Good afternoon!  It’s Jeff again from the Self Help Tips Blog.

Today I would like to discuss self-harming addictions and the negative impact that they can have on your life.

Many of us are heavily affected by addictions in our lives; in fact in many cases addictions completely control our lives and destiny. It is all too easy to criticize someone who has let their addictions get out of control and maybe even ruin their lives, but is any one of us totally blameless when it comes to addictions that harm ourselves? When you start to consider what self-harming addictions people have, the question that readily springs to mind is "Why would people deliberately do something to harm themselves?" Well, let’s consider some self-harming addictions:

Smoking

This is a particularly difficult addiction to understand, as every single pack of cigarettes, pouch of tobacco or pack of cigars carries dire health warnings which should be enough to frighten off anybody from smoking. Unfortunately, these warnings are seemingly totally ignored by smokers and indeed are sometimes used as a joke, e.g. "Don’t give me the pack that says ’smoking can affect your sexual health’, but I’ll take the one with the lung cancer warning". It’s not as if smoking is easy to start, with the problems of smoke in your eyes, coughing, throat problems, and the cost of it. It is understandably very difficult for people to give it up once they have been smoking for many years. Yes, smoking can help to calm your nerves, but is it worth losing your life early or having some major health problems?

Drinking

Drinking in moderation is certainly enjoyable, and indeed one or two glasses of red wine per day is supposed to be beneficial to a person’s health, helping both digestion and relaxation. On the other hand, binge drinking is surely not pleasurable, is it? Being sick is extremely unpleasant, and dealing with a vicious hangover isn’t much fun, either. Yet for some reason a heavy drinker is said to be "one of the guys / girls" or is considered to be sociable. Heavy drinking results in bad and often aggressive behavior, health problems, and also seriously affects your finances.

Gambling

Most people probably enjoy a small flutter, a lottery ticket, a night out at a bingo hall, or the odd afternoon wasting $5 at the amusement arcades. This is not at all uncommon. But big cities which are dedicated to massive amounts of gambling prove that there is a desire within some of us to gamble large fortunes or our entire wealth and security for a few hours of gambling. Yes the thrill of a major win would certainly be really good, but let’s face it: heavy gambling is nearly always a loser’s game.

Hard Drugs

Many young people in particular, get into trouble with the law because of their need for a drug of some sort. It appears that drug taking is initially difficult to start, and bad effects will be experienced for the first one or two times the drug is tried. Even once you’ve become accustomed to a drug, it is all-to-common for it to start to seriously affect your brain and depression can often follow. Also, the cost of maintaining a drug habit can be very expensive and you can easily lose control of your own life.

Anorexia and Bulimia

It is reasonably easy to understand why somebody might become anorexic, in light of the way that magazines and the media generally promote being slim as being beautiful and or sexy. Once a person has gotten over the initial hunger stages, it probably gets easier to keep eating less and less, feeling that they are achieving a great deal with their self-discipline; but after a while the person’s health starts to deteriorate rapidly and it can become very serious. Bulimia sounds like a good cheat’s way to have your cake and eat it too, then throw it up so that you don’t have the calories to worry about. But the acid from the vomit can rot your teeth, and serious health problems can ensue including erosion of the lining of your esophagus.

There are many other self-harming addictions, but these highlight the question at the start of the article. Surely the answer can’t be as simple as boredom, can it?