The Chronicles of a Partially Sane Average Man Episode 2: "Breaking Free" My top 5 tips for coping with addiction

Picture this you are sitting alone in your small apartment, reflecting over the day you just had at acting school. Your classmates went off at Lunch by themselves not inviting you, all your online business ventures that you started 6 months ago are not showing any financial results, none of your classmates wanted to work with you for scenes you were doing, you had just received a message from your boss yelling at you for a mistake you made on the weekend and the girl you have been obsessed with since the start of the school year was purposely avoiding you. You are sitting in the dark feeling horrible and having a major depressive episode and are contemplating suicide. You make a decision to try and cheer yourself up by going down to your local pub, have a drink and try your luck on the Pokies (gambling machines for those who do not know). You end up winning the major jackpot of $300 and are feeling better. You then decide to go purchase with your new winnings a $65 dollar bottle of Whisky and buy a pack of Cigarettes. You come back home and start drinking, smoking and watching your favorite TV show 'Friends'. You drink half the bottle and are drunk out of your mind, whilst also being effected by the Tobacco in your system. You are feeling great, better than you have ever been before as you laugh like a madman and vicariously live through the characters Ross and Rachel as they reach the conclusion of their relationship arc. You are so happy because you have been alone your whole life and have never had a girlfriend. Then you turn the TV off, go to bed, watch some porn and wake up the next day feeling horrible. After another bad day of failures and loneliness you get home and think to yourself well I am feeling bad again why don't I repeat the process from last night? so you do. All of a sudden 4 months has gone by and that cycle from before has become an everyday thing and even though it is still giving you joy, it is also simultaneously messing up your life. But you are in to deep now and have become dependent on it for your happiness even though it is only making your life worse in the long run, you can't escape. you can't stop and you life is not improving so what can you do? well just continue as usual and hope things will get better...

Phew sorry for that being long, but that was a story from my past that I thought would be a great way to introduce my topic addiction. I have struggled with addiction all my life but it was at it's worst when I was living alone, in another city, in a solo apartment. Whilst I was grateful to have my own space living like that gets very lonely. Which is only made worse when you been a single, virgin your whole life. In the early stages of your life, being a single virgin does not really effect you as you still have hope that things will one day change, but when that time period is spread out over a decade it eventually gets to you, especially when it is not from a lack of trying. That loneliness causes great emotional pain and eventually causes you to search for any release you can from that pain. This is unfortunately when you turn to addictions, as they give you a break from that pain and in fact even make the pain go away. All of a sudden you go from using them every now and then to being addicted, using them everyday to cope.

What makes it worse is that a lot of the time you wont even think they are a problem and you will start accepting them in your mind stopping your from seeing the harm that they are doing. Whether it is Alcohol, Tobacco, Weed, Other Drugs, Porn, Gambling, Gaming, Movies, whatever the addiction may be they all seem great at the time but have long lasting damaging effects in the long run. An addict may also be addicted to more than one of these and therefore are receiving the bad effects of multiple things at the same time. I myself was addicted to Porn, Gambling, Tobacco and Alcohol all at the same time meaning I was damaging myself with multiple things. The worst part about addiction is that and addict usually does not see him or herself having a problem as in their world it is helping them, making it impossible for them to realize the issues they are causing themselves. This can get even worse as well, because if the addict stops caring about the bad consequences with phrases like "if it kills me then it is what it is" these addictions can go from bad physical consequences to potentially life threatening ones. This is why overcoming addiction is one of the most important things to do if you want a happy and healthy life. It can be near impossible to break this cycle and even I am still struggling to break my bad habits to this day but I have made major improvements and managed to cutout many of the addictions I did have, which is definitely providing me with a better life. In this post I will discuss the things I have done to overcome my addictions and progress forward with my life. Just a quick note

I AM NOT SUGGESTING THAT THESE FIXES ARE REPLACEMENTS FOR PROFESSIONAL HELP!!! I am no medical professional and I would highly recommend if you have serious addiction issues to see a licensed health professional. This is just a documentation of my experience and how I myself have been able to change my life. So please take everything I say with a grain of salt.

With that said I do hope this blog post can maybe be of help to some people and can also offer the idea that you are not alone and I to deal with this on a daily basis. So without further ado here are my top 5 methods that I have used to help navigate my addiction cycle and build myself a better life....

