Are you sick and tired of your addiction? Smoking, adult content on the web, online gambling, alcohol, or others? If you tried to quit and didn’t succeed until now, you probably committed one of five typical mistakes. Here are five tips that you probably never thought about. Apply them as of today and you will get rid of your problem more quickly than you ever imagined.
1. Don’t stop overnight.
Did you try to stop your bad habit with New Year’s resolutions and similar approaches? ‘As of tomorrow I won’t … ‘? This won’t usually work. Your brain is used to your drug, whether it’s alcohol, chocolate, adult content, casinos, smoking or whatever. Your brain learned that it’s good for you. It won’t give up that behavior. Reduce your dose slowly instead. 10% every week. Allow your brain to get used to less. Set yourself a two-months-target. Then it won’t hurt. No cold turkey. 10% every week are small steps. You can take small steps. You will be successful. The more successful you are the more you will like it and the more you will keep on going.
2. Observe yourself.
Allow yourself to give in to your urges. Smoke, drink, watch, whatever it is that you want to give up. As you learned in step 1, you will slowly reduce your addiction. You won’t do it overnight. While you give in to your addictive behavior, watch yourself. Observe how you feel, what you do exactly, how it feels before and afterwards and while you do it. Make it become a more conscious behavior. It is harder to exaggerate in whatever you do when you have a sober mind. It will help you reduce your addiction further, by 10% every week.
3. Analyse your addiction.
A typical mistake most people make is that they only rely on their will power. There are reasons why you become an addict. Find the underlying reasons for your behavior. Go back to the times when you smoked, drank, watched adult content or gambled for the first time. Why did it you do it? Which pain did you want to heal? Why did it feel so good? Can you forgive people or forgive yourself for bad things that happened to you? Are there alternate sources of those feelings that you get when you take your drug? Can you define new goals in life for important areas such as partnership, job, hobbies, body and spirituality? Identify the triggers for your cravings. The more you analyze yourself, the more you release old pain and the more you strive for new horizons, the less often you will feel cravings.
4. Give up feelings of guilt and shame.
There are reasons why you did what you did. Stop feeling guilt and shame. The more you feel bad about yourself the more you want to kill those feelings with new addictive behavior. When you feel craving, tell yourself: I could do it now. Nobody said that it’s forbidden but do I really want to do this now? Don’t let it become compulsive. You have the choice whether to give in to the cravings or not. If you do, fine. You’ll be stronger next time. Be happy that you don’t give in every time now. Feel more positive about yourself. Be proud that you started a self-help approach. Get into a positive cycle.
5. Seek professional help.
You don’t need to lie on a couch and breaking your addiction may not always require a rehab center. However, there are good books, e-books, and audio programs to help you on the road to self-discovery as well as some excellent self-help programs. You may also want to connect with others struggling with your addiction, and there are some good forums on the internet for you to try. Just don’t do it all by yourself and try to benefit from the experience of others. Don’t forget, allow yourself two months to break free.
