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Other Addictions and Smoking.
Society views, beliefs, and opinions on how people with certain addictions should manage to break free or get away from them are not entirely accurate. As I repeated in this cessation book series
For me there are not good habits or bad addictions, there are only bad cravings. There are good habits and bad habits I give you that.
A different kind of Addiction
During my studies in Greece except for the smoking addiction I managed to get another addiction namely StarCraft
I always played with the Terrans. You could play against the computer, or you could play with another human.
At first, I was playing against the computer, but it took me a short time to figure out the strategy algorithm it was using and I was winning all the time. The result was that I kind of lost interest. After that and while talking with another friend of mine who also played starcraft he told me that you could play other people, that was it, the phone line was always busy for months after that little information.
My life for about 6 months was revolving around Starcraft games I was of course addicted. I would eat and drink in front of the computer in case my opponent decides to make a sudden move or a surprise attack. If it weren’t for the pause function I would probably move the computer in the toilet, yes that’s how addicted I was.
My room was always dark even during the day, I install curtains that blocked sunlight completely, so the only source of light would be my computer monitor, it helped me focus more.
It was when I noticed that people were starting to complain that I miss meeting with them or didn’t give them much attention that I realized that hey something is really wrong with me, this thing I was doing this computer game addiction is not good for me.
Just do it! Go Cold Turkey.
So what I did was that I just stop playing, the first few days it was so hard when I was sitting in front of the PC to do something else, my hands would automatically try to hit the Starcraft shortcut icon on the screen. My next move was to uninstall the program, and that made things a bit easier, but it took me a while until I stop thinking of playing Starcraft all the time.
Some will argue that being addicted to a computer game and smoking is not the same, well I disagree, see my 6-month addiction with start craft and the way I managed to break free has a lot in common with quitting smoking and the way I quit smoking.
Stopping playing Starcraft was done cold turkey, that subconsciously let me to the path of using similar tactics with quitting smoking. Uninstalling the program from the computer was like throwing away everything that had anything to do with tobacco use, cigarette packs, lighters, ashtrays, etc.
Some friends of mine gave me attitude after I stopped because they lost a playing partner, the same thing happens with smoking too, people that I used to smoke with complained that I was not their friend anymore and did not hang with them in their deadly smoking sessions!
Addiction Similarities
There are so many other similarities, but you got the picture, what I want to address though is the fact that people that had previous addictions more or less, like Alcoholic Anonymous, use a 12 step method which is, in a nutshell, cold turkey approach. Basically, it tells them to stay away from the substance that makes you have the addiction.
So people that managed to get rid an addiction quitting smoking for them come let’s say easier because they realize better, quicker and see the end result more coherent because they have the experience of the past quitting addictions.
For example, people that stop drinking have a better understanding of how to stop smoking because they were satisfied with the way they quit drinking alcohol. They are more aware that even one puff can take them back to full-blown smoking because they know that even a small sip of an alcoholic drink will bring them back to alcoholism!
The above article is an excerpt from my book series The Best Way To Stop Smoking Permanently
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