What’s Your Vice? Common Numbing Activities
When I say the word ‘vice’ I’m sure things like alcohol, drugs, or cigarettes come to mind. However, pretty much anything can become a vice, depending on how and why we use it.
Let’s take a look at some common vices, why we use them, and what to do instead.
Why We Use Vices
What makes you reach for your favourite vice? Well, the main reason we seek out a vice is to numb and avoid difficult emotions, and to create positive feelings from dopamine hits to make us feel ‘good.’
But these hits of pleasure are only temporary, and soon the thing we sought to avoid comes creeping back and we need to turn to our vices again.
This creates a cycle that leaves us dependent on our vice for a sense of well-being.
Note: While this cycle does mirror a cycle of addiction, I am speaking to a more common affectation and am not speaking to substance abuse disorder.
Common Vices
The thing with a lot of common vices is that they aren’t actually ‘bad’ in and of themselves. What distinguishes them as a vice is why we are using it. Are we using it to ‘run’ from something? Or are we genuinely just enjoying it?
Cannabis
Alcohol
Social Media
Caffeine
Travelling
Junk Food
Sex
TV/ Netflix
Shopping
Gambling
Business/ Work
The key factor in something being a vice is feeling like you ‘need’ it.
For example, you could enjoy watching a show in the evenings, but also enjoy reading a book and it wouldn’t really matter if the internet went down and you couldn’t stream your show. But if you’re using TV as a vice, you might feel a sense of panic and seek to replace it with another vice in order to get the same ‘hit.’.
You may find that you have multiple vices that you use interchangeably, with the common factor being avoiding feeling uncomfortable.
What to do Instead
The key to disengaging from the cycle of vice dependency is to develop healthy coping mechanisms.
Feel your feelings
Make a commitment to yourself that you will allow yourself to feel difficult feelings. While we tend to fear that if we allow ourselves to feel something, it will last forever, but we typically only feel an emotion for 7 minutes, and then it passes. Can you commit to feel for 7 minutes when you feel something arise?
Journaling
Your journal can be a great place to explore your emotional landscape. Try carving out 10-20 mins before bed to journal about your day and process the feelings that arose.
Meditation
Meditation helps cultivate mindfulness and presence. Often when we are engaged in a vice cycle, we are on autopilot and aren’t really considering why we are doing something or the effects it may be having on ourselves or our relationships. Meditation builds a new level of awareness that permeates into the rest of our day. Start with 5-10 minutes a day.
Talk to Someone
It can be challenging to hold space for hard emotions on our own. Connecting with a friend, family member, or counsellor can help you process things in a way that you feel supported. Counsellors can also provide resources and tools for you to develop greater emotional resilience.
While it can be tempting to check out and numb when we don’t want to feel something, I think it’s important to remember that numbing doesn’t make something go away. It lingers, it grows and festers and becomes something bigger and harder to handle than it started as. Numbing also starts to spread, and eventually, we may find that our capacity for joy and pleasure becomes muted as well.
I am a firm believer that having the courage and commitment to feeling ALL of our feelings will heal this world, and I hope that this article showed you some of the ways you can give yourself the gift of that healing.