Repetitive behaviors

More from The Guru Papers: Masks of Authoritarian Power, by Joel Kramer & Diana Alstad, [p212].

Limiting ourselves to the configuration of addiction that involves an inner battle about being addicted has the advantage of isolating the most elusive, controversial, and seemingly mysterious component - control. In focusing on the inner conflicts around control, including the ostensible loss of it, there are two related factors:

1. Doing repetitive behaviors that one feels either incapable of stopping or that take great effort to try and stop - and should one succeed, their possible return is always lurking the background.
2. These repetitive behaviors are judged by the person involved to be (or in fact are) interfering in a non-trivial way with one's well-being - in short, they are self-destructive.