I’ve been drinking for the past 5 years and have been going through the sober/relapse cycle for the past 2 years. If you’ve been in this cycle before, you know the living hell we’ve both had to go through.
It was completely unsustainable and I searched everywhere for ways to break free from the cycle.
Today, I’m 14 days sober and going strong. I’ve achieved sobriety using 2 key systems.
The first system is meditation and development of awareness. Daily meditation practice will raise your levels of consciousness and shed new light into your addiction.
This has been a monumental keystone habit that’s helped me get sober. (See Actualized.org on YouTube – look at any of his meditation videos to learn how to easily start your own meditation practice).
And this leads to the second system: habit overhaul. Awareness is necessary to shed light into your habit cues, routines, and rewards.
By learning the cues that cause you to (insert addiction here), you can then experiment and change your routine, while giving yourself a similar reward.
For example, one of my drinking cues is listening to rap music. Whenever I listen to rap (cue), I get an intense alcohol craving. I drive to the liquor store (routine) to get my fix (reward). You must experiment to understand what the reward really is (rarely is it ever the drink/drug).
My reward for drinking was less worry, food, and socialization. I fixed this by changing my routine (after I was cued) to meditating, eating an energy bar, or going to a friend’s house (rewards).
Overtime, you can actually rewire your brain to overhaul your old bad habits and replace them with new good ones. See The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg for a more complete understanding of your own habits.
I hope this post has helped you gain more awareness into your addiction and given you practical steps to overcome it.
If this advice has helped you, please leave a comment and let’s start a conversation.
Thanks for reading! Much love – Wes.