Anyone here beaten an addiction.

[Just Games]

On a light note I am seriously addicted to chocolate and coffee.I upset people in my family because I steal ALL of their chocolate and most of there coffee.I have a bad rep now and I even steal my granddaugter's chocolate.
After the last lot i stole i told her look I've bought this large bag of galaxy buttons ,I'll have half and I'll save half for you.I ate them two days later.I replaced them that day and ate them within the hour.She faced me with this ,she is nine , i didn't know what to say.
My partner has given up and hides all her coffee.That I can deal with even though I did search for it but couldn't find it.I used to steal her red wine because I'm an alcoholic but further down this message has helped with beating that.
But it hit me when my grandaughter said she now hides her chocolate from me , which I feel ashamed about.I was addicted to cards with my brother and his friends but he's moved away so I can only put silly money bets on twice a year when we play instead of once a fortnight.
I was addicted to booze but medication and the threat of reoccurring fits has got me down to a small amount once a week.
But my kid i really worry about who is twenty eight and smokes like a train.They have a pressurised job which doesn't help but seeing my father die early and in a upsetting way because i saw him in hospital before he died of lung cancer really scares me about my daughter and what could happen. I have tried everything, and they have too.
Anyone any sure fire way to beat addiction would be great.

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

On a light note I am seriously addicted to chocolate and coffee.I upset people in my family because I steal ALL of their chocolate and most of there coffee.I have a bad rep now and I even steal my granddaugter's chocolate.
After the last lot i stole i told her look I've bought this large bag of galaxy buttons ,I'll have half and I'll save half for you.I ate them two days later.I replaced them that day and ate them within the hour.She faced me with this ,she is nine , i didn't know what to say.
My partner has given up and hides all her coffee.That I can deal with even though I did search for it but couldn't find it.I used to steal her red wine because I'm an alcoholic but further down this message has helped with beating that.
But it hit me when my grandaughter said she now hides her chocolate from me , which I feel ashamed about.I was addicted to cards with my brother and his friends but he's moved away so I can only put silly money bets on twice a year when we play instead of once a fortnight.
I was addicted to booze but medication and the threat of reoccurring fits has got me down to a small amount once a week.
But my kid i really worry about who is twenty eight and smokes like a train.They have a pressurised job which doesn't help but seeing my father die early and in a upsetting way because i saw him in hospital before he died of lung cancer really scares me about my daughter and what could happen. I have tried everything, and they have too.
Anyone any sure fire way to beat addiction would be great.

You can't expect your daughter to quit especially if you have the same issues and keep doing the same. She has to learn on her own, just like you did, if you did. Are you still an active addict in any form? I'm not an addict, but I've grown up with addicts my entire life and still have family and friends with active addictions. I've had other addictions, not a chemical dependence. I can't speak on that, but people can change if they really want to, on anything.

 

[Ace Face]

Yep iv been fighting Alcohol Addiction all my life having lived the lifestyle of The Army, and corporate entertainment, it's put me in difficult positions in my life and I feel for anyone going through that, I have been in rehab now I'm only on 200 cans a week

 

[Just Games]

You can't expect your daughter to quit especially if you have the same issues and keep doing the same. She has to learn on her own, just like you did, if you did. Are you still an active addict in any form? I'm not an addict, but I've grown up with addicts my entire life and still have family and friends with active addictions. I've had other addictions, not a chemical dependence. I can't speak on that, but people can change if they really want to, on anything.

Thanks this helps I'll make it obvious to her that I'm off the galaxy.Yes I'm addicted to this forum have real trouble getting off it.Maybe if someone upsets me bad enough might help .

 

[TropicalStarfish]

I knew some one trained as a hypnotherapist who had a pretty high success rate for helping smokers quit. I think it was greater than 60%. Some folks just really enjoy tobacco though.

So, hypnosis is an option, if one can afford it.

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

Thanks this helps I'll make it obvious to her that I'm off the galaxy.Yes I'm addicted to this forum have real trouble getting off it.Maybe if someone upsets me bad enough might help .

We're all addicted to something in life. Many people are addicted to social media, forums, gaming, sex, drugs, coffee, etc. I used to have a bad shopping addiction for years, but realized I didn't want to live that way anymore, so made subtle changes. But, we all have a vice in life. Not always easy to get away from them, but possible with a motivated mindset.

