What are addiction and habit? Can they be rehabilitated?

Indeed a very thought-provoking topic. At some point in life every one of us has undergone this curiosity of whether we can alter our habits and addictions.

Let’s begin with a simple definition of Habit. According to an online lexicon, “a habit is a settled or regular tendency or practice, especially one that is hard to give up”. Whereas, “an addiction is the fact or condition of being addicted or fixated to a particular substance or activity”.  While both sound somewhat interlinked, one might be addicted to a particular habit. Henceforth, it can be said that a habit may be a profound inclination towards a harmless activity, or a bad addiction.

Typically, addiction is always used to refer to something negative or harmful like dependency on drugs, for instance.  Addiction to drugs that are considered downright detrimental to the society are Marijuana, heroin, alcohol, tobacco, and etcetera.

Despite the fact that smoking tobacco is a socially acceptable drug in the majority of the countries, is irrefutably a harmful and bad addiction. This is because, it is not only the smoker who is affected, but the people around him, could be family or friends, are passively smoking in the carbon monoxide too, which makes them equally vulnerable to the harmful effects of smoking tobacco.

I am going to reflect on my idea of good addiction that not many think persist too. Some addictions or fixation of habits is also useful for the society. For instance, there are many people among us who are always trying or willing to help others, unconditionally. This is their habit, their nature and they are addicted to helping others.

Let’s move onto the latter part of the topic. When an addiction is developed, be it good or a bad one, the question is, can it be altered, and is it difficult to change?  Yes, it is pretty much possible, yet impossible for some.

It is possible for those to change their bad habits, who are highly motivated. These people are self-willing to overcome their bad habits. On the other hand, it is impossible to change a bad habit if a person is not motivated or unwilling.  For instance, a teacher thinks one of his students’ need psychological help to counter his inferiority complex. Consequently, he is sent to the therapist. But, until and unless he himself is willing to change or overcome his flaw, all the help, in the form of counseling and hours of therapy will go in vain.  Thus, we can conclude that only a motivation and an individual’s own willingness can help them change their habits.

With that note, I wish we all find our motivations to attain good habits in our life and overcome the bad ones.  I also pray for everyone to have good addictions.

Riaz Bhutta