Addiction

Addiction is simply when something or someone else is "dictating" to you what you should be doing, and you obey that dictation without questioning it. You were sold on it and bought in.
It can show up as a feeling or a thought in your mind that says "Hey, this will be easier." instead of dealing with the situation at hand with a good long term strategy.
The first step in getting rid of any addictions you have is in detecting them. This is fairly easy. What you do is you write down all the positive things you intend on doing during the day. If it's not important enough to write down, it's not important. Then you simply don't follow any urges that are not written down on your list as that urge is being dictated to you "somehow". If you find that something that "comes up" is very positive and you want to add an item to your list later on you can do that, but you need to stick to the list. Don't get silly and write down stuff like "breathing", just use some common sense in writing down things other than what is natural, depending on what you want to keep track of.
Any time you are sticking to the list, you are not engaged in addictive behavior, as you decided what would go on that list... unless you put down drinking a two-four of beer or something like that. You need to engage your common sense when writing your list items to make sure they will result in something positive and are not the product of an addiction themselves. If you find yourself doing something other than what is on your list, you're engaging in an addiction, and it's important to take note of it to handle this later. If you look back at your list and see there are some items there that you wrote down that don't seem positive in retrospect, it's also important to note these down to be handled later on as well as you somehow slipped those in against your better judgement in a moment of weakness.
The exercises in the book will help you adapt your values to make it easier to modify addictive behaviors.
It can show up as a feeling or a thought in your mind that says "Hey, this will be easier." instead of dealing with the situation at hand with a good long term strategy.
The first step in getting rid of any addictions you have is in detecting them. This is fairly easy. What you do is you write down all the positive things you intend on doing during the day. If it's not important enough to write down, it's not important. Then you simply don't follow any urges that are not written down on your list as that urge is being dictated to you "somehow". If you find that something that "comes up" is very positive and you want to add an item to your list later on you can do that, but you need to stick to the list. Don't get silly and write down stuff like "breathing", just use some common sense in writing down things other than what is natural, depending on what you want to keep track of.
Any time you are sticking to the list, you are not engaged in addictive behavior, as you decided what would go on that list... unless you put down drinking a two-four of beer or something like that. You need to engage your common sense when writing your list items to make sure they will result in something positive and are not the product of an addiction themselves. If you find yourself doing something other than what is on your list, you're engaging in an addiction, and it's important to take note of it to handle this later. If you look back at your list and see there are some items there that you wrote down that don't seem positive in retrospect, it's also important to note these down to be handled later on as well as you somehow slipped those in against your better judgement in a moment of weakness.
The exercises in the book will help you adapt your values to make it easier to modify addictive behaviors.
Why addiction can be hard to get rid of
The way addiction gets a hold of someone is by creating a situation with an unexpected chemical reward which eventually causes the natural systems in the body to lower their default chemical outputs. The person is then left in a situation where they feel a bit off, a bit lower than usual, unless they have the substance or behavior, so they seek it out to feel normal again. What the body is communicating is along the lines of "Hey, I've balanced myself to be used to this chemical, so get me more of it or I will be out of balance.", and this is when actual punishment and penalties kick in as if you don't supply it, you go into withdrawal.
So addiction thrives as a short term pleasure, long term pain solution. Recovering from habitual addiction on the other hand is a short term pain, long term gain solution. The best long term plan is to identify and cut out anything that will decrease your baseline with repeated usage, so that your baseline will go as high as possible naturally. Then it's not an issue if you engage in the potentially addictive behavior sometimes, so long as you don't do it in such a way that your baseline deteriorates again. For many people it may be too difficult to indulge occasionally and not get caught up in things, so in these cases, complete abstinence is a good coping solution.
The basic addiction mantra is that if you are not achieving, you are being deceived. It's natural to move towards success in life, so if you are engaging in self destructive behavior, it's due to an addiction.
So addiction thrives as a short term pleasure, long term pain solution. Recovering from habitual addiction on the other hand is a short term pain, long term gain solution. The best long term plan is to identify and cut out anything that will decrease your baseline with repeated usage, so that your baseline will go as high as possible naturally. Then it's not an issue if you engage in the potentially addictive behavior sometimes, so long as you don't do it in such a way that your baseline deteriorates again. For many people it may be too difficult to indulge occasionally and not get caught up in things, so in these cases, complete abstinence is a good coping solution.
The basic addiction mantra is that if you are not achieving, you are being deceived. It's natural to move towards success in life, so if you are engaging in self destructive behavior, it's due to an addiction.
Addiction generates a compatible philosophy
Besides any physical difficulties in getting rid of addiction, many people start to come up with a personal philosophy that supports their addiction, and will often express elements of this openly and attempt to spread their philosophy to others in an attempt to get acceptance.
Some common one liners:
"It's important to learn to give up control and let things happen." - Used to make it okay to give in to the addiction. This one is tricky as it can be beneficial to give up trying to control certain things, but if this philosophy were applied to cars, it would result in a lot more accidents. You should definitely give up trying to stop positive things from happening, but this is a different philosophy entirely than painting control in a negative light altogether.
