

Of course, the whole process is often a bit more complicated than that, but I think it’s important to know that self-deprivation and punishment often worsen the problem. 

I have memories of this happening as a kid and of my mom getting increasingly frustrated listing things that normally I would like and me saying “no”. It wasn’t me being defiant. Every one of those suggestions sounded exhausting.

Some days with addiction I feel like it looms over my head. Like a sticky shadow I can’t peel off. A feeling of unsoothable discomfort. My body has this defense mechanism of going into that paralysis. I guess you can’t really do anything bad if you don’t do anything at all.

I brought this mental paralysis mechanism up in my SMART Recovery meeting. Apparently, it’s common among recovering addicts to experience this. Someone brought up the concept rather than have someone suggest what you do, why not draw things to do out of a hat.

I stopped and thought about it. Normally if a person suggests something when I’m in this state, I would just shut it down harder. What if what I do isn’t a suggestion rather than a selection by me to do something random. The power is my hands, I’m choosing it.

It sounded like a plausible idea. I haven’t tested it yet. Today I’m going to start adding ideas to the hat proactively. This way when I do get to that mental paralysis point I can have it ready to try.

I’m up for trying.