Addiction

Day 68 / 366

I have an addictive personality. What that means is I get addicted to things or behaviors very easily. I have recognized this about myself as I have grown older, and I manage it a bit better now. I even try to use it to my advantage whenever I can, by making myself addicted to the right things.

People can get addicted to a lot of different things, not just substances, but the symptoms are more or less the same. You find something that gives you pleasure which is short-lived but instantaneous. And you know that it is bad for you in the long run. But you still indulge in it. You keep telling yourself lies to convince yourself that it's all under control. You can stop whenever you want.

The only way to get rid of an addiction is just to quit completely. I am telling you from experience that the strategy of slowly trying to remove something from your life never works. I have seen so many of my friends try and quit smoking this way. That they will reduce it to 1 cigarette a day, or they would only smoke when they have company or whatever. As long as they keep that door open, the addiction will crawl back in and assume its full form as soon as the opportunity comes.

As difficult as it must seem, you need to tell yourself that this momentary happiness is not worth the damage this addiction is doing to your life. You need to decide to quit, and you need to stick to it. There cannot be any cheat days, and there will never be a point when you would be ready to go back to that thing without being addicted. If you ever give in to it, you will fall into the same pattern and end up where you started.

This happens a lot with alcoholics. They would join a rehab or a 12-step program to quit drinking, and a lot of them manage to stay sober for years and years. But when they do go back, they soon go back to being alcoholics. Watch this interview by David Bowie -

Rober Downey Jr., best known for his role as Iron Man used to be severely addicted to Heroine in his 20s. His addiction even led to him spending a year in prison. His wife left him, taking his son with her. What helped him in the end was deciding to just quit completely. A strange event triggered the decision, as it usually happens. During that time He had also gotten addicted to eating fast food, especially Burger King. And one night while eating a burger with a large soda, he had this realization that he had hit rock bottom.

“I have to thank Burger King, It was such a disgusting burger I ordered,” recalled Downey adding, “I had that, and this big soda, and I thought something really bad was going to happen.”

He then went and threw all the drugs that he had into the ocean and decided to get sober.

That is the only way. You need to quit 100%. Nothing less.