1. Stop Lying To Yourself

The first stage of breaking the addiction cycle is the most important stage. In short 'stop lying to yourself' means that first in order to solve a problem you need to first acknowledge that you have a problem, only then can you start the recovery process. Many people could tell you about your problem but unless you realize that yourself you will never try to heal. My father is an Alcoholic and even though he keeps telling me that he is going to quit drinking he never does and this is because he has failed at this first stage. He does not believe he has a problem and expresses that openly with phrases like "I have not drunken that much tonight" or "I will stop after tonight I promise" or he simply just denies he drinks too much. Even though my family and I have told him many times of the impacts that it is having on us, he still refuses to admit that he has a problem and therefore never tries to get better. In conclusion this first stage is crucial because it is only at the admittance of you having a problem and realizing its negative effects that can eventually lead to recovery so if you are addicted to something, find a mirror, look yourself deep in the eye and say I have a addiction problem. Only then can you start the next few stages of recovery.

2. Smaller Doses Save the Roses

Now that we have admitted that we have a problem and have made the conscious decision to change, we can start trying to break the addiction cycle and the first way I used was by decreasing dosages. You know when you go to the doctor and they give you medication to take to solve a physical problem, then as the problem starts getting better you decrease the dosage of the medication until the issue i gone. Well believe or not that principle can also be used to try and stop your addictions. Very few people are able to just go 'cold turkey' on an addiction and stop doing it as soon as they realize they have a problem. Whilst there are people like me who can do that the majority of addicts can't, if they try they just continue to relapse until they eventually give up. Well fortunately for you who struggle with self discipline there is a solution and that is by decreasing the dosages gradually over time and living with the short term consequences of that period. Whilst it will be extremely hard at first eventually you will learn to fight your urges and stick to your small dose amounts until you finally quit your addiction. For example if you are a gambling addict try, taking no more than a 20 dollar note to the Pokies without your wallet or cellphone or anything that can give you access to more money. Then start only going 6 days a week instead of 7 then 5 days, then 4, then 3 you get the idea. If you are a heavy smoker instead of cutting cigarettes off completely try smoking only 1 less cigarette each day, until you get to the point where you stop. If you are an alcoholic try decreasing the amount you drink by having one less than you usually would and keep decreasing until you have stopped. By decreasing doses you will be able to still give your body the substance and avoid harsh withdrawal symptoms. Whilst also slowly weening yourself off it until you no longer need it. This is hard to achieve but a good starting point for those who don't want to fully give up just yet. However if this is proving too difficult to do then my other tips may work better so keep scrolling.

3. I'll Have a Sparkling Water Please

If slowly weening yourself off the addiction is still too difficult then you might be able to try my next tip which is find an alternative. There is a alternative healthier option to most addictions that you may have. If you need a strong tasting drink to replace your alcohol then try sparkling water, if you want to stop your porn addiction try watching an actual movie instead, if you want to stop gambling there are many other hobbies you can spend time doing instead sports are a great one, if you want to stop smoking then find another relaxing behavior like purchasing and using a fidget spinner, if you are looking to get high on drugs buy some permanent markers and sniff constantly. Okay maybe that last one is a little farfetched as there really is no alternative to getting high the only real way to counter that is to stop getting high and try get high on life instead, but hey 4 out of 5 not bad aye. Anyways by finding alternative things you can use to replace your addictions may be able to help you stop them, I myself always have bottles of sparkling water in the house just in case I get the craving for a strong tasting drink. If you can learn to use healthier alternatives for your addictions it may help you no longer require the real thing, but if this also does not work then we still have two to go which takes us to.....

4. Get Out Of My House

The next tip is don't have any of the substance in your home because if it isn't there then you wont go looking for it. One of the best ways I have stopped my addictions is by simply not having it in my house. I do not buy bottles of alcohol, I do not buy packets of cigarettes and I do not allow myself to go down to the pub every night and gamble money away. When there is easy access to a substance within your home you will be more inclined to use it more, as even if you don't necessarily need it on that day you may find yourself using it just because you can. If you come home after a long day and slump into your couch exhausted you will more likely desire to just stay in your home that night. meaning that you may be too lazy to go out and purchase your addictive substance, due to the extra effort required to attain it. However if you have it in the house you will not need to move anywhere except to the location you put it. So by not having it in your home your chances of going without it simply due to laziness is higher therefore making the process to break your addiction cycle easier. But if none of these tips have worked for you so far have no fear we still have one more to go, however be warned as this next one might be a little bit controversial.

