Here to end the idea of addiction once and for all. I remember the following monologue as if it were yesterday. This monologue was just another example of people being able to connect the dots but somehow still being able to end up with the wrong picture.
It went as follows. “My family member is very unhappy in her job. She hates it that much that she started drinking. She is basically drinking to get rid of her unhappiness. She’s been doing it for a long time now. She is addicted.”
Break the story down and you basically can figure out why she needs more and more alcohol. She is unhappy and uses alcohol to feel better. But what doesn’t change? The situation she is in. If anything, drinking a lot of alcohol will probably make it worse. So when it gets worse, she becomes unhappier and as a result she’ll drink more.
Or worst case, pick a stronger substance because the alcohol isn’t doing it’s job anymore.
What people refer to as addiction is a really bad habit that runs on auto pilot. It’s a pattern that can be broken once you’re aware of it.
For this person it goes as follows.
- The person feels unhappy
- drinks to feel better
- has a fake feeling of happiness so thinks it works
- comes back to reality and goes back to number 2. In case their life gets worse, the consumption increases.
The idea of addiction isn’t doing you any favors.
Well believing in the idea of addiction isn’t doing you any favors. Because according to this idea people need their substance to function or to be alive. If you’ve ever watched addicts, you’ll quickly see they need it in certain situations. Not a 100% of the time.
The idea of addiction is taking away the idea of free will. If you believe in this idea, it becomes very hard to overcome since people are turned into victims. All powerless when they face this mighty substance.
The reality is that they choose to abuse this substance, chose to stay in the same situation, and chose to keep abusing the substance. All of it is a choice, yet no one is willing to point this out.
So what would the better option be?
The better choice would have been to fix their current situation either by improving it or leaving. But staying in a shitty situation doesn’t do anyone favors.
But that is the part they leave out of the equation. Most people rather go broke rather than taking responsibility.
So they take away the responsibility of peoples own actions. And so they create the ultimate victim mentality.
It doesn’t work at all. But what do we do when something doesn’t work?
Well, we keep repeating it because there’s a lot of money to be made from ignorant people.
Enter J. The golden boy without a future.
Back in 2014, I did an internship while being in college. For 6 weeks I was going to work with kids with behavioral/drugs/alcohol problems. Most of the kids in the beginning were actually rather easy to work with. But after 2 weeks the legendary J. returned.
He was a special case, the others didn’t understand how he ended up at this point. His mom was rich, had a good business and his mom gave him everything he wanted. He got send to the best school and even had amazing grades at one point. He basically had everything but he somehow he ended up stealing and doing cocaine at the age of 16.
I worked with him for 2 weeks and after that, he got send to a youth prison. Nobody could handle him. My co- workers were blaming the cocaine. They claimed that without the cocaine he would’ve been fine. But would he really have been fine?
I’d say no because I know what really caused the issues. They were right in front of our noses but none of us saw it at that time.
The reality of the golden boy.
What if focusing so much on the cocaine took away the attention from what really mattered? Because like one of the employees said, he did have everything. But did he really? He had a lot of stuff. But aside from that…. not that much.
Let’s take a look at what was left out of the story. His parents divorced when he was rather young and his father abandoned them. His mom had her own business but also only spend time working for the business. Because she was working a lot, she just bought him stuff to keep him busy.
It was almost like she didn’t care she had a son. At first, he was just being naughty (an obvious cry for attention) but later on it got wildly out of hand.
He got caught stealing in a grocery the day of a parent meeting. He wanted to be caught, it was so obvious. The only issue was that his mom cancelled last minute, as per usual, so she didn’t hear any of his “achievements”.
Overtime he fell into the bad habit of stealing and doing cocaine which made him end up in prison. Once he got out of prison due to good behavior, he went back home but eventually his mom kicked him out.
Last thing I ever heard was that he was living in a park at the age of 16 while drunk 24/7.
This guy never wanted to abuse any substance. He just wanted his mom’s attention/love. Something she couldn’t give him since he was to occupied with her business. And he was too young to give this a proper place in his life. So he created a lot of bad habits that ruined his life.
You’d be surprised how many stories go like this. The environment and how we deal with it has a huge influence on our lives. It’s just not talked about enough.
But what about… the rats?
Someone once asked me on twitter why all the rats in the studies got addicted to cocaine. When I thought about this question, it made total sense.
You have the rats living in captivity and they are forced to consume cocaine. That’s all there is to their life. If you’d do the same experiment with humans, the results would be similar.
Not because they are really creating an addiction, but purely because they are living a miserable existence. Getting forced to get high is probably the highlight of their otherwise miserable existence.
Now take a wild guess why someone would snort cocaine after working in a cubicle for years?
It’s not that hard to figure out.
They call it the rat race for a reason.
But what about…?
Gaming addiction? A bad habit of dealing with insecurity. They hide in a virtual world where they can keep trying over and over again. Games give you a false sense of achievement. You achieve nothing real. It’s a very delusional way of living since they can be the king in the virtual world but someone with zero achievements in real life.
Alcohol addiction? A bad habit of dealing with unhappiness.
Cigarette addiction? A bad habit of dealing with stress. Look at any bartender on a stressful day. That 1 minute smoking break is a way for them to catch a breath. Others just created the habit of smoking in social circles.
Gateway drugs? Once people create the bad habit of abusing a substance they never change the situation which makes them miserable in the first place. So by never facing it, they just make things worse. Once their original substance doesn’t do the trick anymore they’ll grab something stronger to deal with the issue.
You can take any “addiction” and figure out WHY people have created this bad habit. They’d even tell you if you’d ask them. Most people know why they do it, they just don’t change the habit.
Simply because they have no clue it’s a habit. It all runs on autopilot and they only to stop that is becoming aware of what triggers you.
A porn detox course
On Valentines day 2022, I released my porn detox course. Back then, I said that my method was universal. You could basically apply it to any “addiction” and fix it. I gave now most of it away in this substack.
For people that are still interested in working with me you can join now by clicking this link.
I solve this issue easily.
Until next time
Alex
