How to break an addiction.

What is an addiction? Addiction in simple language is a 'toxic habit' that can destroy someone's mental, social, physical, and emotional health and even result in death. How to break an addiction? It is a very hard and long-term process to break an addiction. It takes time and real determination. But the real process is very different from what you might think. Let's dive right into it.

First, let me clarify that you will fail hundreds of thousands of times before you break your addiction. Failure is inevitable. Nobody in this world has ever destroyed their addiction in one try. It's impossible to do that. If you have an addiction, and you want to come out of it, you have already taken the first step. Most people don't even think about breaking their addiction. So, the ones who dare to tell themselves that they want to break their addiction already passed the first stage. 

Let's see the steps or the ways by which you can break your addiction - alcohol, drugs, or even social media. I'm gonna focus more on social media addiction as it is a very common disease in today's world and I experienced it myself too.  

1. Medicine won't help.

Dean Taraborelli was a drug addict for 7 years straight in his twenties. He was taking drugs and nobody can ever tell what is going on with him. He couldn't even know and many years of his life were wasted because of his addiction.

When he decided to get rid of his toxic addiction, he went to many doctors and hospitals and even traveled to many countries to find the solution to his problem. But what he found was that nothing ever worked. I mean no medicine was able to cure his addiction. Not only his but all of the people there suffering from this addiction. 

Medicine can help you if your addiction is not at a high level. But curing addiction with the help of medicine can help only when you don't stop taking medicine. The day you stop taking medicine, you can again go back to your addiction. Don't depend on medicine to cure your disease of addiction.

2. Identify your triggers.

Addiction is directly related to triggers that stimulate your brain to go back to your addiction. When you face a trigger, your mind loses control over your body. If you put a bottle of alcohol in front of an alcoholic who is trying his best not to drink for the last 2 hours, he will lose control and take a sip (literally, drink the whole bottle in a sip).

 

This example best defines social media addiction. When you are addicted to any social media platform, you will switch your phone on and click on that icon for no reason out of a habit. I think you can relate to this. It happened to me too. By the way, social media algorithm works in a way that keeps you engaged. 

You need to identify your triggers. You need to find, what is the trigger which stimulates your brain to go back to your addiction and you need to change them or destroy them. If you can identify what the triggers are, your next move should be to avoid them.

3. Stop running and start living.

To break your addiction, you need to understand why and how did you develop this addiction. See, why are you addicted to social media is because you use it as a means to escape real life. You have some work to do, which is hard and needs some effort. You feel lazy and don't want to put in the effort. So, what is the easy route? Yes, take the phone, switch it on, start the social media platform you love to waste time on, and escape reality. You do this over and over again, and this is what results in the development of the addiction.

You need to stop escaping real life. Take up some valuable work and put your time into it. Make the long-term pleasure of accomplishing a task greater than the short-term pleasure that comes from chasing highs and escaping reality. 

4. Replace your habits.

When I was addicted to social media, I did not have any other habits to work on. All I had was studies which I hated and again, that resulted in escapism and going back to social media and scrolling unnecessary stuff and releasing a lot of dopamine.

What you have to do is make better habits. See, you are doing the stuff you are addicted to because you don't have anything more important to do. So, go and do the stuff you love to do, the stuff you are curious about, which makes you feel good, not bad. And when you create new habits, spend your time doing that stuff. 

Your habits will keep you busy and not let you feel bored. We often do unnecessary stuff when we feel fucking bored, depressed, or upset.

5. Forget about it.

The next step is based on something known as 'reverse psychology'. If you really want to get rid of your addiction, you need to first forget about it. You need to even forget about breaking your addiction. See, if you are bombarding yourself with the thoughts of getting rid of your addiction all the time, it is not gonna work. Don't remind yourself again and again about your addiction because it can cause you to go back and experience that pleasure again. 

Just don't think about it. Don't give it importance. Don't let it control you. Take charge of your thoughts. Stay busy with the habits that make you feel good about yourself and you will eventually pass your time without your addiction and you will not even recognize it. Be like Mr. Bean, happy and always laughing.

So, here we go. These were the 5 steps to overcoming an addiction. Maybe, you say I'm talking bullshit and don't want to follow my advice. Not my problem. I can be wrong too because I'm not an expert but I shared my own experience with you. Definitely, some addictions may not be broken by only these steps and some help is needed.

Thank you for reading my article. If you like it then go on and share it. It may help someone in need. And obviously, I will get some more views. Jokes apart, thank you for your time and I hope you got some sort of value from my article. Check our blog for more valuable articles.

Also, read about how to stop caring about what others think of you by clicking here.

Read my article about how to build self-confidence which is an ultimate guide helping you to build self-confidence with psychological concepts. 

If you are an overthinker, read this article on how to stop overthinking, click here.

Thank you for reading again and now you can get lost!