"There is no good and no bad." - Used to justify that it's okay that some bad things were done when under the control of an addiction. Good and bad are a matter of opinion to some extent, and something that is bad for one person can be good for another one, so it is a relative concept, though there are some things are definitely good and definitely bad for the person it concerns, for themselves. One this particular logic is grasped, another common escape that is devised is "There is no self." so the person can avoid the responsibility of judging what is personally right and wrong once again, and judgments are handed over to an addiction.
"It's not my fault, I can't be blamed for what happened, I wasn't myself." - Used to justify that once the addiction was indulged in, they could no longer be held accountable, or responsible for their actions. While it is true that they may have been in an altered state of mind and not judging things correctly, they were the person to indulge in the addiction, no matter how powerful the convincing feeling or thought was, and it's important that they be responsible for cleaning up the mess afterwards. Otherwise, who else should? If a drug dealer got them to take harmful drugs somehow, then it might make sense that the drug dealer would ideally clean up the mess, but most drug dealers don't tend to be that responsible, so it is not a workable solution. At the end of the day, life is not always fair, but the best person to respond to your situation is you, so you are responsible. The very least that should be attempted is the responsibility of trying to take control of the addiction so that negative situations do not repeat themselves, perhaps by seeking the help of a qualified addictions counsellor.
"I could do it if I really wanted to" - This one is particularly tricky as it's hard to see how it can affect you negatively, and it can in fact affect you positively initially through being encouraging. However, it can also be used as an excuse to not do something challenging as you think you could do it if you really wanted to, so it's not really a challenge and can be deferred. You can then justify that you can engage in an addiction for a little longer, as opposed to persisting and achieving.
The problem that occurs in the situations described above is that the addict is grasping onto these philosophies in an attempt to still feel good about themselves despite their addiction, it is a way to boost their self-confidence, and to think that they are okay. Attacking their philosophy directly will generally make them feel worse about themselves, which can actually increase their indulgence in their addiction, unless they hit rock bottom and start to become afraid of the consequences and honestly feel a need to change due to that. That's a dangerous path to take unless you can guarantee success, as the person will effectively get worse for a while.
So it is important to generate effective counter philosophies that will obliterate the addictive philosophy without leaving the addict feeling worse about themselves. At the end of the day, an addict is an addict because they don't feel good about trusting themselves to be in control and to make good decisions, so they hand over control to an addiction. One mantra I often repeat to addicts is "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. Whatever happened, and whoever or whatever is at fault, you are now in that situation and need to *respond* positively to it." They cannot depend on finding who or what is at fault and on blaming it and expecting it to take responsibility for their situation, as it likely won't do that. They are trying to control something else to fix the situation instead of fixing it themselves, which is ironically addictive behavior as they are once again looking to have the fix for the situation dictated to them and to their surroundings from some external source.
Another effective counter philosophy is "It's not a breakdown, it's a breakthrough." which can get them to see the positive side of whatever is happening and attempt to learn from it instead of just letting it happen and getting worse. It puts them in charge of some aspect of the situation, which is what they need, instead of having everything dictated to them.
Some common one liners:
"It's important to learn to give up control and let things happen." - Used to make it okay to give in to the addiction. This one is tricky as it can be beneficial to give up trying to control certain things, but if this philosophy were applied to cars, it would result in a lot more accidents. You should definitely give up trying to stop positive things from happening, but this is a different philosophy entirely than painting control in a negative light altogether.
"There is no good and no bad." - Used to justify that it's okay that some bad things were done when under the control of an addiction. Good and bad are a matter of opinion to some extent, and something that is bad for one person can be good for another one, so it is a relative concept, though there are some things are definitely good and definitely bad for the person it concerns, for themselves. One this particular logic is grasped, another common escape that is devised is "There is no self." so the person can avoid the responsibility of judging what is personally right and wrong once again, and judgments are handed over to an addiction.
"It's not my fault, I can't be blamed for what happened, I wasn't myself." - Used to justify that once the addiction was indulged in, they could no longer be held accountable, or responsible for their actions. While it is true that they may have been in an altered state of mind and not judging things correctly, they were the person to indulge in the addiction, no matter how powerful the convincing feeling or thought was, and it's important that they be responsible for cleaning up the mess afterwards. Otherwise, who else should? If a drug dealer got them to take harmful drugs somehow, then it might make sense that the drug dealer would ideally clean up the mess, but most drug dealers don't tend to be that responsible, so it is not a workable solution. At the end of the day, life is not always fair, but the best person to respond to your situation is you, so you are responsible. The very least that should be attempted is the responsibility of trying to take control of the addiction so that negative situations do not repeat themselves, perhaps by seeking the help of a qualified addictions counsellor.
"I could do it if I really wanted to" - This one is particularly tricky as it's hard to see how it can affect you negatively, and it can in fact affect you positively initially through being encouraging. However, it can also be used as an excuse to not do something challenging as you think you could do it if you really wanted to, so it's not really a challenge and can be deferred. You can then justify that you can engage in an addiction for a little longer, as opposed to persisting and achieving.
