If you do not work out your emotions and thoughts then you will return to your vices. I will focus on thoughts for a moment here since everything stems from them, including emotions. I was reading an interesting article today written by Jonathan Leger titled “Think low and you will stay low”. This article highlighted the importance of overcoming mental barriers before you can overcome physical one. If you were to do this in the opposite order you would just return to what you have not worked out in your heart and mind and the cycle would repeat itself.

So you want to know how to stop porn addiction or any addiction. Start believing in yourself first because there is nothing that you cannot overcome if you believe and persevere. This is the first step and is very necessary. Stop all the negative self talk and start building yourself up with positive thoughts that cause you to believe in yourself no matter how many mistakes you have made.

Yes the world can be stressful and often the news makes it more stressful than it really is.  Yet many of us choose to use the news as a true reference to how how life really is. Why am I talking about this on a sexual addiction  site? Well, addicts in general are usually looking for escape from reality as they know it. How you reference reality is up to you. Life is not as bad as the people trying to make money make it seem. Actually life is great and full of opportunities to experience joy and happiness. Yes there are upsets but the positives far outweigh those upsets. Remember, the news doesn’t make money by focusing on the positive. They make money focusing on the shocking negative things that captivate us. How in the world does this apply to porn addiction?

Which would you rather watch, a high speed police chase ending in a crash or a mayor talking about improvements in elderly care. You see its effortless to be attracted to the most stimulating and exciting thing that catches our attention. It takes work to  appreciate the finer things in life. So will you let he idle part of you win or will you expend some effort and focus on the positive.

When it comes to dealing with the stresses of life in a healthy way you really must exercise you freedom to choose. Meaning you choose what to let into you life and what not to allow to effect you. When you realize this control you have and actually use it to only focus on and allow positive things in your life influence you it is quite empowering. This does not mean nothing negative will happen. It does mean you will notice a “positive” difference in your life. Believe or not you are in control. Sometime, like all of us, you choose not to maintain control but instead  let the  world control you. There comes a time when you have to wake up and come to the realization that you are, in fact, in control.

When you relearn this personal control you are in a position to properly deal with the stresses of life instead of turning to addictive activities. The proper way is to be in control of your thoughts and attitude and let the negative things roll off your back like water off a duck, so to speak. With a good attitude, which you decide to have, you don’t sweat the small stuff. However, don’t let anyone, especially the media, steal you good attitude, because they will do anything and say anything to make money without care for your  personal well being.

I speak from experience on this one. Some days will seem easy. You’ll be able to easily resist temptation in a relaxed manner. These are the days you’ve desired to have for a long time, so when they come you feel relieved and happy. But you must remember that this will only be true on some days. Most days, all your life, will require work. They will require you to exert your physical and mental energies to stay clean. We must not be lured into thinking that we no longer have to work as hard as we did before. As long as you are on this earth there will be temptations.

I do no say these things to discourage but to prepare. You will get stronger with time and it will be easier to resist temptation. All I’m trying to say here is that there will rarely be a day that will not require you to work at staying clean. It takes constant and every day effort to maintain a clean happy life. Happiness will always require more work than the misery associated with bad choices.

So every day you have to wake up and decide you are willing to exert your personal powers to make the right choices all day. This will become a great habit and prepare you for the really difficult days ahead. I say this because some days will seem like “The Perfect Storm” in which every thing seems combined against you. For example, you wake up with little sleep, you’re irritated at work, your boss won’t leave you alone, the bills are stacking up, you get into an accident on the way home, you argue with your wife,you’re having a hard time controlling your thoughts, and finally you see an inappropriately dressed girl on TV. Well, in those circumstances it just seems like you can’t take it anymore and you are so tempted to give into temptation and go on a pornography binge. Believe it or not, even in these circumstances, it is still your choice to do the work to resist temptation and maintain a positive attitude.

