Addictive behavior is characterized by compulsively engaging in reckless behavior even when you know the consequences are harmful to you or to others. With substance abuse, depression, or anxiety, you might seek out and use drugs or alcohol, stay in bed away from your responsibilities even though they demand your attention, and neglect yourself.
A yoga therapy rehab program helps to interrupt this cycle.
Addiction starts with the feeling of pleasure. We instinctively move towards things that are pleasant for us, and we move away from unpleasant things. The same fundamental ideology teaches you to use the stove safely to cook but not to put your hand on the burner. When you first use something like an addictive substance, it creates pleasure, and the chemicals that get released make you feel good. But then those chemicals cause a craving. You want to feel good all the time, so you use it again, only this time it doesn’t feel as good, so you have to use more.
If you try to stop, cravings set in. Cravings are a physically uncomfortable state that we want to move away from. When we go back to that harmful behavior like using drugs or alcohol, it gets rid of that discomfort, so we learn that drugs and alcohol work for us when we feel discomfort.
One study in 2012 found that with addiction to anything like internet usage, food, alcohol, or drugs, your brain gets changed in exactly the same way. You move toward addiction and relapse because you are moving away from uncomfortable things, like physical discomfort of cravings, fear, depression, or anxiety. And this is where yoga helps.