The “Addictive Personality” is a Myth that Keeps us Trapped in Addiction

You don’t have an addictive personality, you have trauma. How learning about and healing trauma led me to recovery.

Kevin Bosc via Unsplash

My Backstory With Addiction

I started smoking cigarettes when I was 14, and I was addicted to them by 15, planning my day around my secret cigarettes and how I would mask the smell so my parents wouldn’t catch on.

I struggled with food addiction and disordered eating behavior from age eight to my mid twenties. From binging until I was in pain to starving myself and exercising compulsively, sometimes for four hours per day or more. It took many years to find a healthy balance with food and exercise and to and get my life and health back.

I was also a heavy drinker for over a decade- not being able to wrap my head around moderation, or how people could have a drink or two and then stop- where was the fun in that?

I’d had addictive tendencies in my romantic relationships as well- jumping from one relationship to the next without skipping a beat and obsessing about new love interests. I’d lose myself and my hobbies, and morph into this lost girl who became what she thought other people wanted. I would lose track of my goals, my interests, and my friends. It turns out that is not the recipe for…