Why Having An Addictive Personality Can Be A Benefit
So addiction has been a big part of my life since I was a little kid and a bigger part of my family’s life before me.
I grew up with a pretty normal childhood experience for the most part, but my mother struggled with an alcohol addiction that taught me a lot of the negative sides of being attached to something that you can’t get rid of.
Picture: My mom’s rehab facilityI used to do weekly checks where I’d walk around the house with her to find all her hidden bottles of booze, which in my head, was more of a game than something abnormal. Later on, this turned into visiting her in rehab not truly understanding what was going on which is when I got an insight into a different world than I had ever been exposed to before.
Now I know I’m not the only one who has had a loved one close to them struggle with addiction or has had to manage having a more addictive personality. Sadly a lot of us go through it, struggle with it, or see it from afar, but over the past few years, I’ve been able to understand what addiction is and has been to me as well as how I can use it to my advantage instead of my downfall.
An Example Most Of Us Know
I’ve always wondered how someone like my mom can struggle with addiction and not get out of it, compared to others who go on to do great things after battling it. A great case study we likely all have heard of is Robert Downey Jr. or Ironman if that sounds a bit more familiar.
RDJ these days is well known and in a lot of people’s eyes an icon for the work he’s done. I mean the guy defeated Thanos with a snap of his fingers (and a little help from the whole crew). Back in the late 90s though, people would’ve had a different perspective.
Starting in 1996, he was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and having a handgun while cruising down Sunset Boulevard, which was only the start of his run-ins with the law.
He would go on to be arrested in 1997 for missing a drug test, in 1999 for missing yet again another drug test, in 2000 for being under the influence of a controlled substance and in possession of valium and cocaine, and in 2001 where he tested positive for cocaine but was released shortly after.
Now his actions are his own, but his start into addiction was a bit of a forced hand. His dad being an addict himself, allowed RDJ to join him in his drug use as early as 6, with Downey stating in an interview that “when my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how.”
Fast forwarding after years of rehabilitation and work, I’d say things have turned around for him.
Now my experience was not as intense and I never joined in on my mom’s drinking days, but I did end up pushing the boundaries of addiction as I started to jump into my teen years as I would go out every weekend, some weeknights, to unwind and relax.
Looking back on it these days I wouldn’t say there was an addiction but there was somewhat of a dependency on having fun, being happy, and the activities I did that were pretty similar to what my mom went through.
Now how can an addictive personality be used as an advantage?
Advantages Of An Addictive Personality
It wasn’t until this past year that I started to dig into why I was so persistent and consistent with what I do in my life today. To me, consistency is just something I do, but to others, it might seem like a superpower they just don’t possess or struggle to create.
As I looked back at how I started to dive more into books, podcasts, and a much healthier lifestyle than I was living a few years ago, it all came back to feeling like I had to make a shift, which is a strong descriptor to addiction, feeling like you have to do something.
So there have been two main ways I’ve started to use what I believe is something a lot of people struggle with and I flirted with for a few years, to my advantage.
1. Attach the positive outcome you want to feeling like you HAVE to do the activities to get there
Just like how I felt like I HAD to have a few beers to have fun back in the day, I can use that same formula to build skillsets or put in work.
Say my goal is to improve my public speaking and I’ve struggled to even get a start at working to improve my delivery. Mentally I can attach the act of creating the podcast episodes I do as something I HAVE to do to get better at public speaking, which then taps into that addictive personality that I have to stay consistent with these episodes if I want to improve.
Now, this can be done with anything you want to improve or grow, you just have to connect the feeling of HAVING to do something so that you can end up having the outcome.
2. Understand you can easily get attached to nonproductive activities
As much as you can use an addictive personality to grow skillsets or say a company, you can just as easily get addicted to things such as watching Netflix while working.
The thing with being “addicted” is that there are patterns to what you do.
For my mom, that meant a pattern of having a drink to start the day, for me early on that meant having a couple of drinks before the party started and these days it means starting my day off with a podcast to start momentum in my day.
As humans, we like patterns and routines, but if you have any sort of an addictive personality this quickly turns into something you struggle to break.
The way you turn this into a positive advantage is you start to recognize what the start of those negative addictions are and put a stop to them in the early stages.
For me, that’s recognizing that if I’m watching Netflix before bed, that could easily turn into watching Netflix while getting work done, so to stop that addictive routine from happening I have to stop watching Netflix before bed every night.
This is easier said than done, but this can be used for any routine that you want, you just have to start to recognize what those early tendencies are and stop them before you spiral into an uncontrollable routine. This doesn’t mean you have to be crazy about it. Progress is the name of the game.
Now I’m not saying that it’s good to have a more addictive personality or that it’s easy to use in a positive way. There’s a reason that addiction to drugs and alcohol is one of the main diseases here in the states, but if you can at least understand how you can use it in a positive matter, you can start to work towards building better routines into your life and understand why you act in a certain way, maybe more than others do.
