Chandra Unplugged - No nonsense, Straight-up blogging from a Life Coach

Is Your Computer Your Closest Relationship?

Do you sneak down to the computer when everyone is asleep? Whether its chat rooms, gambling or pornography, are you addicted to to getting on-line?

1. Sneak on-line when spouse or family members are asleep or not at home with a sense of relief.

• Only you know if this is true. We become especially clever with our addictions, knowing exactly when and where to get on-line so that no one is aware of what we are doing.
• Do you feel zoned out once you get on.
• Addictions numb us out.  We do this instead of feeling.

2. Use on-line services EVERYDAY, without skipping a day.

• We tell ourselves that we can stop if we want to, but we cannot go a day without getting on the site.
• One addiction is the same as any other; an addiction takes control of your life.
• You feel edgy and agitated if you cannot get on your site.

3. Lose track of time after making a connection and go out less and less.

• Time seems to just fly. Hours go by without leaving the computer screen.
• Sometimes you get on in daylight and get off when the sun goes down.
• Outer social life gets less and less as you spend more and more time in front of the computer. Your user name (you have many) becomes more a part of your life than your real name. You have a world of “friends” you have never met.

4. Others complain about your time in front of the computer and your time away from them and yet you continually deny what you are doing.

• Time you could be spending with your partner, family, or children is now spent on-line.
• You are late for dinner, late for appointments, forget to show-up, and forget obligations.
• Your addiction is consuming you more and more, - your loved ones less and less.

5. You log on several times a days when already busy at work.

• Your work, your livelihood is beginning to suffer. Even at work, when you are busy, you feel compelled to log on – to place a bet, to read an illicit email. You are now living a secret life and your life is becoming more and more toxic.
• Arguments about what you are doing and where you are become part of everyday life.
• Your family and friends miss you and want you back.

Cell Phone Etiquette

Are you addicted to your cell phone? If you have a closer relationship with your cell phone than you do with most people in your life, learn why breaking the cell phone addiction is the best thing you can do for yourself.

1. Do family and friends complain about your constant cell phone use? Pay attention to what they are saying.

• Last year I walked out of a lunch date with a person who would not get off his cell phone. After attempting several times to get him to realize that constantly answering the phone and talking while I was sitting in front of him was inconsiderate, I got up from the table, told him I was going and wished him a good lunch. Not that I was there to teach him a lesson, but I’m sure it was a lunch he will always remember.
• Do you have any idea how difficult it is to consciously drive and talk on the cell phone at the same time? Get on line and start reading the studies. Putting down the phone is not just an opportunity to spend more quality time with people you love and care about; it is an opportunity to stay alive.
• I personally do not drive as a passenger with a person who is constantly on the phone. I like my life and want to stay in one piece as long as possible.

2. Do you feel anxious when you forget your phone or can’t get to a call?

• Do you feel disconnected from the world when you leave your phone at home?
• Can you drive from point A to point B without having a phone with you?
• Are you one of those people who call back phone numbers you see on your caller ID even when you don’t know who called you, so afraid you are going to miss one call? I hate to say it, but that’s really bad!!pathetic.

3. Do you answer your phone at meals and social times? This is bad manners and unattractive.

• When I go out with someone, I leave my phone turned off or in the car.
• If I am expecting an important call, I say so beforehand and let the other person know that is the only reason I would answer the phone.
• Spending time with another person is about connecting. If you want to talk on the phone, stay home.

4. Does a ringing phone make you feel important? Do you talk just to talk?

• Be honest. Do you feel important every time your phone rings?
• It is not hard to amass a group of people who have nothing to do all day but phone and text.
• Remember – constant chatter is not the same as a life of substance. Actually, it is quite the opposite.

5. Are you ever able to turn your phone off? Try it for one day.

• Want to know if you have a problem? Turn the phone off and leave it at home. How do you feel?
• Be aware of your anxiety, how out of sorts you feel.
• These feelings are wrecking havoc in your life whether or not you are aware of them.

Abusing Prescription Medication? ......an Addiction All The Same!!!

