Education
Why addictions of all kinds are such a growing problem in our society
Addiction is a huge problem in society affecting over 25 million Americans and counting every year. It prevents people from living to their full potential, from achieving their goals, from living a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle.
Today, I want to talk about why addictions have become such a problem in society and how they’ve affected so many different people in so many different ways, and start to shed more light on this topic, a topic that is difficult for many to talk about and a topic that we don’t see discussed enough in our society and in the media.
So I was reading a couple of studies recently, and in 2020, the amount of people suffering from some sort of addiction in America will be over 25 million people, and that’s just the reported numbers, meaning there’s a lot of shame and guilt and disgrace and feelings of inadequacy that surround addiction, that surround people who are in a position of suffering, from some kind of compulsion to some bad habit or behavior or indulgence of whatever it is, to whatever it may be because you can be addicted to pretty much anything these days. It’s not just alcohol and drugs. It’s things like porn and sex and social media, television, movies, you name it.
We are increasingly a society and a people of instant gratification, of more and more and more, if I want it now, right? That expectation has really risen and contributed to unhealthy relationships with these stimuli, with these things that provide a dopamine hit or some joy or ecstasy in our life.
For many people, they become problematic. They start to create problems in their lives, right? I firmly believe the definition of an addiction is an unhealthy habit or behavior that creates problems in your life. Those problems could be financial, problems in your relationships, how you’re performing at your job or in your business, any of those, problems with your health. When it starts to create and manifest in identifiable, quantifiable problems, that’s when we really need to take action.
When I was looking at the numbers, it’s staggering, right? That’s only the reported numbers, people suffering from some sort of addiction, 25 million people. That’s, let’s see, one in every 12 people. I firmly believe it’s probably double that, at least. So it could be as many as one in every six people or 50 million Americans suffering from some sort of bad behavior or addiction or indulgence, and that’s a lot of people. That’s a lot of hardship. That’s a lot of suffering.
The thing is it doesn’t have to be like that. Addiction is a pervasive, medically diagnosable disease recognized by the American Medical Association and the medical establishment as an actual disease of the mind, of the body, a disorder that can be treated, right?
Traditional therapies have approached treating addiction from the angles of personal therapy, community and group therapy, outpatient services, and on the other end of the spectrum, kind of crisis management, when things get really bad, right? The solution often as prescribed is going to a detox facility or a in-house rehabilitation program of some sort.
So a lot of what we do here at Inspired Recovery and with the Live Free Lifestyle is we’re approaching addiction, bad habits and bad behaviors from a different angle. We’re trying to come at this growing and pervasive problem in America and in the world from the angle of personal growth, personal development, holistic and lifestyle management and creation, and support in a way that hasn’t been addressed before in this space.
There’s not been a lot of innovation in the area of treating addictions and bad habits and behaviors before. You’ve got kind of two ends of the spectrum on polar opposites. One, 12-step based programs, alcoholics anonymous, religious based programs, groups, things like that. Then you’ve got maybe seeing a personal counselor, somewhere in the middle. Then the other end of the spectrum you have, like I mentioned before, the crisis management, when things have gotten really, really bad needing a program or a medical facility of some sort, detox or in-house inpatient rehabilitation program. But there’s not a lot of options in the middle, meaning this is a progressive disease and condition of the mind by nature.
So it often starts socially, in moderation, with these things, whether it be drinking or marijuana use, or, again, social media use, porn. It can start in a way that’s not problematic. But oftentimes for this certain personality that’s predisposed to addiction, to compulsion, to higher levels of activity of adherence to that behavior, oftentimes, it becomes progressive and it grows. The use, the compulsion and then the negative ramifications or effects of that use and behavior.
So what we’re doing is offering a different way of approaching that, a way of replacing the bad behaviors with good behaviors, with health and success habits, and personal growth through introspection, through community-based initiatives and through looking at creating a lifestyle by design free and clear from bad habits, behaviors, and addictions with you, the person, the operator in the driver’s seat. Not the idea of turning over everything to either a higher power. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that approach, that’s just not ours, or turning it all over to a facility and a more traditional medical approach.
I firmly believe that everybody is capable of change, that we are all capable of choosing to live differently. We just need some help. We need some inspiration, we need courage, we need demonstration, and we need a system, a blueprint that we can install into our lives to help start to achieve these results.
For me, that’s exactly what I’ve put together with this program, and it’s a program based on my own personal story, my own system of living, how I was able to create over 12 years now, clean and sober, how I broke free from alcohol abuse and living a lifestyle that was not sustainable and how it all stemmed from getting clean and sober after a terrible tragedy that I caused in college, where a friend of mine lost her life in an alcohol related boat accident.
For me, it took a horrible tragedy and really hitting life’s lowest bottom for me to see that I needed to change, that I needed to find a new way to live, that I needed to create a system that worked for me. One that was agnostic, that was nondenominational, nonreligious, and one that was based in a reality that I could get comfortable with. For me, it needed to be one that I created, but that drew influence from other people and other philosophies and other stories, and that’s exactly what this is.
It’s a combination of seven, eight years of creating that system, of understanding the different components that go into it, the different influences that have had an effect on it, and codifying it, systematizing it and organizing it in a way that’s reproducible, that you can install and implement in your life and achieve similar results like I have, which is a level of abundance, freedom, wealth, and health that I never would have thought imaginable just a few short years ago.
So again, please take some time, explore the resources on this website. There’s a lot of great content, a lot of great free resources and free training, and let’s really start to open up the conversation about what we can do about this pervasive problem of addiction in this country that affects over 25 million people now, which is a staggering number. It is only continuing to grow with mental health issues on the rise, with all of the strain, anxiety, and stress that’s been born from this pandemic here in 2020, from all of the financial pressures that the market and the economy have taken on people. It’s increased the propensity of people to abuse drugs, alcohol, and other vices that end up turning into bad habits, behaviors, and addictions.
What happens after that? It creates problems in our life with our relationships, with the people we love the most, how we perform and show up at work, and our overall health, wellness and ability to perform and really achieve our goals and our vision for life. So that was what I wanted to say on this topic of addiction.
Hopefully, you got some value from this. If you did, and you’re somebody who likes to share things like this and content, please share this below with somebody who needs to hear this message, share the video, share the blog post, shoot me a message if you liked this. Comment, like, and again, to your success and happiness in life, to your wellness. I hope that you have a great day and we’ll talk to you soon.