Addiction

[Thirdeye]

I'm in my late 30s and I'm a successful business owner but I have been battling addiction from genetics and environmental factors since my early teens.  I get addicted to all things good and bad whether it's eating, sex, watching TV, drinking too much, exercise, working too much and just about any other thing that you could get addicted and really into. I've never  gotten into any hard drugs although I have experienced a lot of the not so hard drugs like more party style drugs. Alcohol is definitely the biggest pain for me and I feel like it stunts my personal and professional development however  I cannot seem to slay this Dragon. My goal is not to quit completely although I would like to for some sort of extended period of time to prove myself that I can't. I don't think that I have ever  gone longer than a week or two since I started drinking. I've thought about going to a 30 day detox plan and stuff like that but I just don't have the time with all of my responsibilities that I'm juggling.  I wonder if anyone else is having the same battle him what you did to get past it. I have gone to meetings and I have read all sorts of books like Alan Carr is how to control alcohol and other books on addiction but still having a difficult time. Thanks everyone and I look forward to participating in these awesome forums.

[Sarah Marie]

I also used to struggle with addiction issues (drugs, co-dependency, etc.). I noticed how you mentioned genetics and environmental factors as the main reason for your addiction. However, if you are able to dig deeper I am sure you will find the real source of the addiction. For me, it was past traumas which once I worked through with a therapist I was able to move on. Although I also had genetics and environmental factors, it was important for me to take responsibility for myself and my actions. I highly suggest getting to a psychologist, there were problems I didn't even know I had she was able to help me with. Forever I was frustrated with why I couldn't just stop and I seemed to be replacing one addiction with another all equally unhealthy. Once she educated me and helped me work through them, I felt so free. Good luck to you. 

[Michele339]

On 13-2-2016 at 1:17 AM, Thirdeye said:

I have gone to meetings and I have read all sorts of books like Alan Carr is how to control alcohol and other books on addiction but still having a difficult time.

Hello Thirdeye,

I know exactly how you feel, I have been there myself for many many years. I am an alcoholic myself, but I am sober for quite a while now. I haven’t touched a drink for over ten years.

Before I tell you my story about how I concord my alcohol addiction, I would first like to ask you these following questions:

Those meetings were organized by whom?

What is/are the reason(s) you quit going to these meetings?

What where you searching for in those books, and have you found it?

Please take your time to think about your answers to these questions before writing them down.

Talk to you later! 

[Eli]

@Thirdeye 

Hey I was a chain smoker about two years ago and I can tell you exactly what stopped my addiction once and for all. Here's the thing I used to smoke a lot but to the point I started having breathing issues and I was only 19! And so after a year of attempting to stop it I came up with a super solid plan that changed everything for me.

So basically what I did was reading a bunch of books and material on how habits work and are formed. Good or bad habits it doesn't matter they're all formed by us and we create them.

After reading these books I Realized that the more you do something the harder it is to stop doing it and vice versa, if you never did something it's just as hard to start doing that thing.

So here's the key: I didn't smoke for 5 days straight Monday through Friday and on the weekend I allowed myself to smoke AS MUCH as I wanted with no restrictions and trust me I tried everything reducing the number of cigarettes, smoking only at night etc... Nothing worked.

And so by only smoking on the weekends what started to happen is that I started looking forward for these weekends to smoke it was so obsessive that I almost didn't live during the weekdays all I could do is think about how the weekend was going to be. 

You do this for 3 weeks and trust me you're not going to want to wait for that weekend anymore, you're going to be sick of it and slowly start living life and forgetting about the weekend.

I did this for 7 weeks exactly and on the 8th week I completely forgot to smoke on the weekend. And then I was like wow I can't believe I didn't smoke even though I totally could! If I could live for a week without doing it then it simply means that I can do this forever and since then I never smoked again.

Another thing that helped was just looking at myself smoking and being very mindful of how disgusting that was and how little I was to wait so eagerly for that moment and actually seing myself doing it because what happens is that I was very unconscious of what I was doing. 

[Eli]

CAUTION ⚠ 

@Thirdeye

I think that the reason this works so well is that it changes the balance, like right now what you're doing is drinking, well because you're doing that for maybe 7 days a week then it's easier to so an 8th one and a 9th one etc... But by not doing the behavior for 5 days and then doing it 2 days and jumping right back to not doing it. What you're doing here is creating more time you don't do it when you're doing something else. And that's what actually breaks the habit and replaces it with something else just make sure you don't replace it with another addiction such as video games, sex, food, watching TV, videos on the YouTube etc... You just got rid of it don't fall into something else! 

 

[Kelley White]

I watched an awesome video yesterday from Robbins Madanes Training about addiction.  The individual working with Tony Robbins was addicted to food; but you can use the premise for any addictive behavior you want to address:

Certainty

Variety

Significance

Love and Connection

Growth

Contribution

Which of the six do you feel you need the most?  How does your addiction feed the six needs on the list?  Perception versus reality? Does your addiction really bring you the thing on the list you are seeking or does it actually prevent you from attain the very thing that you are seeking?

It was a powerful video and a powerful technique he used.   Its copyrighted material so I cannot share it here, but I thought you might find the idea helpful to contemplate.