5. Build an Addiction to Break an Addiction

BUT WAIT HANG ON DAUKING I THOUGHT YOU SAID YOU WERE TRYING TO HELP US BREAK ADDICTIONS NOT MAKE MORE YOU LIARRRR!!! I know, I know random person online just hear me out please. If you think that by this I mean start smoking to cure alcoholism or start gambling to stop watching porn you would be getting the entire wrong message. When I say build an addiction I mean a healthy addiction, one that betters your life instead of destroying it. Things like going to the gym after work to stop yourself gambling, or start an online business to take up more of your time so you no longer have time to watch porn, or make yourself so busy each week that you simply don't have the time to get high, or smoke or drink. Look I am not saying don't enjoy your life and working this hard on other things will in time become bad for you as well. But I am only saying to do this until you no longer need your addictions anymore then you can relax and enjoy your life without messing it up further. These things will also improve other aspects of your life as well like your health, appearance, financial situation and various other benefits as well. By becoming addicted to other things in your life that are actually causing you to grow as a person, it should hopefully replace the self destructive addictions you already have and fix your life in the long run. Whilst having addictions of any sort will always become harmful over time, by temporarily losing yourself in other things you will be able to interrupt your current addiction cycle. Then eventually when you have left your old addictions behind and feel you no longer need them you can start relaxing in your better life that you have created for yourself. But if you are stressing yourself out worried that none of these tips have worked for you, relax I have one more bonus tip that may be the answer to your problem. However this one may be a little silly for most of you but screw it I will tell you anyways.

Bonus tip: The Lord is My Shepherd Let Him Lead You

No No No this is no joke my final tip is actually seek god. Okay I am not saying that by asking god everyday to cure your addiction is going to cure your addiction, that is silly but what I actually mean by this goes a lot deeper. Going back to my personal example at the start of this post I said that I started my addiction cycle due to feeling extremely helpless and lonely. I believed that I was never going to find a romantic partner and that I was going to be alone forever. That belief brought me great pain and lead to seek relief for that pain, resulting in me doing things that were self destructive but felt good at the time. I have had a pretty bad start to this year with many things in my life falling apart at the exact same time I will not discuss that here today but in a later post so don't worry. In life there are many factors that can send us down a dark hole of negative emotions that can be harmful and a lot of the time these are factors that are out of our control. I cannot force a girl to love me but I can have faith that one will and then pray every night that it happens. That faith and belief that I have in the higher powers, has allowed me to let go of the coping mechanisms that kept me going last year and freed me from the addiction cycle. Because I believe that my life will work out and by leaving my faith in god/the universe it has enabled me to stop needing my addictions to support me. I have let go of the situation and kept living my life the way I want to which has lifted a huge weight of my shoulders. By putting your faith in a higher power, working on the things that you can control and letting go of the things you can't it frees you up to enjoy the small things in life, bringing you happiness and fulfillment. This has meant that I no longer need to use my addictions as a crutch to keep me standing and instead use my hope as the support I need to keep going. So my final tip for dealing with addiction is to write down all the things that you are stressed about, understand which factors are out of your control and which that are, then focus on fixing the factors you can control whilst handing off those that you cannot to a higher power with hope that they can fix that problem. By doing this you may be able to give your mind a rest and provide it with clarity on what you need to do, which hopefully means that in the long run you may no longer need to rely on addictions to pull you through. Still laughing at me, well I challenge you to just give it a try and see who knows you may find yourself more surprised then you ever have been before.

Look breaking the addiction cycle is most certainly not easy and I myself am still fighting to break certain addictions myself, but one thing you need to understand is that when it comes to addiction it is a marathon no a sprint. Even after you break the cycle initially the next battle is to maintain it, this will be a war that you will be fighting the rest of your life. But don't worry I promise you as time goes on it will become easier to maintain your healthier lifestyle it always does. So don't give up my friends I believe you can do it and that it will make you happier in the long run. But with all that said thank you all for reading this very long winded post I am going to sign off now, but always remember to dance like a chicken, live life to its fullest and have a very good night.

Dauking Out *salute