How much you are willing to work is directly tied to how much you believe in the process of change, in a better life, and your personal powers to change. If you stop working and give into temptation or fall short of your goal it is simply because you did not have enough faith and motivation. How do you get that faith and motivation? You choose to have it. Nobody can give it to you or make you have it. There are people and sources that can help you to have it but it is ultimately your choice to have enough faith and motivation to keep working no matter what the circumstances are.

Masturbation and pornography can make you feel powerless. It is true to these things bind you and restrict your freedom to choose. However,though it may feel like it, these things do not have complete control over you. You still have enough power to fight back and reclaim the lost ground in the internal battle you’ve been engaged in. It will not be instant but gradual and eventual. In fact, with perseverance success is inevitable. However, this requires work. Sometimes it will require you to exert all the energies of your soul to resist temptation, but you are not alone. Heavenly Father promises to bless you with the extra strength you need, after you have done all you can do. You will know when you’ve done all you can do because that is the time when his power kicks in and you will be victorious. He loves you enough to not do all the work for you but help you when you’ve done all you can do. Even if you are not religious, just do all you can do and you will be rewarded with success. You will feel an extra boost of power from a source beyond yourself.

Just keep working!

Ask yourself these questions with “10″ representing the most:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do I really want to overcome porn addiction or any kind of addiction?

2. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much do I believe in my power to overcome addiction?

3. On a scale of 1 to 10 how much am I willing to work every single day to overcome addiction?

Answer these questions honestly. If you are lacking in one or more of these areas then work to improve the numbers and you will have more success.

Success will not come by accident or luck. It will come because you worked for it and earned it.

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Negative Association

How to apply this to porn addiction. If you’ve been addicted to pornography or masturbation then you have been living in a fantasy world within your own mind. The addiction or prison you’ve found difficult to escape has been largely within the walls of your mind. Your mind and body try to run as effeciently as possible. Many times this means automating processes to save energy. Because you have used pornography and masturbation to feel temporary pleasure you have been associating fantasy-like thoughts with natural sexual urges of the body until the appetite of the body grows out of control. So every time your body feels a sexual urge it immediately and almost automatically associates these urges with thoughts and images of the fantasy world you have created in your mind. Of course you can get this back under control, it just takes work and time.

You need to change the way you see temptations to look at filth or masturbate. You need to start associating these actions with the real consequences and misery they bring. The moment you are tempted you must cling to reality and not let yourself be swept away into the unrealistic fantasies that have brought you into addiction. The reality is you only feel pleasure in the moment then soon after feel very low and miserable. Your imagination has very powerful effects that can be both good and bad. Use your imagination to create a negative image of the true results of looking at pornography or masturbating. Then when the temptation comes have this image ready to go to associate with the temptation. The more you do this the more your mind will remember these negative images and the power of the temptation will be decreased. Use whatever negative associations work for you. Everyone is different. Also, be patient, it will take more than a few times of doing this before it becomes habit. Just keep doing it.

Positive Association

You’ll need more than negative associations to break free of addiction. You have to learn to love your new life more than your old one. This is going to take some persistent positive associations. Here is a good example from workout guru, Pete Sisco, speaking of positive association when working out:

“Finally, take another 10 minutes at a slow pace on the treadmill to gradually cool your body down. Use this time to feel the warm afterglow and sense of well-being that intense exercise provides. Those endorphins are magic! Take a moment to associate that positive, relaxed yet invigorated feeling with going to the gym and doing your workout. For many of us this can shift our psychological focus from dreading a workout and doing it reluctantly to positively looking forward to it and to the sense of well-being it delivers.”

This couldn’t be more true. I’ve put this to the test myself and love going to the gym. So how do we apply this to addiction? Well, when I was struggling, I was using this technique and didn’t even know it. Here’s how. Every time I would have success, a day or two without slipping up, I would sort of meditate and ponder how great it felt to be free and have success. In my mind I would purposely associate these great feelings with abstaining from pornography or masturbation. This only increased my desire to have success. This increased desire helped me to work harder, and get up more quickly if I slipped up. I would think to myself, “I love the way I feel when I abstain from weakness, I don’t want to stay down, I will get up and try again and feel those feelings again.” You see, your mind and body want to do what feels good. You have to decide what feels good. You do this by changing the way you see things.

