Addiction Cycle

Over last month and half we have been talking about recovery from an addiction or brokenness. There are some of you that complete agree that they have an addiction! There some of you that do not think you have addiction. And some of you are in between.

So how would you define the word addiction?... Addiction is an unmanageable pressure to repeat a behavior regardless of its negative consequences.

What can you be addicted to?..Drugs, Alcohol, Sex, Money, Control, Food, Gambling, TV, Porn, Coffee, Cigarettes, Work, Sleep, Exercise, Computer/Internet, Materialism, Video Games, Co-dependent, Anger, Anxiety, Appearance, etc…

Did you find yourself in that list?...I know that I did! I am addicted to CONTROL, ANXIETY and WORK! These three addictions at times have crippled me! Hurt the people in my life! And took the place of God in my life!

Today we are going to look at Physical and Emotional Triggers that starts us down the path of our addiction cycle. An addiction cycle is sequence of events that happen over and over again.

Let’s look at the Addiction Cycle:
1)Emotional Trigger- Is a thought or situation that leads you to crave your addiction.
2)Craving – is strong desire for addiction
3)Ritual – this is what and how you obtain your addiction
4)Using - Doing your addiction
5)Guilt – Feelings that make you regret or be remorseful about using again

But we can identify those triggers and break the cycle of addiction. Remember tiggers can be very different from person to person, but generally fall into two categories:
1. Physical Triggers (people, places, things)
2. Emotional Triggers (feelings, thoughts, circumstances)

Using the categories of physical and emotional triggers, we can gain valuable insight into our addiction after giving in to sin. Looking at it differently, you could say that it is discovering what the enemy used to gain access to our lives to start the addiction cycle. Furthermore, over time we will see patterns emerging. This information about our addiction is absolutely necessary if we are to find real, lasting freedom from our addiction sin.