There is No End to Your Addiction Other Than Today
Addiction is like a hole; the more you dig, the harder it will be for you to get out.
We all wanted to change our lives and put an end to our bad habits.
We have planned before and decided that “I don’t want to do this again” because of some bad habits that we have.
We might be dragged by those bad habits, and now we have already dug deep into our own hole, the hole of addiction.
The hole of addiction is where I am right now, too. I can scroll on social media for hours and even not take a pee until I can get out of my phone. Sometimes I doom scrolling until my battery phone is empty, and then I start to do my chores. I avoid my daily goals because of social media and procrastinate most of the time. This actually is an addiction for me, which means scrolling and consuming high dopamine activity.
It’s not wrong in the first place to scroll on social media and enjoy my break time.
The problem is when I can’t stop and avoid the work that I need to do. The more I scroll, the harder it is to get out of my phone.
The harder I get away from my phone, the more I will end up procrastinating on all my work. The more I procrastinate, the more work I need to do.
This is like digging a hole for myself, which ends up burying myself if I don’t start working.
Then I read a book from Dopamine Nation by Anna Lembke.
There’s a question that actually hits me and makes me think about all of my addictions.
The question is:
- Imagine yourself in 10 years and still doing your addiction. Do you still want to be like that?
- Imagine yourself in 5 years and still doing your addiction. Do you still want to be like that?
- Imagine yourself in one year and still doing your addiction. Do you still want to be like that?
My answer to all of those answers is no.
I don’t want to become an addicted person who scrolls on social media and procrastinates for the entire day for the next 10 years. Even in 5 years or even a year from now, I better start stopping my addiction right now because the more I flee, the harder the addiction will be to break.
This is where I decided to do a dopamine detox.
Dopamine Detox
I tried to remove all of my triggers and build a healthy environment to work and study.
I use an app blocker for YouTube, which I cannot uninstall because of my phone system. Even so, I uninstall my Instagram and other social media apps other than the messaging app. This way, I only focus on chatting with people that I need or someone that needs me.
It says that the first 2 weeks will be hard and will be much easier after 2 weeks. It’s because of our balance system that pleasure and pain are starting to balance themselves.
This way, we can enjoy simpler activities, which leads to happiness and pleasure.
The problem is that I don’t know what to do when I’m on my dopamine detox.
So, I decided to just go out and socialize with people if I wanted to and if I needed to. Then I call my family and talk with them for an hour. I sometimes buy foods that I want, but not too much because I want to avoid high-dopamine rewards from junk food.
So, the key here is that addiction can’t be waited on long enough in the future.
The longer you stay with your addiction, the harder it is to break it. I struggle with an addiction to cornography and social media, which leads me to relapse many times. The thing that I understand is that, once you are comfortable, it will be much harder for you to get out.
It’s okay if you’re already comfortable and decide to do a dopamine detox, but remember to make progress.
Focus on progress
The progress that you make doesn’t have to be perfect.
You can start by eliminating for 7 days, then 14 days, and then gradually increasing. For me, and as recommended by Anna Lembke, it takes 30 days, but after the first 14 days, you already feel much better afterwards.
This way, you will end your addiction and see the world from the other side.
Addiction is like a wall that holds you back from your own happiness and where you should belong. Once you can overcome that wall, you will see the world differently. You will start becoming more positive and happier than before.
Working hard and achieving your goals seem easy when you don’t have any bad habits.
What’s next after detox?
Having no bad habits doesn’t mean having no rewards or no pleasurable activity that you do.
We can still decide if we want to continue our own bad habits after 30 days of dopamine detox. This way, you can either enjoy your social media in a good way by not scrolling for hours or keep on detoxing.
When it comes to bad habits, I always decide not to do them again. Even if I need it, like Instagram, Youtube, etc., I still decide not to use it often. I may use it once for checking messages. For YouTube, I use it for watching podcasts or consuming content that helps me write more. This way, I can become more motivated to write and even to work.
At the end, start doing positive things and eliminate your bad habits.
Try it for 30 days and see what happens.
Don’t start tomorrow, but start now because there is no end to your addiction other than today.
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.”
— Mark Twain
New Substack! ✨
I was thinking about how to make my articles more structured and exclusive, which I found in Substack Newsletter.
I’ve made 2 substacks, which is
- Kevin Nokia Writing: My personal journey from struggling through depression to becoming a successful individual.
- I Am Literate: Learning how to become a reader and a writer from 0 to 1 and a community to build your reading and writing habits.
In the future, there will be more community and exclusive articles; come and join!
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