Go ahead and experiment with this great technique. Don’t expect perfection. Just expect a progressive change of desires. It takes time for desires and feelings to change. This is the work required to do so.

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The answers I sought and you currently seek are different for everyone. They depend on your ability to persevere through difficulties and mistakes, your faith in yourself, your faith in the process, and how much work you’re willing to put into the process. So, that being said, it could be a matter of weeks, months, or years. It all depends on you. It’s definitely not a matter of just a week or two. That’s unrealistic. Though I must admit I was guilty of expecting change in a week or two, to my detriment.

Making Mistakes

In order to keep going in the process of change you will have to accept that you will not be perfect. It is very dangerous to expect you will make no mistakes. I’m not saying use this as an excuse to make mistakes. I’m saying have realistic expectations. One realistic expectation is to expect that the mistakes will become fewer in proportion to the amount of effort you put into the process of change. If you have a problem with porn addiction and you look at it every day then you can expect that it will not be every day as you make the necessary choices to adjust your environment and follow the steps to become stronger.

Remember, the body is too stubborn to change in just a week. You cannot expect to stop liking or desiring porn in a week or two. You have to have consistent success over a long period of time for your desires to change significantly. Also, you can’t expect to like new habits at the start. If you just started exercising then it will probably take some time before you enjoy doing it. I felt this way about running. I hated it but over time learned to love it. So you see it takes a lot of work initially to change since you and your body will not like the changes at first. I will tell you that change will become a lot easier after being completely clean for about a month. After that, it gets easier and easier.

Believe in the Process

It can be a tough thing to convince yourself to keep going when you’re not seeing results. I know I would get so frustrated after only a week or two of staying clean because I would still feel really strong urges to go look at pornography or to misuse my body. I would angry at how I didn’t see my desires change much in that short time. I would get so frustrated when I would see a beautiful woman and my body would get so aroused. Instead of being patient and allowing more time for my body to balance itself out, I would obsess about the lack of change until those thoughts had control of me and I would make a mistakes again.

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

So believing in the process is a must. Going for a week or two and getting frustrated until you quit is not defined as believing. Believing means you keep going every single day knowing that you will change in due time. It may be one month, two months, a year. Whatever it is you just continue to believe change is coming because it is. Most people give up not knowing how close they were to complete change.

Believing in Yourself

We have all had doubts in ourselves at times on our lives. Thats ok as long as you know how to move on from those doubts. Its when doubts become a habit that failure becomes a habit. We not only have to believe that the process of change works so long as we put in the effort and time, but we must also believe that we can absolutely do whatever is required in the process of change. You have to have faith in yourself otherwise you’re right, you can’t escape addiction and can’t do anything for that matter. Addiction can cause us to stop believing we can do things. Its like being a prisoner of war, eventually you start to believe you cannot escape and stop trying to escape. That’s when the enemy called addiction has you right where it wants you, feeling helpless. You have to stand up and believe in yourself. Believe you have the power to make decisions that will ultimately bring freedom in your life.

There is no one who can make you have faith in yourself or the process of change. That is a decision you must make. People can encourage you but they cannot give it to you. On a religious note I will say that developing faith in God helped me to develop faith in myself. I still had to make the decision but my religion certainly made that easier.

Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms (PAWS)

Anybody who gets addicted to anything has to go through a withdrawal stage. There is no way around it, you have to go through it. It can last anywhere from a month to 18 months depending on many things. This is called Post Acute Withdrawal Symptoms or PAWS. In other words, you will fell lethargic, bored with life, irritable, unable to concentrate or remember things. However, the amount of time these things last and the intensity can be lessened with proper diet, exercise, therapy to deal with underlying issues, and even supplements to help your chemical imbalance get back in balance.