Do you know that addiction to prescription medications is 10X the problem of illegal drugs? If you are abusing tranquillizers, painkillers and stimulants, these are the questions you need to ask yourself.

1. Are you exceeding the recommended dosage?

• There is a recommended dosage for a reason – more than the recommended amount can cause addiction, psychological as well as physical.
• Did you know the psychological addiction is much, much harder to break than the physical?
• I had a client that exchanged all his blood so he would no longer be physically addicted.  He was no longer physically addicted, but he couldn't stop taking pills; he was psychologically addicted.

2. Do you take these pills in secret?

• Is this your little secret? 
• Does anyone else know you do this?
• If the actual medical reason for taking these pills is no longer applicable but you are still taking them, than you are taking them in secret.

3. Are you aware of the short and long term adverse side effects?

• Every prescription medication that you take has long and short term side effects.
• You need to read about these either in the literature or looking up the drug on the web.  Read the small print.  Anything that so drastically changes your mood, will also change your physiology. 
• Addictions build slowly and have a cumulative affect.

4. Do you know the withdrawal symptoms?

• When you abuse your prescription medication (either by exceeding the dosage or taking them when it is no longer indicated) you will experience withdrawal symptoms when you cut back or stop.
• Withdrawal symptoms are often worse than what you originally took the medication for.
• Do not stop these drugs unless you are under a physician's care and know how to gradually withdraw.

5. Do you drive a car or have you had accidents?

• I have a client who was recently arrested in a Publix parking lot. A policeman was parked there and found her having trouble getting into her car. When he approached her, she was slurring her words, etc. On the front seat was a plastic container of Xanax.
• If you are stopped and have a controlled substance (without a prescription) in the car, your license will be taken away and you will be charged with a felony.
• Do NOT drive or get in the car with someone who has taken mind/mood altering medication.   

Do You Lie?

Do you lie? Do you know that the focus of lying is never about the lie, but about the person telling it?  Things You Need To Know About Lying:

1. Lying has nothing to do with the specific lie being told; it has to do with a person’s character.
   • Lying is NEVER okay. 
   • Ask yourself – If you told this person the truth might he make a decision other the one he is making?  When your objective is to deceive or withhold information from the other person in some way, you are lying.
   • Check out Sisela Bok, 1978, Lying, Moral Choice in Public and Private Life. (Clich here to learn more about lying)

2. If you excuse lying sometimes, you will continue to lie.
   • Do not excuse lying.  You tell yourself you do not want to hurt her feelings, but in the end, you end up hurting her more.
   • Sometimes it is difficult to tell another how you are really feeling, but at this point it is merely a communication problem.
   •  Learn how to be authentic and at the same time take into account another’s feelings. 

3. When you allow lying in your life, you lose your dignity and self-esteem.
   • We ALL know lying is bad, a sign of weak character. 
   • When you lie, only you know that; and you suffer from a lack of self-esteem and self-respect. 
   •  You cannot have real relationships without dignity and self-esteem.

4. Lying creates secrets and secrets isolate people from one another.
   • Lying is a betrayal between two people and deprives the person being lied to of making decisions based on the truth. 
   • We all deserve the right to decide for ourselves what is best for us. 
   • Without honest and accurate information, we cannot do that.

5. Lying destroys love.
   • This says it all.

Breaking An Addiction

Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, food or shopping - admitting you’re addicted is simply the first step. Now what do you do? Unless you can identify the root cause of all addictions you can never figure out what you need to do to stop these destructive behaviors.  How to Stop:

1. Seek professional help. If you could stop yourself – it would not be an addiction.

• Seeking professional is ultimately a humbling experience.
• You realize your humanness; that you need help and are willing to ask for it.
• Ever single one of us has our demons and they often times manifest as addictions.

    2.  All addictions are about NOT FEELING – when you anesthetize yourself, you do not feel.

• Addictions anesthetize us. All the feelings we don’t want to feel always rise to the surface, i.e., what is in darkness, always comes to light.
• As those “bad” feelings begin to come up, the anxiety begins to build.
• We think we just might die if we feel those feelings. So….we take a drink, take a pill. And the feelings get pushed back down.

