Addictive Behavior Quotes & Sayings

Sex is meant to be, if not addictive, at least a very compelling behavior. — Joy Browne

The lack of culpability of the perpetrator and his or her transference of blame onto alcohol or other substances only perpetuates the violent behaviors. — Asa Don Brown

WHEN GOD IS A DRUG - RELIGIOUS ADDICTION Mood alteration is an ingredient of compulsive/addictive behavior. Addiction has been described as "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences." Toxic shame has been suggested as the core and fuel of all addiction. Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood-altered through various religious behaviors. One can get feelings of righteousness through any form of worship. One can fast, pray, meditate, serve others, go through sacramental rituals, speak in tongues, be slain by the Holy Spirit, quote the Bible, read Bible passages, or say the name of Yahweh or Jesus. Any of these can be a mood-altering experience. If one is toxically shamed, such an experience can be immensely rewarding. The disciples of any religious system can say we are good and others, those not like us, the sinners, are bad. This can be exhilarating to the souls of toxically shamed people. — John Bradshaw

I'm very disciplined, but the one thing that I have addictive behavior about is the Internet. — Dani Shapiro

For years I was so busy building walls I did not see I was imprisoning myself behind them, and did not recognize this pattern as being addiction. My addictive thinking and behavior became the bars of my cell. Denying feeling empty inside, I constantly looked for new things to acquire, people to be around, substances to take, and new goals to achieve in order to feel better about myself. Over the last four decades I have focused on healing my addictive mind and helping others do the same. — Lee L Jampolsky

Life itself is a disease and we're all going to die eventually. How we live our life really determines what the quality of our life is. If we can make life more worth living, we will reduce the problems of addictive behavior. — Christopher Kennedy Lawford

Addictive behavior is kind of the inverse of procrastination: procrastination is about not being able to do what you want to do, addiction about not being able to not do what you don't want to do (drink, use drugs, etc.) — James Surowiecki

Being abandoned through the neglect of our developmental dependency needs is the major factor in becoming an adult child. We grow up; we look like adults. We walk and talk like adults, but beneath the surface is a little child who feels empty and needy, a child whose needs are insatiable because he has a child's needs in an adult body. This insatiable child is the core of all compulsive/addictive behavior. — John Bradshaw

We help our clients discover and correct the underlying conditions that are causing them to self-medicate, to seek relief in substances and addictive behavior. — Chris Prentiss

Your generation has been the target of incredible disinformation on the subject of premarital sex, which is another enticing addictive behavior to be considered. In this instance, our own government is responsible for much of the confusion. For some thirty years, federal and state programs have promoted a concept its promoters call "safe sex," which refers to the use of condoms in sexual intercourse. Billions of dollars have been spent telling young people that they can have sex - lots of really good sex - without suffering from the consequences of it. Condoms, they say, will solve all the problems. — James C. Dobson

If these biochemical phenomena sound similar to those of the fight-or-flight syndrome, they are, except that here we are running toward something or someone; indeed, a cynic might say toward rather than away from danger. The changes are also fully consistent with those of the early phases of addictive behavior. The Roxy Music song "Love Is the Drug" is quite accurate in describing this state (albeit the subject of the song is looking to score his next fix of love). — Ray Kurzweil

Patriarchy, hierarchy, and capitalism create, encourage, maintain, and perpetuate addiction and dependency. Patriarchy and hierarchy are based on domination and subordination, which result in fear. This fear is expressed by the dominators through control and violence, and in subordinated people through passivity and repression of anger. The external conflict of hierarchy between dominants and subordinates becomes internalized in individuals, creating personal inner chaos, anxiety and duality. To quell the inner conflict people resort to addictive substances and behavior. — Charlotte Davis Kasl

SHAME AS THE CORE AND FUEL OF ALL ADDICTION Neurotic shame is the root and fuel of all compulsive/addictive behaviors. My general working definition of compulsive/addictive behavior is "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences." The drivenness in any addiction is about the ruptured self, the belief that one is flawed as a person. The content of the addiction, whether it be an ingestive addiction or an activity addiction (such as work, shopping or gambling), is an attempt at an intimate relationship. The workaholic with his work and the alcoholic with his booze are having a love affair. Each one alters the mood to avoid the feeling of loneliness and hurt in the underbelly of shame. Each addictive acting out creates life-damaging consequences that create more shame. — John Bradshaw

Money can extinguish intrinsic motivation, diminish performance, crush creativity, encourage unethical behavior, foster short-term thinking, and become addictive. — Daniel H. Pink

All of us need to leave things behind in order to follow God. For some of us, it is addictive patterns of behavior, for others an overweening emphasis on our own success, for others the adulation of the crowd. It helps sometimes to look not just at what we're leaving behind and what God promises us, but also at what God has shown us already. Just look at all those fish. — James Martin

By observing your addictive behaviors, you observe your conditioning. When you observe your conditioning, you're free of it, because you are not your conditioning; you are the observer of your conditioning. — Deepak Chopra

CARROTS AND STICKS: The Seven Deadly Flaws 1. They can extinguish intrinsic motivation. 2. They can diminish performance. 3. They can crush creativity. 4. They can crowd out good behavior. 5. They can encourage cheating, shortcuts, and unethical behavior. 6. They can become addictive. 7. They can foster short-term thinking. — Daniel H. Pink

It is impossible to understand addiction without asking what relief the addict finds, or hopes to find, in the drug or the addictive behaviour. — Gabor Mate

Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the centre of all addictive behaviours. It is present in the gambler, the Internet addict, the compulsive shopper and the workaholic. The wound may not be as deep and the ache not as excruciating, and it may even be entirely hidden - but it's there. As we'll see, the effects of early stress or adverse experiences directly shape both the psychology and the neurobiology of addiction in the brain. — Gabor Mate

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse. — Chris Prentiss

Mood alteration is an ingredient of compulsive/addictive behavior. Addiction has been described as "a pathological relationship to any mood-altering experience that has life-damaging consequences." Toxic shame has been suggested as the core and fuel of all addiction. Religious addiction is rooted in toxic shame, which can be readily mood-altered through various religious behaviors. One can get feelings of righteousness through any form of worship. One can fast, pray, meditate, serve others, go through sacramental rituals, speak in tongues, be slain by the Holy Spirit, quote the Bible, read Bible passages, or say the name of Yahweh or Jesus. Any of these can be a mood-altering experience. If one is toxically shamed, such an experience can be immensely rewarding. — John Bradshaw

You can't really compare hells. But I suppose the hell of being strung out on another person's addictive behavior is its own special thing. — Jerry Stahl

You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever. — Chris Prentiss

You start doing the addictive behavior to feel good and then your receptors get overloaded with dopamine, then you stop doing the addictive thing and some of the receptors have shut down and you don't have enough dopamine to feel good. So then you feel bad and go back to the addictive behavior to get more dopamine. The strange thing is that it works with what we think of as uppers and downers and whatever you call gambling - sidewaysers. — Bill Nye

Toxically shamed people tend to become more and more stagnant as life goes on. They live in a guarded, secretive and defensive way. They try to be more than human (perfect and controlling) or less than human (losing interest in life or stagnated in some addictive behavior). — John Bradshaw