Behavioural Addictions

Behavioural addictions, sometimes called process addictions, involve repetitive behaviours that feel rewarding in the moment but lead to ongoing negative consequences. These might include things like comfort eating, excessive exercise, compulsive shopping, or habitual social media use. What starts as a coping strategy or distraction can turn into a cycle that’s difficult to break, even when it’s clearly doing harm.

Common Examples

Some common behavioural addictions include:

Comfort Eating Using food to self-soothe, often leading to health problems or emotional distress.

Excessive Exercise When movement becomes compulsive, driven by anxiety, body image issues, or the need to feel in control, despite injury, exhaustion, or burnout.

Compulsive Shopping Impulse buying to chase a short-term mood lift, often followed by regret, debt, or shame.

Digital Overuse Spending hours scrolling, gaming, or watching online content to avoid emotional discomfort or stress.

When Is It an Addiction?

Many people engage in these behaviours occasionally. What defines them as addictive is the loss of control, the persistence despite harm, and the way they become a primary way of coping. These patterns often mirror what we see in substance addiction:

  • Craving or strong urges

  • Increasing time or intensity to get the same emotional effect (tolerance)

  • Anxiety or distress when trying to cut back (withdrawal)

  • Continued use despite recognising negative consequences

Why Do They Develop?

There’s usually a reason beneath the behaviour. It might be stress, grief, trauma, loneliness, or a history of not having healthier coping tools available. These behaviours can offer quick emotional relief, a sense of control, or simply numbness when life feels overwhelming.

Often, behavioural addictions are driven by the same emotional patterns that lead to alcohol or substance use. They’re not about weakness or failure, they’re about survival strategies that need updating.

How CBT Can Help

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy works by uncovering the patterns behind these behaviours:

  • Identifying triggers: what situations or emotions kick it off

  • Exploring what the behaviour achieves (e.g. escape, control, distraction)

  • Challenging the beliefs that keep it in place

  • Replacing the behaviour with healthier strategies that actually support wellbeing

The goal isn’t perfection, it’s awareness, choice, and gradual change.

When to Seek Support

You don’t need a diagnosis to deserve help. If a behaviour:

  • Feels like it’s running your life

  • Leaves you feeling worse after doing it

  • Gets in the way of how you want to live

Then it’s worth addressing. With the right approach, these patterns can shift.

If you’re curious whether CBT could help you with a behaviour that feels out of control, or just exhausting, get in touch. You don’t need to keep figuring it out alone.

Sarah