3. Unless you are willing to “feel” what you have been avoiding feeling, you will never break an addiction. You can never “think” your way out of an addiction.

• Thinking can be very frustrating. 
• Thinking always cuts us short and will never release the ahh-haa feeling.
• And that’s because “getting it” means you have to feel it, really feel it. Unless you feel what you are most afraid of, you will always develop some sort of addiction to block the feeling.

5 Bottom-Line Questions for Honestly Looking at Addictions

When we think of addictions we think of drugs and alcohol, but addictions come in many different forms. Are you confused about what you are doing and often wonder if you are addicted? Here are 5 bottom-line questions we all need to ask ourselves so we stop making excuses and look honestly at our addictions.

How Do I Know If I Am Addicted?

1. Do you constantly need more of whatever you are doing to get the desired result?

• Be honest. Is whatever you are doing increasing?
• Do you need more today to feel the same way you did a month ago?
• Are you drinking more, shopping more, binging more?

2. Do you spend a large amount of time thinking about your “addiction”?

• If you are addicted to pornography, do you think about staying up late, after everyone has gone to asleep, and get on the internet?
• Do you anxiously wait for five o’clock so that you can have a glass of wine?
• Do you sneak away to binge eat?

3.  Do you neglect other things, important things, as a result of your “addiction”?

• Do you miss special occasions or times with your partner, with your family, because you are involved with your addiction? 
• Have you ever missed something really important because your addiction came first?
• Do you feel badly having missed those events but know you would miss them again if you had to choose between them and your addiction.

4.  Do you continue your “addiction” despite having psychological and physical problems with it?

• Is your addiction causing breaks in your life, i.e., moments when you know you are not the same person you used to be.
• Psychologically, you are further away from your problems than when you started.
• And now physically, you can feel the results as well.

5.  Do you know this is a serious problem for you and still you continue without a plan and a support system?

• If at some point you do not exert enough discipline to put a plan into practice, you will never be able to break your addiction.
• This did not happen overnight and it will not go away immediately.
• Just like you were without this addiction at some point in your life, you can be without it again.  It's up to you.

Are You Addicted and Don't Know It?

When we think of addictions, we often think of drugs and alcohol.  But addictions come in many forms. If you are sexually promiscuous, abuse prescription drugs, gamble, constantly view pornography, or shop excessively; you most likely have an addiction problem.

1. Addictions come in many forms.
   • Do you have indiscriminate sex or constantly view pornography?
   • What about shopping? Do you buy things you don’t need, spend more than you can afford, and feel “special” when purchasing? Does shopping give meaning to a life that feels “meaningless?”
   • Do you spend hours on-line playing poker? Do you leave work early to play or get up when everyone has gone to sleep to play more?

2. All addictions serve to anesthetize you and are about not feeling.
   • Initially you get a high from an addiction, but that does not last for long.
   • Addictions zone you out; they keep you from feeling and in essence flat-line you.
   • The problem with addictions – you need more and more of the addiction to get the same result. More sex to feel zoned, more shopping to get rid of the feelings of loneliness, and bigger bets to blot out the feelings on inadequacy. It never ends and sends you in a downward spiral.

3. Without commitment and discipline, you cannot break an addiction.
   • Breaking an addiction is an attitude change, first and foremost. You must make that commitment to yourself.
   • Discipline means doing things you are not used to doing. It means doing things that are out of the ordinary, things that initially do not feel natural to do.
   • Without making a plan, and setting up a support system, you cannot break and addiction.

4. You must be willing to bear “the anxiety” in order to break an addiction.
   • Breaking an addiction means you are leaving one way of life and entering into another.
   • Entering the unknown always produces a sense of anxiety, a feeling of being out of control. This is normal and natural for us all.
   • As you feed your addiction less and less, your feelings will begin to rise to the surface. You are not used to feeling so these feelings will make you uncomfortable. You need to bear this, as it will pass and you will feel more whole in the process.

