What's the key to overcoming addiction?

[hyruga]

Pray to God for strength and guidance. 

[itachi uchiha]

If it is hard addiction ,then only medicine and professional help from doctor are the only thing that works

[r0ckyreed]

Get pissed off and disgusted by what you are doing to your body, finances, future, health, etc. If that does not wake you up, I don’t know what will. 
 

You can do it. Small steps in the end are big steps.

[Egzoset]

>> Addiction to anything is caused by a low state of consciousness.

 

MONEY being the 1st of all...  Any way it can be gained.

[Matthew85]

@Someone here Cultivate deep self love. 

[The0Self]

For substances: surrender and community.

[BlackMaze]

On 8/10/2021 at 3:40 PM, Someone here said:

What do you mean? Like replacing one addiction with another one? 

On 8/10/2021 at 3:40 PM, Someone here said:

 

For example work out instead. I still haven't quited but now that i am working out seriously, i am much closer to quitting. 

But other than that no clue. The only thing i learned is that willpower is not the right solution. Even if you succeed you will be miserable. Better keep smoking if you miss your cigarettes everyday and cry about it. You have to want it. The stupidest trap there is and yet here we are. 

[inFlow]

On 10/8/2021 at 1:55 PM, Someone here said:

What would it be? 

In my understanding addiction boils down to not having enough WILLPOWER. You have urges to do something, be it smoke or masturbate etc. but you don't have the willpower to stop the initial urge. When it pops into your awareness just be aware that you want "insert your addiction here". While maintaining awareness on it it will go away, just try to not react to it immediately, just observe the urge and it will slowly fade away.
Practice meditation and put some effort into it. After a week or so you will grow some willpower and with enough effort you will drop it if you REALLY WANT TO.

[Someone here]

Thank you guys for the tips. Keep em going 

[Captain_Diabetes]

depends on the drug.. 

alchemy of the mind happens. example coke.. if you do enough coke it will rewire your brain by growing new dopamine receptors .

then when you no longer do cocaine you now stuck with these '' extra receptors'' and they get hungry real hungry

you can replace coke with something else that will make use of those receptors but the amount of dopamine in coke is so large and in quick short bursts of mega flooding happens to them that it becomes very hard to find something else that causes the same type of reaction on a chemical level so you get stuck and sometimes end up being so hungry that you end up smoking crack or shooting up instead .

 

the best i found is to simply cut off the supply after xxx amount of time the receptors shrink but it does take along time and usually during those times the person ends up doing it again..

 

all the will power you have wont help you stop and you end up being a life time addict 

it really all depends on the dose and how much you did over xxx span of time .. if your chemistry changed by alot then you are pretty screwed 

so this question is a trick question, in other words if you arent far gone.. you can replace the drug with an activity or feelings that also use same receptors in that case like people already said; '' alternative is key ''

Edited October 14, 2021 by Captain_Diabetes

[Thought Art]

I found suffering through the withdraw, and affirming each morning what my values were helped. I was hell, but being sober and not smoking weed is so much better.

Facing reality. Stop craving pleasure and bliss. Be okay with being just as you are.

[Captain_Diabetes]

On 10/13/2021 at 8:20 AM, inFlow said:

In my understanding addiction boils down to not having enough WILLPOWER. You have urges to do something, be it smoke or masturbate etc. but you don't have the willpower to stop the initial urge. When it pops into your awareness just be aware that you want "insert your addiction here". While maintaining awareness on it it will go away, just try to not react to it immediately, just observe the urge and it will slowly fade away.
Practice meditation and put some effort into it. After a week or so you will grow some willpower and with enough effort you will drop it if you REALLY WANT TO.

 

i used to think this way too lol

willpower is a factor ya...  if you imagine a car and you are the driver with your foot on the brake .. the brake being will power 

the gas is the drug.... you can practice your awareness skills and hit the brake pedal when you realize you are going too fast. 

but depending on the dose and the drug its like your engine just got an upgrade like extra 400hp and a turbo 

so when you do get the awareness to use your brakes the brakes just dont work as well as they were built for a car with a stock engine.

youd think meditating and raising your awareness = willpower will make your brakes work better but what you need after brain chemistry changed is bigger brakes but all the awareness and will power can do is use the brakes more often but what you need is big brakes to deal with a more powerful engine. something that just wont happen.. hitting the brake pedal more often helps but it just wont be enough at that point

replacing the drug with something like sports .. travel.. also adrenaline seems to use the same receptors as most drugs so sports like tennis something that you will feel accomplished when you win or just get really nice clean swings in. 

reading books and gaining knowledge also feeling accomplished this way will give you good dopamine 

sex obviously .

theres alot you can do to replace any drug with other things.

think of mike tyson .. he was smoking rocks at age 14 ... replaced it with beating up people instead lol

[ShardMare]

Imo its just accepting suffering.

U feel urge to eat junk food or to fap or anything just dont do anything. Just feel. Leo made a vid on it.

When u have urge to smoke dont start to drink something or play video games or listen to music just stop whatever u doing and accept suffering. Accept that you cant smoke.

[Dabidoe]

For me it was about reaching into myself to see what the root cause of my addictions were about. Fortunately I don't enjoy alcohol that much but have always seeked refuge from my suffering from smoking pot. It was a double edged sword of short term relief that relieved me from problems  that it contributed to. One of my more profound insights was that my "love of weed" was a crappy replacement for lack of love of self. Like most disaffected youth I'd chalked off the idea of love because I never experienced it.

Learning to nurture and love yourself regardless of how you feel and changing the narrative about your life that you are a good person with a good life ahead of you regardless of how you felt in the past has been helpful for me to quit. Keeping that purpose/reason to stay sober as opposed to just "fighting" it has made it a lot easier to stick to my decision.

[Buba]

I quitted smoking cigarettes, weed, shisha, drinking alcohol 4 years ago, but I still crave for them. I guess I will restart doing them sooner or later.

[Egzoset]

In opposition to "will power" = reduc temptations, or at least multiply self-awareness opportunities paving the way to healthier decisions.

[Nahm]

One can not be quitting something enough to be starting something else. One could quit a job with no income in sight, and that likely won’t work out well. One could quit a job for a better job, and there is no more a question of how that works out. 

What’s the something else?

What is wanted?

What’s the problem with the something else? 

What’s a dreamboard have to do with this? 

[Breakingthewall]

meditation is the key. With meditation you realize that you do not need anything external to you to be happy. you feel completely aligned with reality, and the idea of an addiction is absurd. Anything that is not real, positive, is something you don't do. you love yourself and treat yourself well, it's simple

[Someone here]

@Nahm what if what I want is the something that I'm addicted to? 

Should one write "smoking cigarettes and playing video games" on his dreamboard? 

Edited October 22, 2021 by Someone here

[Nahm]

@Someone here

Write what you want on the dreamboard. (Vs thinking / what if scenarios).