 

[Papagenox]

for me only the reward / punishment method could have worked but my parents were like non-existent (crass indifference) so it was the life that taught me things (and in a painful way) ... if I had a child who smokes I would tell them how painful for me the fact they are ruining their health is and how I cannot stand the image of them provoking their own premature death therefore they either quit their vice (with or without professional help) or I am breaking up with them

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

for me only the reward / punishment method could have worked but my parents were like non-existent (crass indifference) so it was the life that taught me things (and in a painful way) ... if I had a child who smokes I would tell them how painful for me the fact they are ruining their health is and how I cannot stand the image of them provoking their own premature death therefore they either quit their vice (with or without professional help) or I am breaking up with them

It's sad honestly. You really do have to distance yourself from people who have active addictions, depending on the circumstances. In fact, I have a very toxic relationship with my active addicted sister, who is enabled by everyone around her, and is very toxic. On the other hand, I have active addictive friends, who supply their own substances without the help of others. I can deal with those type of people all day long because they're not toxic towards me. They're highly functioning addicts or alcoholics. However, the ones who aren't and rely on you and everyone else are the toxic ones you should distance yourself from.

 

[TheRealCallie]

Even if she quits, she could still get lung cancer. Even if she continues to smoke, she's not guaranteed to get lung cancer. I know people who got lung cancer and never smoked a day in their life. I know even more people who smoked for 40 years and never got any lung issues at all.

As for your daughter, it entirely depends on why she smokes and whether or not she wants to quit. She could honestly be addicted...or she could be using it as a coping mechanism for stress. I don't believe it's always about addiction. I think that word gets thrown around too much in today's world. We risk death every day of our lives, some people just need a little help coping with that. Cigarettes are obviously not healthy, but lots of things aren't healthy. I'm sure she'll slow down when she gets a bit of the pressure off. But she won't until she wants too and there's really nothing you can do about that.

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

Even if she quits, she could still get lung cancer. Even if she continues to smoke, she's not guaranteed to get lung cancer. I know people who got lung cancer and never smoked a day in their life. I know even more people who smoked for 40 years and never got any lung issues at all.

As for your daughter, it entirely depends on why she smokes and whether or not she wants to quit. She could honestly be addicted...or she could be using it as a coping mechanism for stress. I don't believe it's always about addiction. I think that word gets thrown around too much in today's world. We risk death every day of our lives, some people just need a little help coping with that. Cigarettes are obviously not healthy, but lots of things aren't healthy. I'm sure she'll slow down when she gets a bit of the pressure off. But she won't until she wants too and there's really nothing you can do about that.

Very true. We die from things everyday, and no matter what we do in life, something's going to cause something, whether we have something or not. You can't stop someone's addiction, they have to stop themselves, for themselves.

 

[Just Games]

Even if she quits, she could still get lung cancer. Even if she continues to smoke, she's not guaranteed to get lung cancer. I know people who got lung cancer and never smoked a day in their life. I know even more people who smoked for 40 years and never got any lung issues at all.

As for your daughter, it entirely depends on why she smokes and whether or not she wants to quit. She could honestly be addicted...or she could be using it as a coping mechanism for stress. I don't believe it's always about addiction. I think that word gets thrown around too much in today's world. We risk death every day of our lives, some people just need a little help coping with that. Cigarettes are obviously not healthy, but lots of things aren't healthy. I'm sure she'll slow down when she gets a bit of the pressure off. But she won't until she wants too and there's really nothing you can do about that.

Ok thanks Callie good advice and makes alot of sense , it helps because my father did die of smoking but your right it doesn't necessarily mean it will happen to my daughter.
Thanks back to work now before I get a bollocking for being on my phone.

 

[Abstamyous]

I have been alcohol free for almost 7 years. I'm not willing to test if I can just have a small amount.

I smoked "lightly" the year or two before I quit drinking. I quit that the day that I quit drinking, because I knew I wouldn't quit it later on. Smoking is just too convenient. When I smoked, I got extra breaks at work, because the employer wanted to go for a smoke. If I wanted to smoke today, I wouldn't even have to buy them. There's always someone offering somewhere. Bunch of generous weirdos.

Now, I'm working on my sugar and junk food issues. Whole different ball game of denial.

I will still steal your coffee, though.

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

I have been alcohol free for almost 7 years. I'm not willing to test if I can just have a small amount.

I smoked "lightly" the year or two before I quit drinking. I quit that the day that I quit drinking, because I knew I wouldn't quit it later on. Smoking is just too convenient. When I smoked, I got extra breaks at work, because the employer wanted to go for a smoke. If I wanted to smoke today, I wouldn't even have to buy them. There's always someone offering somewhere. Bunch of generous weirdos.

Now, I'm working on my sugar and junk food issues. Whole different ball game of denial.

I will still steal your coffee, though.

