Excessive, dependent, addict

Excess is something you know well. You sometimes feel the urge to go beyond certain limits in order to feel alive or to chill out. You're emotionally sensitive and you tend to look for some sort of comfort to lift your spirits.

As long as your compulsion remains temporary, everything is OK. You can pig out on chocolate for two or three days without being bulimic, or buy scratch cards from time to time without spending all your savings on them. It's your way of getting through a low period. While it's important to grant yourself certain pleasures, they're sometimes not that sensible, and you shouldn't be falling into a pattern of repetitive behaviour.
If you need to have a stiff drink every night when you get home from work before you're able to relax, alarm bells should be ringing. If you prefer to surf the Internet rather than have dinner with your family, this is a worry for yourself and for others. Your refuge shouldn't leave you feeling anxious when you can't access it.

Our advice: Pay attention to your pleasures: they should provide you with freedom, not imprisonment. If you often feel like you're losing control of a situation, you could be in danger of going off the rails, as the voice in your head has probably already told you. But don't get into a panic: an addictive streak isn't an addiction..yet.