What is a sports addiction?

Sports addiction is a form of soft addictions: overdoing common everyday activities (sports, overeating, over shopping, surfing the internet, TV, video games, etc.) that keep you from living the best life you could. People don’t often realize the cost of soft addictions– they take time, cost money, drain energy, numb your feelings, mute your consciousness, interfere with relationships, and keep you from living the high quality life you deserve.

What are the top 5 signs of a sports addiction?

Sports addictions can show up differently for different people–some are consumed by watching sports, while others fixate on constantly checking sports statistics, or indulge in excessive amounts of sports memorabilia, while for others it is betting on games, or overindulging in fantasy sports, etc. And some people do them all!–they don’t just watch the game – they are into the pre-game, post game, analysis of the game, constantly checking the internet for stats, collecting sports memorabilia, gambling, and going from fan to fanatic. But here are a few signs that run through all its permutations:

• Over-investing time, money, energy, and emotional connection to sports

• Preoccupied with thoughts about your team’s games (or the players, managers, or sports stats)

• Your mood is affected by how your team plays

• You can’t imagine your life without sports or even less of it

• You respond with defenses, rationalizations, and excuses when others point out that you are too much into sports

• You get more excited about your team’s games than you are about other aspects of your own life

• You talk more about your team than about your family or yourself

How do you break a sports addiction?

There are eight key skills to break a sports addiction

• Identify it as a problem and admit the costs

• Make your One Decision–a bigger commitment to the quality of your life

• Cut out your Stinking Thinking (the excuses, cover-ups, rationalizations, defensiveness)

• Discover why it’s so important to you

• Find the deeper need underneath the sports addiction

• Develop a bigger vision for your life

• Use the Math of MORE: Add activities that meet your deeper needs while you subtract some of your sports activity

• Get support

Discover the deeper needs that drive your sports addiction and you can then find better ways to meet them. This makes it much easier to let go of the addictive compulsion to sports. The deeper needs for sports addicts range from the need to feel excited about life, to feel a part of something bigger, to be a winner, to belong, to be special, or to avoid dealing with other feelings. Once people engage more fully in the game of life, they aren’t so hooked on just watching other people playing a game.

How is a sports addiction harmful?

Sports addictions take time, cost money, absorb energy, and distract you from other things that are more important in your life. Sports become consuming and crowd out other aspects of life. It masks the core hungers with poor substitutes and then your deeper needs don’t get met. You substitute being excited about your team instead of being excited about your own life. You watch winners instead of becoming one. You talk to others about your team’s games, but don’t get around to talking about yourself. You substitute a sense of belonging as a fan of a team, rather than developing real connection with people. You get emotionally invested and passionate about a game, but don’t have that same investment or passion in your relationship.

Many couples report problems in their relationship, their parenting, and family interactions because of sports obsession. Sports addiction gets in the way of career success, intimacy, parenting, financial well being and life satisfaction.

Also, sports addictions are often connected to indulging in other soft addictions–overeating, internet surfing, compulsively checking statistics, watching too much TV, gambling, and drinking.