When I hear the word addiction, my mind still tends to go to the “big ones.”
Alcohol. Hard drugs. Sex. Food. Gambling.
Those were the obvious dangers, the ones with clear consequences and visible wreckage. They were easy to name, even if they were not easy to face.
But when the topic of addiction comes up in group, the list always gets longer. Porn. Social media. Work. Validation. Control. Distraction. The things that don’t necessarily look destructive from the outside, but quietly take over from the inside.
What got me thinking about this recently was my own relationship with political news.
It started years ago with Rob Ford, Toronto’s crack-smoking mayor. During his time in office, I would wake up every morning with the same thought, What craziness did he get up to last night? I read everything. Every article. Every update. Every scandal. Rob Ford became my crack. I didn’t miss a beat, and I didn’t want to.
When he left office, I didn’t have to wait long for the next fix to show up.
Donald Trump filled that space almost immediately. Different scale, different stakes, but the same pattern for me. I checked headlines constantly. I followed the story day by day, sometimes hour by hour. The behaviour felt justified, even responsible. I told myself I was “staying informed.” But if I’m honest, it didn’t feel neutral in my body. It felt wired. It felt compulsive.
Lately, that obsession has intensified. The stories move so fast they barely have time to settle before the next one replaces them. One night it’s one crisis. A few hours later it’s another. By morning, something else entirely. I noticed how often I was reaching for my phone, how hard it was to disengage, how agitated I felt even when I wasn’t actively reading.
Saturday night was the moment it clicked. Around 10 PM, as I was winding down, the news cycle kept shifting. I found myself doom scrolling, watching story after story stack on top of each other. When I finally put the phone down and went to sleep, my nervous system was anything but settled. When I woke up Sunday morning, there was already something new demanding attention.
That was the bottom for me.
Not a dramatic collapse. Not a public consequence. Just a quiet realization that this was costing me something. My sleep. My presence. My sense of steadiness.
Inside Out Healing asks a different question than, Is this an addiction?
It asks, What is this doing to me on the inside?
When I look at it through that lens, the pattern is familiar. External stimulation replacing internal awareness. Outrage and urgency standing in for regulation. A false sense of control that keeps me from sitting with quieter, more uncomfortable states.
So I made a decision. Not a vow, and not a moral stand. I cancelled my Raw Story subscription. I stopped actively seeking out Trump-related news. When the urge hits, and it still does, I try to interrupt the loop. Sometimes I throw myself into work. Sometimes I write. Sometimes I just notice the pull and let it pass.
I’m not pretending I won’t feel it again. I probably will. These patterns don’t disappear just because we name them.
But I am paying attention now.
And in Inside Out Healing, that matters. Because awareness is not the end of the work, but it is always the beginning.
