The Iceberg of Addiction

Addiction can be compared to an iceberg. The part above the water is comprised of the aspects of addiction that we are consciously aware of and easily able to see. Those mostly encompass the behaviors of addiction. The parts underneath the surface of the water are like the unconscious forces that control addiction. Those are made up of thoughts and feelings.

When it comes to recovery from addiction,  most people think all they need to do is to knock off the top part of their iceberg, which means stopping the behaviors of addiction– quit drinking, going to the bar, using drugs, etc. Unfortunately doing that only deals with part of the problem, leaving 2/3 of it still intact. Anyone who attempts recovery by simply changing their behaviors and does not address how their thoughts and feelings have contributed to their addiction is doomed to fail because they are not dealing with the forces that have controlled their behavior.

One of the key points to understand is that our thoughts, which are often influenced by our feelings, control almost everything we do. Unfortunately, most addicts fail to realize that in order to recover from addiction they will need to focus most of their efforts on changing how they cope with their feelings and reshaping the beliefs, values and  perceptions that have controlled their addictive behaviors. Indeed, it is hard to imagine one single thing anyone does on any given day that is not entirely controlled by the beliefs and experiences acquired over their lifetime. Once addicts realize that almost all behaviors are controlled by their feelings and beliefs, it is easy to help them see that in order to recover from addiction, they will have to do much more than just quit using.

It is important to appreciate the power of the unconscious on everyday behaviors. One of the ways to explain how these subconscious forces are formed comes from Developmental Psychology. From birth to the age of about eight years, children are basically learning the foundation of what they need to understand how the world works. Once they reach the age of eight their cognitive capacity takes a leap forward and they move into classifying experiences according to the knowledge that was acquired up until then. From that point, they have a foundational understanding of how the world works, what is appropriate behavior, what isn’t, what to do in social circumstances, what not to do, etc. Now they don’t spend as much time figuring out these things as much as they simply make a quick judgment referencing situations they’ve encountered before, classifying them and making a very quick determination about how to respond to them. In other words, their decision-making process becomes a subconscious process, whereas before the age of eight, they would have thought a long time about how to respond to various circumstances.

Children learn many thousands of things by the time they are eight years old that can predispose them to addiction. What children have learned...