Up: [[Compulsion]] Created: 2025-03-07 Updated: 2025-07-08 My name is Karen and I’m an addict. Nope, doesn’t work for me. I was trying on the language to see if word choice mattered. It does. Addicts buy drugs from idling cars in dark alleys. They have booze stashed in the back of the toilet. Maybe a three pack a day nicotine habit. I, on the other hand, have never swallowed, smoked, snorted or injected a non-prescription drug. The closest I came to wanting to try nicotine was when I worked for the Cancer Society and wondered what could possibly be so appealing about cigarette smoking. Even then, I couldn’t be bothered finding out. My annual liquor intake might, at a stretch, add up to half a bottle of white wine per year, and a single strawberry colada on a really hot summer day *if* I happen, on that day, to be at a restaurant that makes strawberry coladas. I’d be looked at with suspicion if I darkened the door of a twelve step meeting or recovery group of any kind, and rightly so. I’m not an addict. Or am I? > [!Orbit] [[Marion Woodman]] in *Conscious Femininity* says, > An addiction is anything we do to avoid hearing the messages that body and soul are trying to send us. Whew. Under that definition, most of us have addictions. Or maybe it would sit better if we referred to them as *compulsions*. > [!Orbit] Mary O’Malley in *The Gift of Our Compulsions* > By compulsive, I mean engaging in any recurring activity to manage our feelings, an activity that eventually ends up managing us. Darn. It’s the same message. Only this time, we can change “most of us” to “all of us.” We just might not know we’re suffering under a compulsion until we try, or are forced, to stop a particular behaviour. If you’ve ever done a digital detox, or attempted to follow a stringent food plan, you’ll know this well. I was trying to be courageous by clustering notes in this category under the heading of Addiction. But our collective understanding of addiction is far narrower than Woodman’s definition. Addictions are disorders. Addictions are scary. Addictions need twelve step programs. Compulsions, on the other hand, can be a gift. I’m changing my category heading. I’m tempted to also ‘clean up’ old notes like [[Addiction is a State of Possession]], but that’s the negative side of my perfectionism compulsion kicking in! I need to leave the trail markers that show my thinking has changed.