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The Importance of a Good Diet

You are what you eat, though that doesn’t mean you will turn into a vegetable if that’s all you eat. However, eating a balanced and nutritional diet based off of the food pyramid will greatly enhance your mental and physical health. When you eat healthy you feel healthy. When you feel healthy and vibrant you can more easily focus and have the mental and physical energy to make important decisions in your daily life.

Here’s an example. On a day when I eat a a lot of meat or a high fat meal I start to feel low and slow. I’m really just not in the best mood I could be in. Physically I feel I’ve lost my energy and my edge to perform at my best. Mentally my confidence declines and my brain is not sharp and focused. In this state I become more vulnerable to temptation than I was before the meal. Perhaps I will not be able to control my thoughts as well as before. Certainly with an overall decrease in confidence I will not take full advantage of the personal power I possess to make the right decisions when things get tough.

Another thing concerning diet that people don’t consider is how the hormone levels in the body are effected. Certain foods can increase and decrease hormone levels in the body. For example, red meats increase testosterone levels in males. This could be a problem for someone trying to overcome porn addiction or masturbation addiction. The higher these levels are the stronger the sexual tension in the body. There are a number of high protein foods such as cottage cheese, yogurt, eggs, and nuts which break down into amino acids and in-turn increase dopamine levels. While normal levels of dopamine are good and healthy, increased levels could be bad. Part of the reason people look at pornography is because they are addicted to the high levels of dopamine released when they look at stimulating pictures or videos. Dopamine makes us sexually excited. The person’s body who has become trained to associate high levels of dopamine with pornography on a regular basis may find it difficult to think otherwise until retrained to think differently. Caffeine is also known to increase dopamine. Sorry coffee drinkers. Too much caffeine can make it tough to have balanced hormone levels and make it more difficult to control your sexual urges. Even when it wears off you are cranky and feeling low and not in the best mood you can be in to control yourself.

There are many foods than can effect your physical and mental health. To make it simple, just stick to the food pyramid and stay away from bad things such as coffee, alcohol, tobacco, or anything you know is not helping.

The Importance of Exercising

Have you ever gone for a run, hated it the whole time you were doing it, then felt great and proud of yourself that you did it afterwards? I know I have. Running is a great exercise but it is only one of many. I have found anything involving cardio to be very beneficial for me physically and mentally. Anytime I have woke up and felt depressed and unconfident I made myself go for a 15 minute run and whala!, I felt much better afterwards. One of the biggest benefits of doing any type of weight training, sport, or cardio workout long enough is the release of endorphins. This bio-chemical acts like a natural pain killer and makes us feel happy. This is just what a person struggling with addiction needs since their mental and physical energy have been sapped by the misuse of the body.

Exercising makes us feel confident and it even helps the body recover more quickly from any form of self-abuse. The body needs time to recover and get everything back into balance when we misuse it but this process can happen quicker if we have a moderate exercise routine. Those who have prevented or overcame illness by exercising certainly know the rejuvinating powers of exercise.

If you combine a healthy diet and regular exercise you dramatically increase your power to overcome addiction. Don’t take this to the extreme and try to work out several hours a day or have the perfect diet. Remember, moderation in all things.

Addiction steals everything good in our lives including these healthy habits. If you think about it then it makes sense. Addiction wants you to stay in addiction and it can more effectively do that by causing you to become unhealthy. And so it tightens its grips on you one area in your life at a time. So make a decision now to get out there and start your new life and new habits and break free of addiction

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There is no doubt that porn addiction or any addiction for that matter, makes us feel even more alone than we felt before. The guilt, shame, and pain make us feel hopeless and unliked by others. Of course this is all a lie and the only reason we start to think like this is because we are blinded by the darkness brought about by addiction. It’s really tough to see the truth when your life is full of lies. That’s the captivity that comes with addiction. We are held captive in part by lies that we find difficult to escape. In fact this is very much a personal war.

