Addiction Masterclass: The Crucial Role of Habits

I'm sure at some point in your life you've heard about the importance of having healthy habits and routines in your life to be more productive, successful, and overall have a healthier well being. However, I find that most of us don't understand how habits actually work, how they form in our brain, and how we can use this process to our advantage. I'm Evan, your resident addiction and mental health therapist, and this is my addiction masterclass. The first question I want to ask you in regards to the topic of habit forming and addiction is what is the difference between an addiction and a habit?

I'll give you a second to think about it. Well, hopefully you came up with something, but I want you to know it's a little bit of a trick question, because all addictions are habits, but not all habits are addictions. It's like the square and rectangle principle, where all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. So what do I mean by this? Essentially, addiction is a habit, but it's more deeply ingrained and problematic in that it creates consequences in your life. Yet, despite those consequences building up and being progressively worse, you continue to use the substance anyways, and you find that it's really difficult to quit.

And essentially, that's the overall general definition of addiction. So let's take a look at what habits are and how they form. So, habits happen in a deep part of our brain, the basal ganglia. Now, that's part of our midbrain. And our midbrain is the oldest part of our brain. It's what we share with the reptiles. It's all about instinct and survival. And it's interesting that we learned that because this means habits are a deep part of our evolution, and they serve a purpose, especially when it comes to survival.

How can habits have anything to do with survival? Think about learning a new activity, whether it's walking or learning to play a new sport, that takes a lot of energy and sustained mental effort. And survival requires mental effort. Therefore, the more we are focused on other things, other than finding food, hunting, survival, or any skills that lead up to that, the more we're distracted, the more that takes away from. From our primary purpose. So whether it's learning how to walk, you have to think about every step when you're a toddler.

Now, if we had to continue doing that today, if walking required us to think about every step versus thinking about what we have to do next, that takes up too much energy and brainpower. Essentially, habits are our autopilot that frees us up to do deeper thinking and math and science and things that will ultimately be better for survival of the human species. So whether we realize it or not, habits encompass most of our day in many ways. For example, the time we wake up, the time we eat lunch, you'll find that it's often the same time, and your brain prompts you.

It's an automatic process. It's often unconscious. Therefore, when we change a habit, it can be very difficult because our brain has to get used to something else. And if it's something like addiction, it could turn into the form of withdrawal, because we are so dependent on that habit. Using a chemical, taking over a brain function of our natural brain, neurochemical process, it can be extremely difficult. And this is why substances can be so hard to quit, because they're a deeply ingrained habit that causes consequences.

Now, that chemicals cause consequences in our life, but there's also consequences if we quit, how it affects our bodies and our minds. So that makes it a much more difficult choice than people often make it out to be. Therefore, in the next video, I'm going to introduce you to the concept of the habit loop. And this is where the scientific research shows a three step process of how our brain forms new habits and how the habit process works. And then I'm going to show you a hack for how to break that habit loop so you could form new, healthy habits and routines, including breaking free from addiction.

So don't miss it.