Put it into action

Be honest with yourself about what patterns of behaviour you have and what you are compulsively or obsessively doing. Take the time today to do a personal audit of your habits and behaviours.

When you have a complete list, annotate each behaviour with observations on how the behaviour impacts upon your life and affects:

Admit it how others view you

⚫ your ability to work well

⚫ your relationships with other people

⚫ your health your ability to achieve your future plans and goals.

It's now crunch decision time: how important is it to you to overcome your addictive or com pulsive behaviour? Are the negative effects causing you sufficient pain to force you to act?

Sometimes moderation is enough.

With some behaviours and actions it might be enough for you to tone down and reduce the frequency, for example getting over your need to win every discussion, cutting down your drinking at the weekend or no longer crying every time someone upsets you.

Seek help

With addictions where you find it impossible to control your impulses and actions, you can not recover on your own. These addictions can have deep psychological causes and require some form of therapy. Thankfully, today there are many therapy and support groups for all kinds of addictions - gambling, sex, shopping, narcotics, alcohol, spouse abuse, and so on. Many are modelled on the Alcoholics Anonymous groups with their 12-step recovery programme. Deep inner exploration and honesty are part of the process.