One day I came across some training for prisoners of war (POW’s) that really helped me understand how to better fight this war on lonliness and captivity. I found it interesting that coping with an enemy to your country was very similar to coping with the enemy of your soul. So here are the coping methods I came across:

Titled “Pyschological Aspects of Captivity – Coping Methods”

Conviction of Purpose
The most important coping method is to develop conviction of purpose:

How do I fit into the “big picture” from national goals to Service objectives to the unit mission?

What personal standards am I committed to? Develop confidence in your training and professional preparation by focusing particularly on the hurdles and obstacles you have overcome to get to this point in your career.

Faith Keeping – Establish and “keep the faith” with yourself, family, Service, fellow captives, nation, and God.

Reject False Logic – It is false logic to think that survival is contingent upon compliance with captors

Recognize and resolve Conflicting Pressures – Recognize and resolve conflicting pressures from captor and self

Attitude

Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) – Keep a positive mental attitude by being stubbornly optomistic. Resist destructive thought processes. Take heart in any small victory won over captors. Overcome aversions by learning to tolerate discomfort versus demanding the circumstances change. Reduce anxiety by placing captors into patterns of predictability.

Use Directed Imagery –(Structured Daydreaming). Think about the future and positive things. Create mental exercises by inventing objects, making up stories, learning new skills, keeping a mental diary, planning escape, or anything that will keep your mind occupied in a positive manner. Do not focus on mistakes made in the past or let guilt or regrets come into play – your captors want this.

Actions

Be Engaged – An “engaged” captive is not a “passive recipient.” Being a passive recipent leads to hoplessness, helplessness, compliance, or despair (i.e., won’t try to resolve problems or improve the situation. Engaged captives will make some mistakes but they will be able to learn and bouce back.

Take Control – Focus on things within your control (daily schedule, will to resist and communication).

Internal Actions – Order your thoughts, appraise the situation, study and predict the environment(remember, your Situational Awareness is an ongoing, continual process)

External Actions – Be assertive, insist on rights under the Geneva Conventions. Commuicate health and welfare issues to captors. Be persistent.

Health and Hygiene – Improve on sanitary conditions. Get into a physical fitness routine. Develop consistent habits concerning personal health and hygiene.

Recognize Small Victories – Usually by maintaining a sense of humor and turning it against captors. This can greatly improve morale and captivity survival.

Interact with Others

Communication – Directing your focus outward towards other fellow captives helps minimize self-absorbtion, despair and linliness.

Communications brings pespective to the situation and accountability for individual captive and group actions.

Without communication, no organization can exist.

Be consistent, convincing, and persistent in your communication with captors.

Use Humor – Humor can add a positive spin to difficult situations and can raise the morale of the individual captives and the group.

Group Affiliation and Accountability – A sense of belonging to a group engenders commitment to a cause. Being held accountable is an important aspect of keeping discipline within a group. Keeping discipline is the essence of organizing individuals and groups. In addition, discipline usually leads to routine, and routine can be extremely comforting in captivity.

Organize/Strategize

Organize Routine(self and group) – Maintain a schedule(whenever possible)

A personal routine or schedule can be important as a means of gaining control over the captive’s life and the situation in captivity.

Staying occupied mentally at increments or intervals helps to break up a routine that is being forced on the captive.

Exercising regularly is essential to maintaining physical and psychological health.

Captive’s should utilize any regimen or routine they can adapt to their personal situation.

Plan and communicate regularly with fellow captives.

Strategize – For upcoming demands, prepare and rehearse in order to develop confidence. The better the group’s sense of preparedness is, the more the group’s efficiency will increase. The individual of the group can improve their sense of preparedness by setting realistic goals such as:

-Establish goals relative to the captivity envoronment and the developing situation (fatigue, sleep deprivation, etc.)
-Establish realistic expectations for yourself and others
-Focus on internal resolve and conviction of purpose

Adapt

Discomfort – Learn to tolerate discomfort. Remain focused on tasks at hand.

