Another way to overcome bad habits (and addiction)
This post was inspired by a post @xyzashu made , Smoking or Non-Veg. – What Should I Quit First? . I attempted to make it more casual than my Optimism at the End of the World Series, but I think I fell back into old habits at the end. I am still experimenting with this new style
Addiction is something that almost all of us deal with, not only in the form of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes, but also certain foods or drinks, certain unhealthy relationships, procrastination or mastubration (or procrastination by means of masturbation).
When I was a kid, I consumed an ungodly amount of sugar. My dad would buy those big bags of Chips Ahoy cookies, where there were about 60 cookies in each bag. I'd eat about 4 cookies per cup of milk, usually two cups of milk per sitting. I did that 2 or sometimes even 3 times a day. My father would yell at me but he kept buying the cookies.
On top of that, I drank soda with every meal away from my parents and sometimes ate those bags of sour patch kids which they sold at my school (how can you justify selling hat shit at school!). I would eat cake every chance I got and I liked friend food as well.
Somehow I didn't get fat.
When I got to university though, the cafeteria was basically a buffet and there was ice cream and cake and I could eat as much as I want and wanted to get lots of bang for my buck. I had the idea that healthy food cancelled out unhealthy food, and so I tried to eat an equal amount of both.
Somewhere along the line I realized that I was hurting myself and might end up with diabetes or other problems. I decided to quit all the junk.
I craved soda with every meal and cookies or cake afterwards. Without them I hadn't little enthusiasm for food and had a hard time concentrating. I wouldn't be able to study until I had my fix. Sometimes I'd force myself not to eat any snacks and I'd be in a bad mood for the rest of the day.
I finally managed to quit soda but it took years and was quickly replaced by a milk tea habit. I reduced the cookies but started drinking more alcohol and fried food. Somehow I always replaced one bad habit with another.
Fastforward a few years
I have a quarter life crises and start trying to live out my dreams, a process which requires a lot of introspection. I am forced to face my fears, a process which I could write an entire book about (which I basically have).
I forgot about fixing the bad habits. They just kind of went away.... but they didn't just "go away". They were expelled with the emotional baggage that I had cleared up. As I released the tension inside of me which had been built up by fear, negativity, self devaluation, cynicism, and he need to control. I just stopped craving a lot of the things that I felt I needed before.
I am still working on this but unlike the progress I made in the past, I no longer substitute one bad habit for another, and sometimes these bad habits fade away without my even noticing.
Addiction as a symptom
Try treating bad habits addiction as a sign of deeper issues. By doing so, you are inviting yourself to improve but also to heal from whatever pain you have been trough and its effect on your life. By healing his pain, not only will the addictions clear up, so will the negative emotions and contradictory programming that the addictions require to exist. When you become a master of your own emotions, addictions and bad habits don't stand much of a chance in the long run.
This doesn't mean you stop trying to quit whatever it is you want to quit. You can try to alleviate the symptoms of an illness while simultaneously trying to fix the root cause of the illness. So you can and should take active steps to quit but rather than putting a huge amount of pressure on yourself to quit, try releasing whatever pressure is pent up inside you and those addictions will begin to drift away.
This doesn't just apply to what we traditionally consider addiction. It doesn't matter if your behavior is considered normal, does it feel healthy to you? Does it reflect who you want to be?
If you need some help on how to face those fears and issues that invite addiction, feel free to come find me on discord.
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I'm amazed by the way you switched your habits. Deeper introspection will always lead us to our utmost inner-Self. When we realize that the cause of our contentment is not dependent on outside material things and that it can be controlled by understanding our core inner feelings, it certainly gets easier to do what we actually want to do with ourselves. Thanks for your insights which can be used to change our bad habits!
You hit on the main point. Yes, once we find that real contentment comes from within, nothing can control us any longer. Of course it's a long process most of the time but I think we are both making good progress. :-)
I think addictions are just apart of human nature. To a certain extent, everyone deals with some type of addiction whether it be sugar, sex, alcohol, smoking, exercise or whatever happens to help you cope with the struggles of life. I think the key to overcoming an addiction is just doing everything in moderation. Anything in copious amounts will be bad for you, even something that's supposedly very healthy for you like kale or raw vegetables.
In my opinion, I think you're on the right track by realizing some of your habits aren't healthy. I'll be the first to admit I smoke, I drink, I eat junk food but not more than a couple times a week. Am I an addict? Maybe. But I'm not engaging in unhealthy activities enough for them to interfere with my day to day life. You're on the right track though, don't forget to be kind to yourself :)
Enjoying something which may have a harmful effect or might be totally self indulgent is one thing, but when I say bad habit or addiction it refers to things that have some control over you. I still drink soda maybe once a month or less, and I don't feel any problem with it because I know I don't need it and it's never hanging over my head, I don't have to have any negative emotions associated with it such as guilt or worry about my health. I also know I'll indulge less and less.
I guess I used to be a bit of a perfectionist who never matched up to their own standards. Now I'm learning to be a really laid back perfectionist.
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Of course!
Here you got mentioned: https://steemit.com/ocd/@ocd/ocd-daily-issue-138
Thanks again!
I know what you mean. Self control over bad habits it tough to call on. Worst one I dealt with was smoking tobacco. Took years to finally quit and lots of attempts. Just got to keep trying.
I think of them like knots that I need to unravel, you cant just hit them head on sometimes