How to Overcome your Addiction

The average human being takes between 21 to 66 days to establish a robust habit. Dr. Maxwell Maltz (plastic surgeon in the 1950s) noticed a pattern in his patients, after performing surgery like a nose job, it would typically take patients around 21 days to get used to the look of their new face.

He also found that after having an amputated limb, an arm or leg, it would take roughly the same amount of time for patients to get accustomed.

Similarly, if you take heroin or any other drug for 20 days, by day 21 you will become addicted to it, because of the chemicals in the drug your body develops a dependency on, or so they say.

Vietnam War and Addiction

Surprisingly, we noticed something totally different during the Vietnam war, where 20% of all American soldiers were taking lots of heroin. People back at home were starting to become worried, thinking their loved ones will come back as heroin junkies, but something entirely different happened.

When the troops got back, 95% of them stopped taking heroin by themselves, with no struggle, weird right?

Escaping reality through drugs

"People are not addicted to alcohol or drugs, they are addicted to escaping reality." - (not sure who wrote that)

There’s an evident variable to take into account. Imagine being at war, where you could get killed at any moment without even realizing it, a grenade could explode in your face in a matter of seconds, it would be extremely stressful and unbearable.

You would do anything that lets you “escape” that reality, hence, the heroin intake. However, professor of psychology Bruce Alexander presented an interesting theory on addiction.

If you feel isolated, trapped, in an unendurable situation or “reality,” you will indulge in self-destructive behavior, not because you want to harm yourself, but because it will satisfy the part of the brain that wants instant gratification or pleasure, the “ID.”

By taking drugs like alcohol, heroin, cocaine, engaging in unprotected sex, and so on, you will numb the mind and get short term pleasure, the kind that is so intense that it takes all your attention away from the problem and into the pleasurable activity itself.

So, when the soldiers got home to their family and friends, they probably felt a profound satisfaction, they got out of hell alive, the impossible situation was over, therefore no need to keep taking drugs.

A lot of psychologists and psychiatrists believe that addiction is relative, I’ve even asked the question myself a few times and gotten the same answer from a few professionals.

Some people are addicted to food. Every time things are hard or a new problem presents itself, they simply go to the fridge and grab a snack.

In the same way, we all have a temporary “escape” plan, be it smoking, alcohol, sex, porn, or video games.

What these have in common is that they provide intense, instant satisfaction, the kind that takes your mind off the thing that makes you feel stressed or overwhelmed, and triggers your dopamine and other “happy” hormones.

Overcoming the addiction

Great, that’s nice to know and all, but, how do we exterminate the addiction? Well, it is rather simple actually, though it isn’t easy.

There’s a trigger that leads you to your “vice,” every time you’re dealing with something too complicated and stressful to handle, every time that you find yourself in a situation that you can’t accept, you resort to your dirty escape tactics.

I remember that every time I took an exam and wasn’t sure about the results, I would think about a cigarette, it was like a way of relaxing, escaping for a few minutes, ignoring the fact that I probably got a bad grade, which in itself is no big deal but could actually get me expelled (because of my absurdly low GPA).

Similarly, some people just can’t resist the urge to pour a glass of whiskey, sit back and feel relieved for a brief moment.

After identifying the urge that was triggered by the situation, just focus on it, pay attention to the way it makes you feel, just like in CBT (Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and just relax, focus on your breath, try to take power off the urge.

Here’s the thing, our brains build and follow the same patterns to make things easy for us (although sometimes it does the complete opposite).

Has it ever happened to you, a Sunday evening you’re calmly driving to a friends house, without placing too much attention on the road, your mind wanders away, and suddenly you find yourself in the same route you usually take to get to work?

It happens to all of us, you can call it muscle memory, we are creatures of habit, we build a pattern and through repetition strengthen it. Then our brains resort to that same pattern because it is easy, takes less mental energy, it is familiar, secure.

If you respond to an unwanted feeling with the desire to smoke a cigarette, a neuronal pattern will be built in your brain, and every time you bump into a similar situation, the pattern will be triggered, making you crave the same thing. If you give up to the unwanted craving and smoke that cigarette, you will only strengthen the habit.

By relaxing instead of thinking about the rewarding experience that it would be to have that smoke (which is hard but will get easier with time), you will create another pattern in your brain, and every time you find yourself in the same kind of situation, you will make use of that new neuronal path and naturally relax.

This is all possible thanks to neuroplasticity, you can look it up for further reading if interested. Simply put, neuroplasticity is the capacity the brain has to adapt and change as a result of behavior and experience.

Previously, psychologists thought that changes in the brain structure weren’t possible beyond infancy, until the sixties, when new studies and research proved them wrong.

The idea of neuroplasticity isn’t new, but the discovery of it happening even at an old age is. The London Taxi Drivers experiment just further confirms the theory.

Now, this isn’t an absolute infallible strategy, though it had worked for me before and helped me get through anxiety, it isn’t a quick fix, and it certainly requires a lot of effort and hard work. Take this with a grain of salt, try it and see how it goes, if it doesn’t work for you, maybe it will for a friend or family member.

You can always try another method, there’s a lot of ways to get to the brain, as there are a lot of ways to get to work, you can go on foot, by car, helicopter, subway, etc. Whatever works best for you is fine, just keep in mind that it IS possible to change one’s habits and get rid of addictions.

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