You must have only one addiction... Me! Therefore, follow my guide to succsesful recovery and you can rest assured this is not a bunch of third party bullet points, but something I lived in my late teens. Whenever I give you INSTRUCTION it is because of something I've studied or experienced in detail! 48 seconds after resolving to quit: Take control of your personal environment You know that moment in the movie when they lock down the safe and red lights start flashing and that enormous steel door slams shut. That's what you gotta do within seconds of quiting. Breaking an addiction is basically mounting a rebellion against every atom of your being i.e.... a period of acute neurological instability. During this time, the brain is primed to seek relief. Because of that, any added stress, responsibility, or environmental trigger significantly increases the risk of relapse. Including... Demanding Parents/kids/Spouse Tricky tasks like trying to fix stuff or mount IKEA furniture. Work commitments Needing to go out to buy food or supplies rather than already having them pre bought Noise, smells, chaotic environment dirt and disorder To conclude, immediately upon deciding to quit you must start organising everything so that from the first moment you have complete control of your environment. Create a womb, get supplies, cancel all commitments. 48 hours: Take control of your neuro chemistry Before we actually talk about active measures against neurochemical events, you should first of all educate yourself about everything that's going to be happening in your brain so that you don't misinterpret what's happening to you and don't freak out when it happens. For example, sometimes the initial hours can be a lot easier than you thought and you can get a kind of euphoria and get cocky, but then the next morning you have a crash and then you get depressed and then you think whole project is a load of ******** You'll think you're so unhappy and you just need to use. And you invent all these narratives in your head and then you end up using. Basically, you spin yourself a narrative about your life and your addiction and how you're feeling, know that there is only one narrative... NEUROCHEMISTRY! Dopamine activity had dropped Cortisol rises, increasing stress, urgency, irritability Glutamate increases which equals agitation. Of course, in the case of certain addictions you need active chemical measures: for example in the case of heavy alcohol users it's necessary to take Valium and not only will it be impossible to do if you don't have the value, but you could actually enter severe alcohol withdrawal which can lead to a number of arresting symptoms. Including death. To conclude: educate yourself about the neuro chemistry of what you're doing, and dose up if necessary on the prescribed meds. 48 days: Take control of your schedule There are basically two key components of your schedule which you need to manage. The first is about sensible avoidance of trigger events like Christmas with your family you could only deal with by getting drunk. Weddings. Work social events etc. You've got the rest of your life to learn to deal with these things without the addictive crutch, but in those first months it's best just to flat out avoid them. Eliminate all trigger events from your schedule. The second component of your schedule is to build a rewarding, healthy life with some clear avenues of pleasure. Keep some vices be they sugar or **** or whatever. go on an inner journey to discover what your true interests are and develop some passionate hobbies. If you need people but no longer know how to socialise without your addictive agent, then join a group like AA... Point is that your schedule must be arranged around the kind of life which is enjoyable. You can't give up your addiction and then basically be living an empty vessel of a life. If you do, you will fill that vessel with your addiction AKA relapse.
