Like I said, there is the temptation to doubt your success is real. This is exactly the time when you need to let go of the doubts that will hold you back from complete freedom. You have become very familiar and comfortable with these doubts after repeated failures. So they have become your security blanket because they are what you know. However, you must convince yourself that it is ok to let go of these doubts and venture into the unknown new life you are not yet familiar with. In due time, say a month or so, you will start to become quite comfortable and confident in this new way of living.

So how do you start this process of becoming more happy with your new life. First of all you need to decide you hate your old life. That will probably be easy since it has brought you pain. What won’t be easy is consistently hating it and deciding it is not an acceptable way to live when relatively boring times come. You see, you’ve been in the habit of comparing a simple, happy life with no stimulates to an addicting life full of temporary excitement and stimulation. It can be difficult to convince your mind and body that the new life is better when you will feel far less stimulation at first. I call this the “Getting over the wave” stage and compare it to Tom Hanks in the movie “Cast Away”, in which he worked so hard to escape a deserted island. The problem he faced was that the waves were too big and kept washing him back to the island. He even got hurt trying this and just wanted to die. However, he decided to keep trying and come up with a new plan and eventually got over the waves and out to the open sea. You need to get past those huge waves of temptation that will wash you back into your old way of living. You’ve trained your mind and body to misuse the body to have temporary excitement. They will fiercely resist this change at first but then they will learn to enjoy a normal life as you retrain them.

The next thing you need to do to enjoy your new life is to stop looking for some future rose happiness and start finding the happiness of every day living.

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie

“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.” -Voltaire

Those are some great quotes which sum up nicely what I had to work very hard to learn myself. Its difficult to believe this, especially when your life has been ruled by addiction, but life can be absolutely great every single day. What’s the secret? Well, its no secret at all. You possess it right now and it is called free agency, or choice. You can decide to be happy and productive right now. In fact it is better that you decide right now rather than later. You can decide to replace addiction with healthy, happy, and wholesome things. You can decide by simply waking up every morning and deciding you are the one who controls your life and your attitude. Addiction has convinced you that you do not have this control but that is a lie.

Life is full of ups and downs and plenty of challenges. You must learn to have a positive attitude and see this as an opportunity to learn to be happy in all circumstances in life. External circumstances do not determine happiness. Internal thoughts and emotions do. The sooner you realize that your happiness is your choice the better. If you have a habit of thinking negative towards yourself and others then your efforts to overcome addicton are being sabotaged.

“If we think happy thoughts, we will be happy. If we think miserable thoughts, we will be miserable.” – Dale Carnegie

When you begin to set goals to overcome masturbation or pornography just decide to be stubbornly positive in your thinking. Decide to take joy in the simple new life. This does not mean do nothing. Of course you must get out there and replace addiction with new activities. When you start to have some success and are tempted to worry or doubt, just relax, take a deep breath and decide to stubbornly believe in yourself. Your addiction will at first be stubborn but will eventually succumb to your new way of thinking and living. So look at it as sort of a fight between you and your addiction. Who will be more stubborn? Of course you will because you want your life back. Besides, the joy that comes from a simple, happy and productive life will far outlive the temporary excitement of your old life and the huge difference is YOU will be in control and not the addiciton. In fact, do not associate yourself with your old life anymore. Say, “That’s my old life, that’s not me anymore” and truly believe this.

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The most important thing to keep in mind when you veture out to start new hobbies or do service for others is it may feel awkward at first. It won’t feel very comfortable since it will be quite the contrast to the dark and unclean life of addiction. Also, it may require more effort than your addiction. You may have to force yourself to get up and out of the house. It may be difficult at first but you’ll always be happy you did afterwards.

Service Ideas

Doing service for others has so many benefits. Its quite therapuetic for the person who has been only thinking of themsleves for some time. Its such a refreshing feeling to get out of the house and do something for somebody, anybody. That feeling is called love and its something addiction has been stealing from you over time.

I personally would make myself do service even if it was the last thing I wanted to do. I knew it would have some kind of benefit. I was always glad I did afterwards.

There are no limits to service. You can do anything to help others. Money is not required. usually giving of time is appreciated more any way. There are so many people out there that need help or just need a friend. Anytime there are people around you it is guaranteed one of them if not all need a friend.

Here are some servive ideas:

-Visit a retirement home for 10, 20, 30 minutes and just talk to and listen to random people. I would force myself to do this and found residents had very interesting stories.

-Get a trash bad and go pick up some trash at a park. The only person that has to know you did something good is you.

-Check out Unitedway.org for your local area. They always have plenty of service opportunities

-Join handsonnetwork.org They have city specific websites for the larger cities. I used this service a lot. They have an online calendar of activites and you can sign up for as much as you like.

-Check out Habitat for Humanity’s site at habitat.org and go help build a house for poor people. I found this fun and I know nothing about building houses. They are happy to show you what to do.

-One of my favorite sites is actsofkindness.org which gives you many ideas to do something nice for somebody every day. Try it!

Hobbies

Everyone has talents. Many times people have talents that they just aren’t aware of yet. Addiction suppresses everything good, including your talents. It may have caused you to neglect your talents or delay discovering them. Talents are usually manifested in the form of hobbies. Hobbies are things you do to enjoy life and contribute to the world around you.

If you have forgotten what you have a passion for or have yet to discover your passion then here are some ideas. If you’re still not sure then just try experiementing with some of these and see what you like.

-Sports. I found I loved raquetball and football. So I joined some amateur leagues in my city.

-Running. Many people love to run. I learned to like it as well since I learned so much about my character. If you’re not a runner then start small and work your way up every week.

-Art. Get out and draw some scenery or paint a landscape. Show your work off in galleries or give it to family and friends

-Music. I never played any instruments growing up so I thought it was too late for me to learn. Not true. I saw an infomercial one night on TV for a guitar with lessons. So I purchased and started practicing. Tada! New hobby and I love it!

-Animals. Besides being great companions and company they can help you get out of the house and get active.

-Start a blog about something you are passionate about. There are many free services but wordpress.com is a great one.

-Golf. I decided to give this a try but decided I like the driving range better than the course. S every Saturday morning I would just take my cheap driver and bad form and go have a blast hitting balls at the driving range just to see how far I could hit them.

-Go hiking. Nothing like the great outdoors to take away the stress of life and put everything into perspective.

-Check out community classes at the local college and learn something new or interesting

-Help others struggling with addiction.

-Just search for hobby ideas in Google and go try something new. It is never too late for something new

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