We all have a preferred choice of drug that makes us feel good and get the dopamine rush that we often desire. Our drug may be mindless, scrolling our social media feed, exercising, TV bingeing, pornography, sex, gambling, compulsive spending, etc. We all have our addictions, compulsions, obsessions and drugs; the key is to choose our obsessions wisely and use them in moderation. As Samuel Jackson once said, “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.” We live in a world where it is easy to access our choice of drugs, from online pornography to online betting platforms to sex escort sites; getting a dose of our preferred drug is just a click away. With much power comes great responsibility. Choose your drugs wisely and use them in moderation.

“Sow a thought and you reap an action; sow an act and you reap a habit; sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a destiny.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

My preferred choice of drug is self-improvement and personal growth. I am obsessed with becoming a better version of myself, reflected in how I spend most of my offline/online time. Show me your calendar, and I will show you your priorities. When people complain about not having time for personal growth, they say: “It is not a priority” or “It is not a preferred drug.” These are the same people who complain about not having time to read, spend 2 to 3 hours mindlessly scrolling social media, playing online games, and watching every new Netflix series.

My choice of drugs include:

Strava – Social Network for Exercise Junkies like me; I spend an average of 2-3 hours exercising daily. By the end of the year, I would have spent at least 1/10th of my year working on my physical fitness. The Strava app helps me track my fitness progress and

Calm.com – My preferred mindfulness and meditation app is calm.com. I meditate for 20-30 minutes every morning using the guided meditations of Daily Jay – Jay Shetty, Daily Calm – Tamara Levitt, and Daily Trip – Jeff Warren. I ha

Masterclass.com – An online subscription platform where experts in various fields share their lessons learned, insights, and tips. Success leaves clues; the masterclass platform is a great platform for learning from the world’s best.

University of YouTube– My preferred social media platform is YouTube.com. I watch various training videos to learn about skillsets I am trying to master, such as French, Spanish, Python, HTML, CSS, Javascript, IT certifications etc.

Multiple Marathons: I ran my first marathon in 2013, and I have since participated in 25+ marathons across 15+ cities. In the past two years, I have participated and finished 15 full marathons: Six (2022) and nine (2023).

100 Books Challenge: Since 2016, I have been experimenting with reading 100 non-fiction books every year. I try to read as much as I can because I have many weaknesses that I am trying to work on and many strengths that I am trying to solidify. Reading is one of my favourite drugs, and I am highly addicted to it. 2020 | 2021 | 2022
365 Podcast Listening Challenge: I listen to one podcast every day as part of my daily morning routine. I also listen to at least one hour of French podcasts to deepen my French language comprehension.

At the core of our drug use is a need to get an endorphin rush or a dopamine shot. In her 2021 book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence, author and psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke delves into the neuroscience of reward, emphasizing the neurotransmitter Dopamine. Lembke describes a dopamine nation or world that we live in:

We’ve transformed the world from a place of scarcity to a place of overwhelming abundance: Drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . the increased numbers, variety, and potency of highly rewarding stimuli today is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. If you haven’t met your drug of choice yet, it’s coming soon to a website near you.

Addiction broadly defined is the continued and compulsive consumption of a substance or behavior (gambling, gaming, sex) despite its harm to self and/or others.

One of the biggest risk factors for getting addicted to any drug is easy access to that drug. When it’s easier to get a drug, we’re more likely to try it. In trying it, we’re more likely to get addicted to it.

Digital Drugs

The world now offers a full complement of digital drugs that didn’t exist before, or if they did exist, they now exist on digital platforms that have exponentially increased their potency and availability. These include online pornography, gambling, and video games, to name a few.

The Internet promotes compulsive overconsumption not merely by providing increased access to drugs old and new, but also by suggesting behaviors that otherwise may never have occurred to us. Videos don’t just “go viral.” They’re literally contagious, hence the advent of the meme.

Helpers High

In Be Useful: Seven Tools for Life, former governor of California and movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger describe giving back as a feel-good drug that could have a therapeutic effect.

Giving back is also known to produce a neurochemical called vasopressin, which is associated with love. In fact, just thinking about or remembering moments of being charitable triggers the release of these same hormones. Social scientists have a name for this phenomenon: they call it “helper’s high.” That’s how powerful giving back is. It’s a natural feel-good drug with highly addictive properties.

This is just what happens when giving back gets its hooks into you. Like a drug, you don’t just want to do more of it, nyou want to go bigger too. You want to help more people, more often, with more things.

Our Drug of Choice Comes First

Dependence on a chemical or compulsion can be another cause of too much distance in a relationship. If we are addicted to a substance or dependent on a compulsion, we need very wide boundaries. We can’t let anyone near who might interfere with our use or take our supply.

If I need to work compulsively and you demand time from me, time I want to use working, I’ll have to keep you at a distance. Otherwise, you’ll take my supply of time and energy needed for working. If I need to eat sugar and you call as I’m on my way to the kitchen, I’ll have to get rid of you so I can get my fix.

English comedian, actor, writer and activist Russell Brand struggled with drugs, sex, alcohol, food, fame and online shopping addiction for several years. In his book Recovery: Freedom from Our Addictions, Brand writes about his journey of recovery using the twelve-step program of Alcoholics Anonymous framework and principles. He writes:

We adapt to the misery of an unloving home, of unfulfilling work. Of empty friendships and lacquered alienation. Drugs, sex, relationships, food, work, smoking, alcohol, technology, pornography, hoarding, gambling, everything. Because the instinct that drives the compulsion is universal. It is an attempt to solve the problem of disconnection, alienation and tepid despair, because the problem is ultimately ‘being human’ in an environment that is curiously ill-equipped to deal with the challenges that entails. We are all on the addiction scale.

We live in an age of addiction where addictive thinking has become almost totally immersive. It is the mode of our culture. Consumerism is stimulus and response as a design for life. The very idea that you can somehow make your life alright by attaining primitive material goals – whether it’s getting the ideal relationship, the ideal job, a beautiful Berber rug or forty quids’ worth of smack – the underlying idea, ‘if I could just get X, Y, Z, I would be okay’, is consistent and it is quite wrong.”

Addiction is when natural biological imperatives, like the need for food, sex, relaxation or status, become prioritized to the point of destructiveness. It is exacerbated by a culture that understandably exploits this mechanic as it’s a damn good way to sell Mars bars and Toyotas.

Meditation

Daily Calm with Tamara Levitt

Your tiredness has dignity to it. There is no shame in admitting that you cannot go on. You have been on a long journey from the stars. Even the courageous need to rest. – Jeff Foster

Daily Jay with Jay Shetty – Specific Self-Care
In her book, The Self-Care Prescription, Licensed Clinical Psychologist Dr. Robyn Gobin highlights the six domains where we can implement self-care: physical, social, emotional, vocational, spiritual, and intellectual. She defines self-care as doing what is needed to help you get healthy, happy and effective.