Breaking up with your addictions
In this day and age, we have accepted that people live with addictions.
We are a society filled with functioning alcoholics, smokers, complete caffeine addicts, gym junkies, yoga obsessors, drug addicts to varying degrees (painkillers, prescription and elicit), sugar fiends and sooooo much more.
The question that comes up a lot when talking about addictions is WHY we’d want to quit. For something as harmful as smoking the answer seems obvious. For something as helpful as going to the gym the answer is a little more ambiguous, not to mention the fact that we are able to hide our addictions behind a ‘healthy lifestyle’.
So why would you want to give up that which seemingly makes you sooooo happy?
Here’s the thing, if you’re addicted, it’s most likely NOT making you happy.
See, I loved smoking. I didn’t allow myself to feel guilty about it, because I figured if I was going to do it, I might as well just enjoy it. So I smoked as much as I wanted, whenever I wanted. Having had my lung collapse twice by the age of 19 I knew it was not a healthy habit especially for someone with weaker lungs. Each time my lung collapsed, or I ended up with tonsillitis after a Saturday night and a pack of cigarettes I had a pang of both regret and envy. Regret for starting a habit that would be so hard to give up, and envy for those who smoked their whole lives without a real issue, or without issue until later in life.
When the time rolled around and I finally quit smoking I felt so incredibly free.
The first few days and weeks were challenging, I reminded myself that I never wanted to go through those first few weeks again so I wasn’t giving in. It required discipline as well as strategies - I stopped drinking for a few weeks so I wasn’t able to use that as an excuse for making a stupid decision.
Eventually a time came around that I could officially call myself a non smoker and truly believe it. I LOVED it. I loved being able to go to a restaurant and have the choice to sit in or outside. Previously, it was outside at a table I could smoke at or nowhere. I loved the choice to sit inside a cosy restaurant while the smokers walked out into the freezing or rainy weather. I loved the extra cash in my wallet. I really loved that my handbag wasn’t constantly filled with random bits of tobacco that had fallen out of my pouch. I loved never ever having the feeling again of sitting down, rolling a cigarette then realising I had no idea where a lighter was.
When we are addicted to something, everything that goes with it just becomes LIFE.
We are completely ruled by our senses. We have no ability to make a sensible decision. We can’t just decide that it’s too rainy to go outside and smoke a cigarette, or that our bodies are feeling exhausted and could do with some real rest so it would be wise to skip the coffee today, or even just the decision to have a tea instead of a coffee because that’s what we feel like.
Our addictions take us over and take the freedom of choice from us.
I am big on the idea that every single part of this earth is divine. I know that a coffee is just as divine as a green juice, that ice cream is just as divine as a home cooked meal straight from the farm. I’m not denying this at all. I am, however, an advocate for freedom, for choice and for real joy.
I want you to have a coffee for the JOY of it, go to the gym for the JOY of it, eat food not only for sustenance but for the JOY of it, to have a glass of red wine for the JOY of it.
It is really hard to do that when we need it. That’s what addiction is, it’s needing over preferencing.
In my opinion, one of the golden keys to life is turning our needs into preferences. So get really good at this. Take stock of all the needs in your life. If you can turn just one of them into a preference than my job is done. I don’t want to condemn anyone for any decisions they make in their own life, I just want to offer you the freedom I have finally gotten to experience in mine. Be free of your vices so that you can enjoy them with intention and love.
Big Smiles :)
H
