in this video, we're going to be talking about one very surprising factor that could be causing
triggering and keeping your addiction going I'm telling you this is one that you haven't
thought of before but I see it in my office all the time and I want you to know about it
for those of you who are new here welcome to put the shovel down the youtube channel designed to
help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can recover your life
and your loved ones and get back to living the life that you want to live here's the deal you
beat addiction by being smart and strategic not by being tough i like to say you don't beat this
by being a cowboy you beat this thing by being a chess player and i'm here to help you understand
everything you need to know about it so you can make the most strategic effective decisions
possible okay so for those of you who watch this channel you may have seen lots of videos on all
the different things that can cause addiction you've got trauma you've got adhd you've got
attachment disorders all of these things anxiety depression grief all of these things that can
trigger addiction but here's one thing that you probably haven't thought of or heard of before
what would you think if i told you addiction is the result of someone who pushes themselves too
hard who uses excessive willpower i know that's a little different than what you thought right
because most of the time we think about addiction being a problem with willpower happening to people
who don't have willpower or who lack morals or who just can't get their act together but
the thing of it is is in my office i see all the time in fact this is sort of my specialty
is i see lots of a type people really ambitious smart successful business people
medical professionals all of these people who push themselves really hard who end up with addictions
and a lot of times those addictions are the result of the fact that they push themselves too hard
let me explain you see addiction really is an issue of willpower and as i like to explain
to my clients willpower you got to think of it like gas in the gas tank willpower runs
on little energy molecules in your brain just like everything else does and there's a finite
amount of those little energy molecules and so if you're the type of person who's constantly like
working and pushing maybe you're a workaholic maybe you push yourself and exercise or an athlete
or something like that you're constantly holding yourself accountable you come home from work
you're trying to live right you're trying to be self-disciplined you're trying to clean your
house you're trying to eat the right foods you're trying to be nice to the people around you you're
trying to do your side hustle you know that is the culture of today it's this constant push
push push for good behavior and good decisions and you're trying to not spend too much money but
also keep yourself looking nice and keep up with your status and your instagram photos it's just
too much and we find ourselves in this world of constantly pushing and then at the end of the day
we just run short because there's just not enough gas in the gas tank to get us to where we want
to be and a lot of times the clients that i see find themselves dealing with addiction because of
this issue not even because of any of those deep dark things that most of the time we think of
that are the things the underlying things that are causing addiction i see a lot of entrepreneurs and
business people and these people are constantly you know they think out of the box and they're
innovative and they get up at five in the morning they do their exercise routine and they
meal prep their meals for the day and they go to business meetings they do all this stuff
they push all the time and then they get home and they can't turn that part of their brain
off they don't know how to wind down and relax and they've used up all the gas in the gas tank
pushing themselves so hard for so long during the day that they sit down to have that beer cold beer
at the end of the day or that glass of wine and once they do that the willpower is out and they
don't have enough self-control left to control their intake of that or another scenario i see
quite a bit has to do with this opioid epidemic that we see most people that get addicted to
pain pills or opioids really get this feeling initially of more motivation no anxiety and they
can push themselves to work harder longer play sports longer harder faster all that kind of thing
and so they start using these same fields as a way to push longer that's why you see a lot of
nurses and physicians who work these really long shifts and really long hours and college students
abusing these kinds of drugs not because they're lazy not because they lack willpower but because
they're trying to push themselves beyond the limits of what is humanly
possible and for a while the substance helps them do that so maybe that's a stimulant
and so you can see there is this other underlying cause out there triggering so many people to be
addicted and this one is just not being talked about and the really funny thing about this is
when i get these people in my office which are kind of my type of people so when i get them in
and they sit down in front of me and i'll say what do you think would help or what have you tried to
make this better those kind of questions they'll tell me something like well at the end of the day
instead of drinking that beer i just need to go outside for a good job and run almost inevitably
when i ask the person what they think they need to do that's going to help
they tell me some other form of self-discipline and i'm like hold on we just talked about the fact
that you're running out of willpower because you're using up so much self-discipline in the day
it's just such a hard automatic thought to break and so if this is you or this is your loved one
instead of trying to push yourself to be more self-disciplined make better decisions you know
make the right choice instead of the wrong choice i want you to start thinking in terms of
managing your willpower differently managing the gas in the gas tank so that you don't run out and
that may be very very counter-intuitive for you so while you're doing this while you're trying
to think differently and manage this differently i don't want you to be trying to do a whole lot of
other things i want you to keep everything in your life on sort of simmer or autopilot don't want you
changing a lot don't want you trying to go on a diet don't want you trying to do all these other
things because i want you to manage your willpower better and i need you to realize that probably a
big part of the reason why you're ending up in this situation is because you are excessively
pushing yourself past what is humanly possible i hear this a lot from the families that call
us for our coaching sessions they'll say you know they're just a workaholic or they won't sit down
or they won't relax and heck they make me feel bad at myself all the time because they're constantly
doing something if this sounds like you or your loved one that you're trying to help consider
taking a different approach if all this sounds really familiar and you think you or your loved
one is really ready to get out of this cycle and you need a little help putting that plan together
make sure you check out the description because there's a lot more resources down there for you