In your coaching/experience, how do you usually advise someone with a variety of addictive behaviors? Ie working on the most damaging thing first, or working on “everything” at the psychological habit level?
Discussion
I advise clients to work on one thing at a time. It can be what you perceive as the most damaging behavior, but you can also choose the one that feels most manageable to tackle.
It may seem odd, but the order doesn't really matter. The skills you develop in one area will eventually help in others. What matters is that you pick one and stay on your own side as you move through those feelings/urges.
Good luck! it's definitely do-able. I probably said this above, but I wouldn't approach this as needing to resolve all past trauma to address the behaviors. That will feel impossible! You can be someone with a rich and messy past who has destructive habits and you can be someone with a rich and messy past who doesn't have destructive habits. It can be helpful to get therapy for trauma (that's not something I do) but addressing your behaviors doesn't depend on it.
Hey, thank you for so many thoughtful and helpful answers. I’ve spent a fair amount of time working with a great therapist on “old stuff” and have some practice with the self-love and understanding methods. Of course, there are significant aspects of myself that still need a heck of a lot more of that.
I’ve spent the last couple of days sitting with some of these impulses and noticing (and note-taking), to try and stabilize and get more present and less reactive to certain inputs. I feel like I’ve identified the stuff I need to change/heal the most, so definitely focusing on those. It’s also stuff I have less experience working with and have only very recently begun to understand better.
Thank you again 🤍🙏🤍
Also -one thing I forgot to mention: the plan should be written down and each guideline extremely clear. Clear enough that following it is a simple yes or no and could be objectively verified.
Figure that when you’re clarifying your intentions 24 hours in advance, you’re tapping into your ability to think in terms of your long-term well being (your future, including how you want to your actions to support your loved ones, etc). In the moment of dealing with the urge for the destructive behavior, it’s almost a different you: your primal or lizard brain is in control. It interprets the impending discomfort as true danger and it will rationalize, justify, wheedle, bargain etc in the moment to get the dopamine hit it thinks you need.
So it’s important that whatever plan you make in advance is so clear that there’s no possibility of blurring the lines in the moment.