How does one become addicted to self harm?!

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My self harm was cutting, typical right? The pain from cutting used to be the only sensation I could feel and it was just a habit for me, I don't know how it came to be but it just happened after the first few times.
I knew How to cut according to the pain I wanted, I was not suicidal because I don't wish to die, and I always looked forward to my cutting sessions. I loved how much it hurt and loved the blood that came from my body. I also had another reason for cutting, but it's a bit more personal... I can also tell you that self harm comes with method/tool preferences too. Like, I prefer to use sharp blades like a x acto knife. Other prefer fire, big knives, animal bites, getting bruises, anything.
I don't cut anymore because I threw away my x acto knife in hopes to "change"...
The addiction part could be a stress reliever just as smoking cigarettes or exercising is.
Or maybe they just feel like doing it for no reason, I was like that sometimes. It really just depends on the person and how they're self harming themselves. Personally, I think that most people who do self harm on a regular basis probably don't want to die, but are having difficulty on how to find a way to live.
Oh, and your friend is getting help to quit self harming herself then that's great she's doing that.

It is not so much an 'addiction', but a compulsion to do the behaviour.
Some people have found this maladaptive coping mechanism and can't seem to get out of it.

24 years psychiatric nursing

You get conditioned to it because it can provide instant relief, and it releases feel good endorphins.

Addicted to self harm.

Talk to her about her diagnosis. She may be bipolar, which would make her mood go way up and down, and when down, they often harm themselves.

And she might have deep anxieties, caused by other mental problems, or caused by memories of traumas, or the ways she learned to look at life.

As someone else said, the self-harming may be a compulsion- either to harm herself, or to obsess on something that makes her anxious or stressed and the self-harm relieves the obsession. She may have OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, which makes it difficult for her to stop thinking thoughts that make her anxious. There are a number of medicines that can help with this, but most take a week or so to start working, so it may be a while before she gets better.

Also, thoughts occur in patterns. If they're repeated a bit, they become learned and one can repeat them easily- like riding a bicycle, or knowing the words to a song. If she's been thinking this pattern for a while, it'll be easy for her to think it again.

As far as I know, the main way to stop this is to give the thoughts a new context. Like you can think the world is flat for a long time, but then learn that it's not, that the "flat earth" is a mistake. You'll still easily think "flat earth", but it'll arise as a mistake instead of "the truth." To do this with something like self-harming, she'll have to thoroughly explore the benefits of it, and why she wants those benefits. Usually that means finding the reasons for her anxiety and discover both how deep and compelling they are, as well as how misguided they are. There's more to it, but this would be a good start.