The problem that occurs in the situations described above is that the addict is grasping onto these philosophies in an attempt to still feel good about themselves despite their addiction, it is a way to boost their self-confidence, and to think that they are okay. Attacking their philosophy directly will generally make them feel worse about themselves, which can actually increase their indulgence in their addiction, unless they hit rock bottom and start to become afraid of the consequences and honestly feel a need to change due to that. That's a dangerous path to take unless you can guarantee success, as the person will effectively get worse for a while.
So it is important to generate effective counter philosophies that will obliterate the addictive philosophy without leaving the addict feeling worse about themselves. At the end of the day, an addict is an addict because they don't feel good about trusting themselves to be in control and to make good decisions, so they hand over control to an addiction. One mantra I often repeat to addicts is "It's not your fault, but it is your responsibility. Whatever happened, and whoever or whatever is at fault, you are now in that situation and need to *respond* positively to it." They cannot depend on finding who or what is at fault and on blaming it and expecting it to take responsibility for their situation, as it likely won't do that. They are trying to control something else to fix the situation instead of fixing it themselves, which is ironically addictive behavior as they are once again looking to have the fix for the situation dictated to them and to their surroundings from some external source.
Another effective counter philosophy is "It's not a breakdown, it's a breakthrough." which can get them to see the positive side of whatever is happening and attempt to learn from it instead of just letting it happen and getting worse. It puts them in charge of some aspect of the situation, which is what they need, instead of having everything dictated to them.
The state of your environment reflects the state of your mind

Is your environment organized? It's likely your mind has a similar level of organization. Is your environment clean? It's likely you spend an equivalent amount of time cleaning up loose ends in your thoughts.
Do you have positive friends, or negative friends? It's likely that you spend a similar amount of time engaging in positive thoughts, or negative thoughts.
Is your house welcoming and comfortable, or stern? It's likely you have the same attitude towards your interactions with people.
Is it easy to get around in your room or do you find yourself having to cautiously move around, having more than your space comfortably holds? It's likely that you are the type of person who has issues letting go of what isn't useful to them.
There will definitely be people who are exceptions to these rules as the mind and the environment are separate things, but in all likelihood, what is done for your external world and what is done for your internal world will probably follow similar habits. This is quite fortunate as by learning to organize your external environment differently, you will also change the way you organize your internal environment.
The point of this section is that by learning to control your environment, you may change some ways you control your mind, and consequently learn ways to control some addictions. It can be difficult, however, to easily tell from someone's environment how many addictions they have. The state of the environment could actually be due to some obsession or compulsion that is strongly dictated to them, you see? The best indicator is whether their home is the way they ideally want it to be, and whether they are happy with it. If it is the way they want it to be, or moving towards that, then they are effectively following their own desires towards what they see as positive, as opposed to having things dictated by something or someone else.
Do you have positive friends, or negative friends? It's likely that you spend a similar amount of time engaging in positive thoughts, or negative thoughts.
Is your house welcoming and comfortable, or stern? It's likely you have the same attitude towards your interactions with people.
Is it easy to get around in your room or do you find yourself having to cautiously move around, having more than your space comfortably holds? It's likely that you are the type of person who has issues letting go of what isn't useful to them.
There will definitely be people who are exceptions to these rules as the mind and the environment are separate things, but in all likelihood, what is done for your external world and what is done for your internal world will probably follow similar habits. This is quite fortunate as by learning to organize your external environment differently, you will also change the way you organize your internal environment.
The point of this section is that by learning to control your environment, you may change some ways you control your mind, and consequently learn ways to control some addictions. It can be difficult, however, to easily tell from someone's environment how many addictions they have. The state of the environment could actually be due to some obsession or compulsion that is strongly dictated to them, you see? The best indicator is whether their home is the way they ideally want it to be, and whether they are happy with it. If it is the way they want it to be, or moving towards that, then they are effectively following their own desires towards what they see as positive, as opposed to having things dictated by something or someone else.
The root of addiction
The interesting thing about addiction is that often a person will conquer one addiction just to pick up another, or have to start another addiction before they can let go of the first one.
Any addiction, whether it be a chemical addiction such as alcoholism, a mental addiction such as constant self-doubt, or an entertainment addiction to a certain type of creative input, is just a symptom of the actual problem.
The actual problem is that the person is addicted to addiction itself. They are somehow being dictated to that they need to be dictated to in some way. So if at any point their mind reaches a state of silence, this root addiction quickly kicks in and tells you that you MUST find something else to tell you what to do... to give you input.
A proper meditation program is one way in which you can find this root addiction and start to disable it's triggering mechanisms in order to find inner peace, or a specialized program constructed with the value exercises in the book could work as well.
Any addiction, whether it be a chemical addiction such as alcoholism, a mental addiction such as constant self-doubt, or an entertainment addiction to a certain type of creative input, is just a symptom of the actual problem.
The actual problem is that the person is addicted to addiction itself. They are somehow being dictated to that they need to be dictated to in some way. So if at any point their mind reaches a state of silence, this root addiction quickly kicks in and tells you that you MUST find something else to tell you what to do... to give you input.
A proper meditation program is one way in which you can find this root addiction and start to disable it's triggering mechanisms in order to find inner peace, or a specialized program constructed with the value exercises in the book could work as well.