I love your motivation of staying away from things that are triggers, and around you all the time!!! My roommate is like that. I drink occasionally, but he's a 3-year recovered alcoholic who wants nothing more to do with that life. Previous before I moved in, I asked out of respect if it was okay if I had a few drinks, and he said yes. Nothing triggers him, unless I was having a party here, which I wouldn't do in the first place. But, love your motivation to stay away, when you know better. I know all about the junk food and sugar issues, working on that now, and doing good! I did it before, and I felt so much better, already do! Wishing you well!

 

[ringwood]

But my kid i really worry about who is twenty eight and smokes like a train.They have a pressurised job which doesn't help but seeing my father die early and in a upsetting way because i saw him in hospital before he died of lung cancer really scares me about my daughter and what could happen. I have tried everything, and they have too.
Anyone any sure fire way to beat addiction would be great.

A person needs to be ready to quit mentally. If you're not, I'm doubtful you'd be successful. After a 20+ year habit, my husband and I quit smoking cold turkey 13 years ago. Our son was 3 at the time. Of course, he was our biggest motivator but I was also extremely motivated by a woman called Barb Tarbox. She was a Canadian anti-smoking advocate who travelled to schools to talk about her addiction and how she was unable to quit smoking, even after she was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer. She had been a model in her earlier years. Around the time we quit smoking, Health Canada started a tough anti-smoking campaign and printed pictures of Barb Tarbox in her last days on cigarette packages. It's the picture of Barb lying in her bed with the words, "This is what dying of lung cancer looks like," that really got to me. Every time I would crave a cigarette, I would bring up that picture in my head and it was enough to stop me from lighting up. The first week was pure hell, but after a while the cravings slowly lessened and we were able to conquer it.

 

[HellsLittleAngel]

A person needs to be ready to quit mentally. If you're not, I'm doubtful you'd be successful. After a 20+ year habit, my husband and I quit smoking cold turkey 13 years ago. Our son was 3 at the time. Of course, he was our biggest motivator but I was also extremely motivated by a woman called Barb Tarbox. She was a Canadian anti-smoking advocate who travelled to schools to talk about her addiction and how she was unable to quit smoking, even after she was diagnosed with brain and lung cancer. She had been a model in her earlier years. Around the time we quit smoking, Health Canada started a tough anti-smoking campaign and printed pictures of Barb Tarbox in her last days on cigarette packages. It's the picture of Barb lying in her bed with the words, "This is what dying of lung cancer looks like," that really got to me. Every time I would crave a cigarette, I would bring up that picture in my head and it was enough to stop me from lighting up. The first week was pure hell, but after a while the cravings slowly lessened and we were able to conquer it.

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I lost my mother to small cell lung cancer from years of smoking 3 packs of cigs a day. Although, she quit, and was in remission for 10 years, for it to come back and hit with a vengeance in 2 weeks. Lung cancer runs in my family, and I've never smoked anything, nor did drugs, but have been around second-hand smoke and enjoy a couple of drinks here & there.

 

[TheSkaFish]

I guess you could say weed.

I was never chemically addicted, but it was more of a lifestyle. There were points in my life where I got high every day.

One day I just looked at what I was doing, and it started feeling really unhealthy, so I quit.
I realized I didn't enjoy it that much, or get that much out of it, and I didn't feel like it was worth it to keep doing.
I wanted to stimulate my creativity/imagination, like storywriters, songwriters, and visual artists. But that never happened. Neither did great/deep conversations, or anything like that. It was just a lot of munchies and laughing at nothing. Music sounded better, and food tasted better, and things were a lot funnier than they should be, I guess that was OK. But not enough to be worth it.

I also realized I didn't want to be like the "stoner" stereotype.
I'm not talking about my close friends who have smoked. They're all functional people - married, careers, etc.
I'm talking about other people I've met over the years, who are not.
They're just dopey. Bad jobs. Low status. No intellectual thoughts. Not good at anything.
Still thinking it's cool to talk about the same things, in the same way, as when I left that group in the late 2000s.
Basically the epitome of what I would hate to be "me".
In the real world, past college age, having achievements is what's cool.
No one cares how drunk/high you get, or on what. That's not a story.
No one wants to hear about "dude, I was so wasted, bro".

It might sound shallow but I can't say enough how much I do NOT want to be like that, and to be seen and treated like that. I can't say enough how much I hate humiliation, being insulted, seen as inherently low-quality.
I instinctively hated being low status/looked down on ever since I was small and aware that that's how people saw me. It made me feel insulted to my core. It's enough to get me to quit anything.

