Addiction is when not doing something seems immensely more difficult than committing to the endless repetition of a single, predictable and highly energy-consuming task.
So, how do you rid yourself of one of those addictions? It's simpler than it seems: you need to get yourself an anti-addiction. These can be aquired from your imagination.
Now, imagine that, if your addiction is smoking, you're going to commit to the following: fill three balloons with air each time that you are about to smoke a cigarette. Or, if you're the athletic type, jump up fifty times before each cigarette you smoke. If you happen to forget to take care of your anti-addiction before your addiction, it's not too late: just do it directly after, before you resume anything else you might have been doing when you wanted to start on the cigarette. That's it. Your addiction will take care of itself as it always has, and disappear the same way as it has come: effortlessly.
Addicts turn their pleasures into vengeful Gods.– Mason Cooley
You might be surprised to hear this but we've actually been built to move away from displeasure, towards pleasure. This make-up exists to steer us towards activities which are adventageous to indivuals and their groups, and away from activities which are disadventageous. Now, the problem is that we've invented activities and substances which allow us to experience pleasure by means that are actually disadvantageous to ourselves and our environment.
If you suffer an addiction, you've probably already identified the harmful habit that brings you some pleasure but little gain. It's only natural that you'd want to get rid of the addiction, because if it somehow interferes with your personal development, it actually stops you from reaching a higher intensity and frequency of happyness. After all, we're made to become ever happier.
But I haven't answered your question: Why would prepending a meaningless routine to your addiction habit ever stop your addiction? It doesn't, actually. It just inserts a choice—an actual choice, not one of those it-would-have-worked-if-you-had-really-wanted-tried-and-meant-it choices. Given a choice, I trust you'll know what to do.
This is where I beg for some spare change to fuel my own addictions. So, if you can miss some… Hell, even if you can't, think of all the money you'll save on addictive substances!
Stop trying to quit your addiction. Don't spend any energy fighting your original addiction. This energy is better spent on maintaining and intensifying your anti-addiction.
Don't fret if you don't get anti-addicted overnight. It often takes time to become fully addicted. You've been patient enough te let your addiction develop, so be patient enough to let your anti-addiction grow on you.
Don't get anti-addicted to killing little critters. This would be very bad because little critters are so painfully cute!
I'd really like to hear how, if, why, and/or why not you got anti-addicted. It'd be great if you could let the world know about which ridiculous routines worked best for you. Remember to throw some coins at me if it worked for you
