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Let’s paint a picture of the Addiction Ripple Effect.
Imagine you throw a tiny rock into a pond, when it hits the water; it creates ripples, not big ripples, but ripples nonetheless.
Think of this tiny rock as your addiction, it’s not huge, but any action you do will have the potential to ripple outwards onto others, but it’s only a small ripple, right?
Now add 5 years, and your rock has grown into a beastly boulder, let’s say that fell into a pool of water, what kind of ripples will that give off? It may even create a substantial level of a splash.
This whole concept is what we call The Addiction Ripple Effect.
The Addiction Ripple Effect
The Addiction Ripple Effect is a blessing and a curse.
The larger our addiction grows, the bigger the outward impact it has on our friends, family, work colleagues, and of course, us.
On the other hand, although larger ripples tend to create chaos, they also shift our awareness towards addiction quite rapidly and snap us out of our own distorted reality.
When we get stuck in an addiction, we’re often in a state of denial and minimisation, making pebbles seem like air, and boulders seem like pebbles.
Depending on the individual, it can often take quite a large blast radiance of ripples to really come to terms with the severity of our disease.
But hang on, what is denial and minimisation?
Addiction is a disease of Denial and Minimisation
Addiction is a state of Dis-ease, which means somewhere in our body, there’s an absence of ease physically, mentally and spiritually.
To normal people, breaking an addiction seems simple, just stop, right?
Your workplace is suffering, friends and family are worried, why can’t you see it? Why not just stop?
Simply put, we can’t, because we are stuck in a distorted reality where your perception of normal isn’t actually normal.
Denial causes us to ignore the personal problems, emotional conflicts or chaos that addiction is having on our lives, and often, we don’t realise we’re doing it.
Minimisation downplays the severity of scenarios, distorts our stories, serious events such as a drunken driving incident or hospital visit still become insignificant or unimportant.
We are trapped in a void, a walking pulse of ripples that we don’t see at all.
This is why I wrote The Hallmarks of Addiction, and I encourage you to go read them.
Breaking the Ripple Effect
Okay, so The Addiction Ripple Effect is powerful, it creates chaos, ruins friendships, destroys families, and can often leave us jobless, powerless, alone.
But how do we break this ripple effect?
First, start with the Core Essentials in Tackling Cravings.
This process creates accountability and severs the cord of addiction so you can get on the fast track towards recovery.
This post also provides some fantastic information if you’re quitting around the start of the year, although still fairly relevant all year round.
And secondly, Create Habits that Support Long-term Sobriety.
Creating good sustainable habits will make the journey so much easier, and if you want a good book to learn more about habits, pick up a copy of Atomic Habits James Clear.
Some additional resources for breaking The Addiction Ripple Effect include:
- Finding relapse your enemy? Understanding The Importance of Failure
- Need supplemental support with cravings? These 3 Supplements May Help
- Want to know the science behind addiction? Understand The Neurochemistry Behind Addiction and Sobriety
The Takeaway
The Addiction Ripple Effect is something that is constantly overlooked in Addiction.
Every action you do has a major ripple effect on the lives of our friends, family and even our workplace.
If we continue to deny and minimise our addiction, we only allow the severity of these ripples to grow.
Before you know it, you create ripples so powerful that the walls of our lives start to crumble, and it can be a harder journey back.
Clarity is here to help, so please use the resources we offer to break the ripple effect, and if you have any questions, do reach out.
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Former drinker, Nutritionist, Biohacking enthusiast, self-experimenter, research fanatic, and self-taught writer, Stephen immerses himself deep into the literature of human optimisation and better understand the nature of addiction. His goal is to help people take control of their addiction, reset their cravings, unscramble their broken brain circuitry and use actionable strategies that work ten times better than anything else.