What You Need to Know to Stop An Addictive Destructive Habit
- Sandro Torres
- May 2
- 3 min read
Just like you, I have my battles with old destructive habits. Years ago I had many destructive habits. I was a slave of my pleasures. I was addicted to sex, porn and pastries. These three things were my weaknesses.
The first thing of the process to rehab and become free of the addiction is to accept the issue...
That is how I started my journey. In 2010 I remember that I sat with one of our members who gave up cookies for lent. She wanted to lose weight and like cookies. I asked her what was her plan after lent and she said to go back to eating cookies. I remember thinking that giving up cookies only for 40 days won’t help her because she was planning to go back to eating them again.
As I was thinking about our member’s problem, I thought to myself…
I gave up pornography for a week or weeks, but my goal was to go back and watch it again. I was in the same situation as our member. That is when I noticed that I needed to give it once and for all.
I don’t have to write how pornography is destructive for a person and for society in general, but we all know that it is a destructive habit. What I can tell you is that I lost respect for women and myself. This is one of the reasons why my relationships did not work.
So I decided to rehab and reclaim my freedom. I studied my past and understood why I became addicted to it and that I was mentally ill until I could overcome the addiction.
So the journey started that day when I talked to our member. In a year I relapsed a few times and after a year, I relapsed twice in two years.
I know how difficult it can be to stop a destructive habit...
With pastries, I always made the excuse that I am active, have a toned body and I am healthy. I gave myself the freedom to eat Mexican pastries twice a week. It was not until I noticed that I felt bloated, anxious and uncomfortable when I ate a pastry that I thought about stopping eating it. However, I continued eating pastries for a while until I consciously asked myself why I continued eating pastries after I felt horrible. Is it worth the taste in exchange for the feeling? That is when I stopped.
One thing I learned is that stopping an addiction and reclaiming your freedom is not easy and takes time and relapses before you become free from it. One of the reasons why these destructive habits are addicting is because they are pleasurable and release dopamine compared to good habits that are hard to follow.
The more you practice a bad habit, the more dopamine your body needs to feel the same way as you felt the first time when you started the bad habit. So anything that releases dopamine, like, eating sugar, navigating your phone, cocaine, overeating, compulsive shopping, drinking and other bad habits becomes an addiction because of the way it feels.
However, when you try to stop the habit, you become depressed because you are not sending the same dopamine amount as you were sending before you started the addiction. Plus, you are removing the dopamine the addiction made you release when you were practicing it.
Nevertheless, if you stay strong and take the pain straight forward, find good habits that help you release that dopamine and be patient, your body will level up the dopamine and you won’t feel depressed anymore. Then, the journey gets easier. Depending on how long you were addicted to the habit that will also depend on how long it will take for you to be free.
But be aware, anything that stresses you and makes you depressed in life may trigger the feeling of going back to the addiction and that is when you need to stay the strongest.
You are not alone fighting addictions. Either there are people who are addicted and they don’t know it or there are people who are fighting their addiction. The first step is to know there is a problem.
So don’t give up and fight your addiction. If you are addicted to sugar and feel like you need sugar to function, remember that you can have control over it if you decide to be free of it. The decision is always on you but know that it will take time for you to have control over your body, and desires.
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