Amber Hollingsworth (Put the Shovel Down) presents a psychoeducational YouTube video arguing that one under-recognized cause of addiction is excessive willpower — people who push themselves too hard (workaholics, high-achieving professionals, athletes, students) exhaust their self-control or use substances to extend performance. She uses the metaphor of willpower as a finite gas tank and gives examples (end-of-day drinking after depleted willpower; opioid/stimulant misuse by nurses, physicians, and students to push longer). Her practical recommendation is to manage and conserve willpower (reduce additional self-discipline demands and avoid adding more behavior-change stressors) rather than simply telling people to be tougher. Resources are linked in the video description.
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In this video, we're going to be talking about one very surprising factor that could be causing triggering and keeping your addiction going. I'm telling you, this is one that you haven't thought of before, but I see it in my office all the time, and I want you to know about it. For those of you who are new here, welcome to Put the Shovel down, the YouTube channel designed to help you understand the science and psychology of addiction so you can recover your life and your loved ones and get back to living the life that you want to live. Here's the deal. You beat addiction by being smart and strategic, not by being tough. I like to say you don't beat this by being a cowboy. You beat this thing by being a chess player. And I'm here to help you understand everything you need to know about it so you can make the most strategic, effective decisions possible. Okay? So for those of you who watch this channel, you may have seen lots of videos on all the different things that can cause addiction. You've got trauma, you got adhd, you got attachment disorders. All of these things. Anxiety, depression, grief. All of these things that can trigger addiction. But here's one thing that you probably haven't thought of or heard of before. What would you think if I told you addiction is the result of someone who pushes themselves too hard, who uses excessive willpower? I know that's a little different than what you thought, right? Because most of the time, we think about addiction being a problem with willpower happening to people who don't have willpower or who lack morals or who just can't get their act together. But the thing of it is, is in my office, I see all the time. In fact, this is sort of my specialty, is I see lots of a type people, really ambitious, smart, successful business people, medical professionals, all of these people who push themselves really hard who end up with addictions. And a lot of times, those addictions are the result of the fact that they push themselves too hard. Let me explain. You see, addiction really is an issue of willpower. And as I like to explain to my clients, willpower, you got to think of it like gas in the gas tank. Willpower runs on little energy molecules in your brain, just like everything else does. And there's a finite amount of those little energy molecules. And so if you're the type of person who's constantly, like, working and pushing, maybe you're a workaholic, maybe you push yourself in exercise or an athlete or something like that, you're constantly, constantly holding yourself accountable. You come home from work. You're trying to live right, you're trying to be self disciplined, you're trying to clean your house, you're trying to eat the right foods, you're trying to be nice to the people around you. You're trying to do your side hustle. You know, that is the culture of today. It's this constant push, push, push for good behavior and good decisions. And you're trying to not spend too much money, but also keep yourself looking nice and keep up with your status and your Instagram photos. It's just too much. And we find ourselves in this world of constantly pushing and then at the end of the day we just run short because there's just not enough gas in the gas tank to get us to where we want to be. And a lot of times the clients that I see find themselves dealing with addiction because of this issue. Not even because of any of those deep dark things that most of the time we think of that are the things, the underlying things that are causing addiction. I see a lot of entrepreneurs and business people and these people are constantly, you know, they think out of the box and they're innovative and they get up at 5 in the morning, they do their exercise routine and they meal prep their meals for the day and they go to business meetings, they do all this stuff, they push all the time and then they get home and they can't turn that part of their brain off. They don't know how to wind down and relax and they've used up all the gas in the gas tank. Pushing themselves so hard for so long during the day that they sit down to have that beer, cold beer at the end of the day or that glass of wine. And once they do that, the willpower's out and they don't have enough self control left to control their intake of that. Or another scenario I see quite a bit has to do with this opioid epidemic that we see. Most people that get addicted to pain pills or opioids really get this feeling initially of more motivation, no anxiety, and they can push themselves to work harder, longer, play sports longer, harder, faster, all that kind of thing. And so they start using these pain pills as a way to push longer. That's why you see a lot of nurses and physicians who work these really long shifts and really long hours, and college students abusing these kinds of drugs not because they're lazy, not because they lack willpower, but because they're trying to push themselves beyond the limits of what is humanly possible. And for a while, the substance helps them do that. So maybe that's a stimulant. And so you can see there is this other underlying cause out there triggering so many people to be addicted. This one is just not being talked about. And the really funny thing about this is when I get these people in my office, which are kind of my type of people, so when I get them in and they sit down in front of me and I'll say, what do you think would help? Or what have you tried to make this better? Those kind of questions, they'll tell me something like, well, at the end of the day, instead of drinking that beer, I just need to go outside for a good jog and run. Almost inevitably, when I ask the person what they think they need to do that's going to help, they tell me some other form of self discipline. And I'm like, hold on, we just talked about the fact that you're running out of willpower because you're using up so much self discipline in the day. It's just such a hard, automatic thought to break. And so if this is you or this is your loved one, instead of trying to push yourself to be more self disciplined, make better decisions, you know, make the right choice instead of the wrong choice, I want you to start thinking in terms of managing your willpower differently, managing the gas in the gas tank so that you don't want to run out. And that may be very, very counterintuitive for you. So while you're doing this, while you're trying to think differently and manage this differently, I don't want you to be trying to do a whole lot of other things. I want you to keep everything in your life on sort of simmer or autopilot. Don't want you changing a lot. Don't want you trying to go on a diet. Don't want you trying to do all these other things, because I want you to manage your willpower better. And I need you to realize that probably a big part of the reason why you're ending up in this situation is because you are excessively pushing yourself past what is humanly possible. I hear this a lot from the families that call us for our coaching sessions. They'll say, you know, they're just a workaholic, or they won't sit down or they won't relax. And heck, they make me feel bad about myself all the time because they're constantly doing something. If this sounds like you or your loved one that you're trying to help, consider taking a different approach. Now, if all this sounds really familiar, and you think you or your loved one is really ready to get out of this cycle and you need a little help putting that plan together. Make sure you check out the description, because there's a lot more resources down there for you.
