They say that people who have addictions live in denial. Consciously they don’t even know, or admit, that they have one.

I made light of mine. It wasn’t illegal, or immoral, and even my friends laughed along with me as I made such expansive fun about my ‘habit’. They bought into my addiction and provided me with encouragement to continue the habit.

I thought I could quit at any time. In fact in the past, at different times, I had. In the past I had also proved that I didn’t want to go without it for any amount of time.

I just felt better when I succumbed to my addiction and I wasn’t hurting anyone. Not even myself: or so I believed.

I was a responsible partaker for the most part. I only drank 4 mugs a day.

Would you take it more seriously if I drank 10 a day or told you that my addiction was more illicit than the coffee I needed?

When is a habit an addiction?

Having only one car in our household, and three children under five at the time, I used to race out in the evenings for the groceries. Often it was a hurried trip with little time to spare and little money to spend.

Only in retrospect do I remember the moment of indecision. I arrive at the busy mall. I have half an hour to buy nappies, formula and other necessities. I jog across the parking lot and into the bright lights of the mall.

I hesitate. On my left is the supermarket. Where I must go. On the right and just down the hall a way… a coffee shop. I didn’t have time for both. Did I?

Indecision. I want the coffee. It’s calling me. I figure if I hurry I can buy one and still make the supermarket if only for the bare essentials.

This is no habit. I’m an addict.

As the years progressed I honed my need to a fine art. I knew I had to keep a minimum amount of cash stashed in my wallet as some shops had a minimum they would charge cards.

I had to have the biggest coffee available and, if I was home, I even needed the mug to be a certain shape (giving it the illusion of largeness).

My kids knew to leave me in peace when I had my coffee in hand.

I cultivated the image of a coffee connoisseur. Perhaps I had become one too. I definitely knew a good hit.

Fast forward to the now.

A couple of weeks ago I went to see my kinesiologist. I was just looking to work on a few physical niggles and keep myself well centered with current changes happening in my families life. I wanted to be grounded myself so that I could support the kids if they needed to lean on me more than usual.

If you’ve read my other articles on the unconscious mind than you may understand the concept of the Unconscious mind saying, “Listen to me”. Well in my case my unconscious mind was rubbing it’s proverbial hands with glee and enthusing “She’s been listening to me!!”

The goal for that session (chosen by my body) was "My life is flowing with joy and harmony". The emotion that arose was "heart felt distress" and my kineseologist (using a finger mode for those who understand these things) told me it was related to an addiction to a food substance…

Can you imagine me grinning at this stage? This is just plain funny and the therapist immediately noted my amusement and commented that I obviously knew what my body was telling us about.

I’m struggling now to explain this in a logical way. Suffice to say, maybe, that the issues that the body raised were that the coffee was providing me with contentment and escapism. I certainly had to agree there. It struck a deep cord in me.

We used the intention “I no longer crave coffee to feel contentment”. The kineseologist did amazing things and balanced my body in ways I can’t explain.

I went home feeling great and with a very weird feeling in my chest. Well it was the feeling that wasn’t there that was most noticeable. I was too full of lunch to want a coffee right then. At afternoon teatime I was too busy.

For the next three days I wandered around bemused. Should I have a coffee now because the time says I should? Do I want a coffee? Why do I feel so different inside?? The trigger to have that next coffee hit just wasn’t firing!

Recently I have read some great articles on addiction. One observation I have made is that people don't seem to have made the connection with emotional need and addiction.

The general belief is that addiction is something that is 'for life' and 'out of their control'. An alcoholic client of mine once told me that her desire to drink was gone. We had done lots of emotional releasing and reframing of thought patterns.

She told me that she had been to a BBQ and had a glass of wine and it had no effect on her. At the time I was very excited for her and it flew in the face of everything I’d been taught about alcoholism.

I wondered if she’d lied to me. Now I’m not so quick to doubt.

I was an addict. And now I’m not.

I’m not a recovering addict, a closet addict or a reformed addict.

I am no longer an addict. I’m still partaking of coffee every day and love it. The ‘feeling’ of need, want, ‘must have’ is gone.

It’s now strangely (to me) my decision.

We need to shake up the whole common beliefs of what defines an addict, what it means to be an addict and what it means to be ‘reformed’.

Once an addict: forever an addict? Well I’m going to stir a controversial pot and say, “No, I disagree”.