Addiction isn’t about discipline. If you can just will your way out of it, it hadn’t gotten as far as addiction yet.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t require great will to break addiction and start recovery, it does.
I’m saying that addiction is not a mental issue. It is very much a physical one, a neurological one.
Now, some addictions are less severe in withdrawal than others, but quitting an addiction isn’t the same as treating it or overcoming it. It’s staying free of it that’s the important part.
When your brain has gotten shifted to rely on an external thing to function normally, you don’t just grunt hard and tough it out, and then one day it’s gone and you never look back. Even the easy stuff to quit isn’t that easy.
You have to address the issues that led to addiction, you have to retrain your brain to a new state, and you have to change your life to avoid the things that lead to chasing the addition.
Most of that isn’t a solo job.
The part that is willpower, discipline, is in sticking to your program. When something comes up that would push you towards the addiction, you have to apply discipline to keep you going until you can access the kind of support that really works to process that event so it happens less.
Nobody is going to have the exact same motivation. It might be your kids, your dog, your dick, a religion, whatever. But finding the stuff that you can hold onto while you’re struggling helps. Find that “golden ticket” that when the addiction is pulling at you, you want that other thing more.
Addiction isn’t about discipline. If you can just will your way out of it, it hadn’t gotten as far as addiction yet.
I’m not saying that it doesn’t require great will to break addiction and start recovery, it does.
I’m saying that addiction is not a mental issue. It is very much a physical one, a neurological one.
Now, some addictions are less severe in withdrawal than others, but quitting an addiction isn’t the same as treating it or overcoming it. It’s staying free of it that’s the important part.
When your brain has gotten shifted to rely on an external thing to function normally, you don’t just grunt hard and tough it out, and then one day it’s gone and you never look back. Even the easy stuff to quit isn’t that easy.
You have to address the issues that led to addiction, you have to retrain your brain to a new state, and you have to change your life to avoid the things that lead to chasing the addition.
Most of that isn’t a solo job.
The part that is willpower, discipline, is in sticking to your program. When something comes up that would push you towards the addiction, you have to apply discipline to keep you going until you can access the kind of support that really works to process that event so it happens less.
Nobody is going to have the exact same motivation. It might be your kids, your dog, your dick, a religion, whatever. But finding the stuff that you can hold onto while you’re struggling helps. Find that “golden ticket” that when the addiction is pulling at you, you want that other thing more.