And apart from the weed I did smoke tobacco on and off for a while. Again, it wasn't a real addiction per se. I just thought it was OK at the time because I thought the world was ending and I probably wasn't going to get to live my full lifespan out because I thought modern technological civilization would end within my lifetime, and I would probably die from violence, starving, or disease before getting any smoking-related issues. That end-of-the-world thinking messed me up badly.
But I don't think things are going to turn out like that anymore, so I don't think it's OK for me to smoke anymore either.

 

[Murakami_1]

Never beat an addiction but beat sobriety though

 

[TropicalStarfish]

In the dark ages: the community and the church would detain you on accusation of heresy and say to you: "You can confess your heresy, and be hanged, or continue to deny your heresy, maintain innocence, and we'll burn you at the stake."

Today: the community, the church, professionals, etc.. will say to you: "You can admit your addiction and that you are an addict, or deny it, and be labeled an addict in denial and suffer the consequences."

---

That sums it up, the rest is me ranting... To be clear, I'm not saying people's experiences of intense suffering, sometimes very solitary suffering, and difficult circumstances, and lack of will to change and the struggle to change a habit, behavior, or circumstance isn't real. What I'm saying is, that's very common. Unfortunately, what is also very common, is the situations I described above: double binds, getting dealt a bad hand. I think a lot of the time in this life, we struggle, because we erroneously believe that we can bail out water, faster than the gaping hole that is sinking our ship. And often the people urging us to bail out that water, are the ones who keep making the whole bigger in the first place, heh.

---

The whole addict / addiction and the coercive elements about it, and the double binds, really boils my blood a bit, because it's bullsh*t.

I'm not saying self-destruction and self-destructive habits, and the suffering is bullsh*t. Cause that's the real issue.

For one, I can't stand people blaming chocolate, coffee, alcohol, cannabis, whatever and what have you, for their own shortcomings, or bad hand dealt to them in life.

If you steal from people, to uphold a habit: you aren't an addict, you are an impulsive thief, who likely has unresolved psychological issues, perhaps overburdened by circumstance, or at the least, impulse control problems. You don't have some sort of made up mythical disease that causes you to be a bit of a jerk.

Habits are habits. Some are good, some are bad, some are neither, and some people will be annoyed by them, whether they are good or bad, or whatever.

Smoking for example: I had some one complain to me once, outside, in the open air, before I even lit my cigarette, complain to me about the smoke. I hadn't even lit the cigarette yet. And I've read the research on smoking. The amount of particulate from second hand smoke, in PPM (part per million), in the air, is less than that of a BBQ, or a smoker, or pit fire, etc.. Yet people don't mind the smell of BBQ, or a meat smoker, or a pit fire, even though it's combusted plant matter, just like tobacco, in even higher concentrations; and that's not to mention all the car exhaust in any sort of urban area, people constantly inhale without making much of a peep about it, on the day-to-day at least.. A lot of tobacco products have additives and junk and it's understandable certain people just prefer not to be around tobacco smoke, or in an enclosed space. But, I'd be willing to wager a small amount, that most people find the smell of a good cigar, or nice pipe tobacco, or high quality finely cured tobacco, to actually be a bit pleasant, because it can be. And it's understandable that a reminder of loss or suffering wouldn't be welcome to some, sure, but that's a different issue. Should others not swim in the ocean, off the beach, because we have a fear of a shark attack?

So all this hypocrisy really vexes me. I can't stand that word 'addiction,' and all the bullsh*t that goes with it.

A lot of people in this world were simply dealt a bad hand. And what does society do? Punish them for either trying to play it, or refusing to play it. Double binds.

I mean if you really look at it the whole 'addict,' culture, what do you see?

You can be addicted to... drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling ... all horrible stuff, right..?
But you can also, according to them, be addicted to...
-Love
-Work
-Food
-Books
-Working out
-Video games
-insert virtually anything you can think of here, and onwards...

That just doesn't make any d*mn sense, plain and simple. And it absolutely baffles my mind, as to how anyone, can believe that crap.

According to these people, there is a disease, it's called addiction, you either have it or you don't (and there is no cure, by the by, mind you), and it can manifest as an unhealthy habit/attachment to literally anything in life that involves performing an action.

It's quackery at best. lol. What it's really about largely, is power and control, and subjugation; who has the power and who doesn't. And where it isn't, it's about pain and suffering, which, is something anyone who is alive, unfortunately, will experience; suffering is inherent to life.

Unfortunately, understanding is not as universal as suffering..

Imagine if the motivation for profit, power, and control, was overtaken by the motivation to seek compassion, understanding, and wisdom. If our capacity for love, was greater than those other things that push and pull is through out this sometimes merciless existence.

 

[Just Games]

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