5. You cannot think your way out of an addiction - you must feel!
   • Feeling is the key to healing.
   • Thinking always keeps you one step away from the action.
   • Eventually you get “addicted” to feeling your life, the same way you were addicted to gambling and shopping.

Drinking Too Much Wine?

Addictions are funny things.  We know gambling is an addiction but what about drinking wine?  How many glasses constitute an addiction?  Do you tell yourself that it is okay to “unwind” by drinking a bottle of wine every night?  If your idea of “relaxing” is drinking four glasses of wine before bedtime, learn why alcohol addiction takes many different forms.

1. Is nightly drinking a ritual and something you look forward to?
   • Be honest.  Do you wait for five o’clock?  Can you go more than one night without drinking? 
   • There is something soothing about rituals.  They create the addiction as well as the actual substance – wine. 

2. Do you drink by yourself or keep your drinking secret?
   • Would you feel comfortable telling another person how much you drink every night? 
   • We know what is excessive, what is too much.  If we keep that hidden, we are only fooling ourselves.

3. Daily drinking anesthetizes you.  You must “feel” to have a good life.
   • You must feel to heal and you cannot feel if you are zoned-out.  Zoned out means you have gotten the buzz; you are anesthetized 

4. Psychological addiction is harder to break than physical addiction.
   • We can break the physical addiction of drinking everyday, but if we do not get to the root cause of the addiction, we will just transfer that addiction to another one.
   • That is why one addiction is the same as another.
   • If you do not feel your way to understanding your addiction, you will simply transfer your wine addiction to a shopping addiction.

5. Go to AA or get professional help – getting help is a sign of strength.
   • We all need help in breaking an addiction and a place to be accountable. 

Tired of Being Addicted and Want To Stop?

Are you tired of being addicted to painkillers or tranquillizers and don’t know how to stop? Are you in denial and tell yourself you can stop if you want to but still have not. If you are getting weary of being a slave to your addictions, ask yourself the following:

1. Do you spend a large amount of time and energy thinking about your addiction?
   • If you are thinking about when you can take another pill, you have an addiction problem.
   • My experience is that when there is a pain management issue, the medication controls the pain but you do not get high. If you are getting high from your pain medication, you are taking to much and will most probably get addicted.

1. Do you realize the psychological addiction is harder to break than the physical addiction?
   • There is nothing more difficult to break than a psychological addiction.
   • I have known people who are medically detoxed (in the hospital) and still cannot beak their addiction even though they are no longer physically addicted.
   • And that’s because a psychological addiction is hard-wired to your feelings, which are very powerful.

1. Are you willing to get professional help? If you could stop yourself, you would do that.
   • Addictions have nothing to do with smarts. I have known people with extremely high IQ’s get very addicted to many things.
   • You cannot break an addiction by thinking your way through it.

1. Can you feel? You must feel to break an addiction.
   • In order to heal, you must feel.
   • Addictions keep us anesthetized from feeling.
   • You take your substance of choice until you are numb (from feeling) - that is the underlying dynamic of an addiction.
   • Unless you are willing to bear the anxiety that comes right before feeling the feeling you are afraid to feel, you can never break an addiction.

 

How Do I Know If I Have A Food Addiction?

Are you a compulsive eater constantly struggling with your weight? Learn why compulsive eating is a food addiction that you can break.  Ask yourself:  How do I know if I have a food addiction? 

1. You either binge or “graze” – never eating normal amounts at regular mealtimes.

·        And others comment about it as well.  Your focus is always on food, regardless of how little or much you eat. 

2. Overeating is always followed by depression, guilt, shame or disgust.

·        You know better and can’t stop yourself. That inability too control your cravings makes you feel shameful and disgusted with yourself. 

3. You eat normally in front of others and binge in secret.

·        This is about shame.  There is nothing that can make you feel more than shameful than doing things in secret, in hiding. 

4. You continue to eat even after you are full or sick.

·        If we didn’t know we had an addiction problem before, we know now. 

5. You use food to deal with your feelings.

·        Food has become an addiction and all addictions anesthetize us.  Feelings we don’t want to feel are covered by our addictions.