Overcome Aversions – To food, enviromental conditions, poor standards for health and hygiene, etc.

Flexibility – Any inflexibility by the captive will be exploited. Adapt to food language, culture, and fellow captives. Try to understand the motives without openly sympathizing or aiding in their cause.

Stay Stay Alive – Focus on your physical needs, such as food, hydration, sleep, etc.

Bounce Back – A captive should move on from mistakes made by themselves of fellow captives. Don’t dwell on mistakes.

Things to avoid

Worrying About Family – Reaffirm roles, convictions, faith, and confidence in pre-captivity preparations. Thinking about family is a source of strength for some captives. Worrying about them induces emotions and sets the captive up for failure. Remembering the good times and thinking about making them proud by returning with honor can be a great source of strength for increased will to resist.

Thinking Negatively of Self – Captives should not beat themselves down. Captives should learn from their mistakes and plan for the future.

Suicidal Thoughts – Avoid depressing thoughts of thinking about negative things that are beyond any captive’s control. Reaffirm the will to live and think about positive things to return home to.

Other Vulnerabilities – Used by captors to exploit captives. Most captives will experience symptoms of these conditions during captivity.

Captivity Dependency. Defined as the captor’s attempts to make the captive feel safer under their control and reduce the captive’s motivation to escape. The longer captives are in captivity, the more they will be conditioned and become accustomed to the captivity situation. The longer captives are in captivity, the less likely they will look for resistence and escape opportunities, unless they pursue these activities as a matter of routine.

Stockholm Syndrome. An irrational affinity with certain captors based, in part, on concessions of care or more humanizing treatment from captors.

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Over time I have learned that the body is a wonderful creation and brings much joy and happiness when used properly. Misusing it can bring misery. When I was struggling with pornography and other addictions I really didn’t understand this. I just wanted to stop having feelings. I really thought the solution would be some type of drug that would just take sexual urges away. I did a lot of research in this area and learned a lot about the body. I even tried a few herbs to see if I could curb my sex drive. Well, there were noticeable effects but I also had the side effect of depression. I could see that interfering with the body’s reward system certainly had negative side effects.

Today I don’t try to avoid or get angry at the urges of the body. In fact, if I see a beautiful woman walking down the street and it makes me feel good I just say to myself, “That’s great, she is beautiful, my body must be working properly.” Then I quickly move on in my thoughts to something else. See, its ok to feel good and attracted to the opposite sex. You’re supposed to be. But unless it is your wife you need not dwell on these thoughts. By the way, the longer you abstain from pornography or masturbation, the more sensitive you will become to beauty. This is great, it means your body is returning back to normal.

Remember, getting mad because you are vulnerable to temptation or have a weakness is counterproductive. These negative feelings will fuel the fire of porn addiction. The quicker you accept and adapt to your weaknesses the better. Having to set boundaries and live life to avoid people or situations you know you would be weak around is nothing to be ashamed of. You’re doing what most people are not willing to do. Weakness, if you work to be better, will ultimately make you stronger in character than you were before. Take joy in the fact that you recognize your weaknesses and your body still works. See this as an opportunity to learn and grow and you will.

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You see, when I first started attacking my porn addiction I just concentrated on my symptoms. In other words I wanted a quick fix to my problem. I didn’t so care what caused the problem. I just wanted to stop looking at pornography, that’s it. Well, that was my target but I wasn’t setting the goals necessary to reach that target. It’s like saying, “I want to weigh 20lbs less than I am right now” but now setting and achieving the every day little goals that are necessary to reach the result. Not only that, it must become a lifestyle if you expect to stay away from pornography or keep the pounds off. There must be a renewing of the mind and a change in lifestyle.

Just to let you know, once you get to a point where you can go weeks or months without looking at pornography then it is no longer an addiction but a weakness. You can of course relapse into addiction if you do not recover quickly from a mistake. What I’m getting at is you’re not expected to be perfect but don’t use that as an excuse to view pornography.

A few things have to change before you can become the relaxed new you. A life change first starts with a mind change. If you’re like I was then you have probably put off living life to the fullest until you overcome this addiction. This is a false way of thinking and it’s like you’re punishing yourself for being weak. If you have been neglecting your education or hobbies or talents or friends and family then stop. These things are very important to good mental health.

You’ll need to learn to enjoy each day you are alive. Part of the problem with viewing pornography is you believe, whether you realize it or not, that life is not interesting enough so you must seek out some kind of temporary pleasure to make it interesting. It is true that a bored mind cannot endure itself and will seek pleasure as a substitute. So starting today, how can you make life more interesting in a healthy wholesome way? First stop making excuses in your mind and stop putting yourself down. Take responsibility for your thoughts and think positive of yourself. This needs to become a habit. A habit of thought will become a habit of action. I can tell you from experience that if you make a goal to think positive of yourself for a month it will have amazing effects. Start with a day or a week and just see how you feel. You’ll be surprised at the difference as your addiction has trained you to think negatively of yourself.

So thinking positive of yourself is a great first step. Then you need to think positive of each day. This is called having a good attitude and everybody likes to be around people with good attitudes. You’ll have to stop looking at happiness as some distant and allusive thing in the future and start finding your joy in each day. If you’re being good to yourself and doing something productive and constructive then it will be easier to have a good attitude.

You see, you will become more relaxed and less stressed as you concentrate on the good things in life. Just thinking less about addiction and more about your new life will give you a sense of freedom even if you have not been free from pornography for very long.

Addiction is an selfish animal. It wants you to think about it and nothing else. As long as it has your focus then it has a tight grip on you. Focusing on the things you’ve been neglecting or the daily happiness you’ve been missing out on loosens the grip of addiction. Addiction is partly a thing of the mind.

So, as you adjust your thoughts and your attitude, the length of time between slip-ups will become longer and you will become more relaxed and confident. In this frame of mind a slip-up is just that, a slip-up, and you easily pick yourself back up knowing you can do better.

This does get easier and before you know it, its just a weakness and not an addiction. Get out and enjoy life and the beauty of the world.

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I guess I really didn’t understand this until I started to experience it. When I started to have success and gain control of my life I began to feel it really was easier than previously thought. By the way, I do not mean downplay my own struggle or the struggle of others by saying this. I am trying to say that addiction is partly a state of mind. The body is certainly hijacked by the addiction but so is the mind in the mental realm. You are addicted partly because you believe you are addicted and cannot escape. The truth is always that there is a way out and always will be. The danger of addiction is the person addicted finds it hard to believe this. Without a belief in a way out there is no escape from addiction.

Once you start to have success and gain confidence in yourself then you will start to feel it is easier. Be careful though and remember you have a weakness otherwise you will become complacent and relapse. The first successes are the hardest, then you start to get some momentum. Once you start to get the momentum you start to feel as if you’re completely free from addiction. However, you need to keep working hard until you have put a significant amount of sobriety under your belt, at least 6 to 12 months. The more success you have the easier it is to be successful. Also, if you slip up you’ll be able to remember your recent successes and recover more quickly than you did before. Of course maintain a positive attitude through all o this process as you are guaranteed not to be perfect at it.

You need to hear from yourself and others that this will get easier. There is the temptation to argue with these people and think, “They can’t possibly understand what I’m going through.” Perhaps this is true but they understand reality and truth better than you do since they are not blinded by addiction. The truth is freedom will be yours soon as you persevere through the struggle. Then you will confidently see it as an easy thing to do. Remember, when addicted, part of you doesn’t want to believe this and wants to argue it. Resist that urge and believe.

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