I personally know what it’s like to be addicted to something bad. When you’re addicted to something good, like exercise or eating healthy, then your life is made better. But when that addiction is to something bad, like porn, alcohol, or lying, then your life becomes miserable. Those bad addictions do nothing to improve your life.

However, with any addiction, it is possible to free yourself FOREVER from those things that make your life harder. Someone who is addicted to alcohol cannot live. Their lives evolve around the bottle. Same thing with porn (for both men and women): you’ll plan your day according to your addictions. Same thing with drinking soda: you’ll find yourself going broke because you love that Dr. Pepper more than you should!

Before you kill your addiction, you need to understand the following things:

• You have a problem, and it doesn’t matter why you have it (so, blaming is no excuse!)
• Giving into your cravings is YOUR choice — you’re not forced to do it
• You do have the power to say “Yes” or “No” to your addictions
• Your probem is only temporary — if you let it

It takes about 21 days for anybody to make or break a habit. In this case, we want to break a habit (or a bad addiction). And I’m sorry to say, but the best way to get rid of a bad habit is to stop cold turkey — temporarily, that is.

For 21 days, you’ll make the choice to simply not give in to your cravings. Whether it’s smoking (cigarettes or weed), sleeping with strangers every night, getting drunk, gambling, eating candy, or anything that’s taking over your life, you need to simply stop it for 21 days.

Now, what about trying to “wean yourself” from your poor habits? Well, let me give you an example that MEN would most likely understand:

Allen is a married man with children. He has a problem with porn. And he likes ALL types of porn: hardcore porn, soft porn, 18+ porn, lesbian porn, you name it. His mouth waters at all of them.

One day, Allen gets sick of always giving into his addictions. It’s ruining his desires for his wife. He can’t stop thinking about looking at women naked! His desires are out of control! So, he figures that he would tone it down. I mean, he can’t just stop cold turkey. That’s impossible!

So, instead of looking at the hardcore stuff on the internet, he decides to look at the store catalogs his wife gets on occasions. He’ll just look at the section with the women in their underwear. No big deal. It’s not porn. Many of these women are probably moms…hot mamas…very hot mamas.

Hmmm, he wonders if these hot mamas have husbands who are aware of what they’re doing. What if their husbands didn’t know.

Hmmm, what if there was a porn site about unfaithful wives…

And before you know it, he’s back on the computer looking up new porn sites for unfaithful wives.

Switching to the “lighter versions” from the hardcore versions won’t work, because you are still feeding your addictions. No, maybe you won’t drink five times a day, but you are still giving into your addictions. Maybe you’re only drinking “diet cokes” instead of the ones with the sugar, but eventually, you’re going to miss the “real stuff” and will revert back to it.

If you are addicted to something, that means you have a weakness for it. The best way to handle any weakness is to get rid of whatever you’re weak in.

So, let’s go back to our friend Allen. He needs to stop porn period. He’s a married man and doesn’t need to lust after other women. So, here is what he’s going to do for 21 days:

• Stop looking at porn — period. Peeking at something naughty, even if it’s not “porn,” would still feed into his addictions
• Revert his eyes when he sees other attractive women
• Keep his eyes on another woman’s eyes if he’s tempted to look at her boobs
• Don’t watch anything on T.V. that would have women skimping around in tight clothes

And for 21 days, this is what he WILL do:

• Look at his wife more often when she’s naked
• Have sex with his wife more often
• Hold hands with his wife
• Think naughty things about his wife
• Slap his wife’s behind or grope her more often
• Stare at his wife’s goodies more often

The key here is to stop his bad habits COLD while forming a new habit in its place. By doing this, he will:

• Start lusting after his own wife
• Have little to no interest in other women
• Get a closer relationship with his woman
• Get rid of his addiction
• Start living life again

Now, I use the example of porn because that’s such a hot topic! But this principle applies for EVERYTHING. The point is to stop everything that you’re doing that drives you to your addictions and start doing the things that will STARVE your addictions. When something starves, it dies. If a woman is addicted to romance novels and it’s keeping her from lusting after her own husband, she needs to starve her addiction and start doing more things to lust after her own man.

If someone is addicted to alcohol, that person needs to starve that addiction and start replacing alcoholic beverages with drinks that does something good for the body — like, I don’t know, WATER!

If someone is addicted to a particular food, then that person needs to starve that addiction and start craving for healthier foods.

It’s about starving your addiction and being aggressive about it. Addictions aren’t weaned out. Addictions are killed off! You don’t want to just take it slowly. You want to hunt it down and kill it!

Listen! If you don’t know anything about weeds, then understand that if you don’t pull them from the roots, they will grow again! As long as the roots of any plant are intact, you will see them again. Those roots are still active, waiting for the perfect season to sprout again overnight! You control weeds by getting them at the roots so they won’t grow there again. You control your addiction by getting it at the roots and killing it.

And you kill your addiction by stopping it cold. But only temporarily.

Now, why am I saying to just stop it for 21 days? Well, even though you need to stop your addictions PERIOD — that thought of “forever” could be overwhelming and you’ll revert back to your old ways. But, if you could stop it for a brief moment, it gives you hope that perhaps you could go back to your addictions again. However, by the time the 21 days are over with, you won’t want to go back to your old ways. And anybody could stop doing anything for a brief moment.

When I tell you to stop for only 21 days, that gives you a goal to work towards and a plan to work with. During those 21 days, you’ll be doing your best to stay clear of your addictions so that by the time the 21 days are done with, you’ll feel so liberated from your addictions that you won’t want to go back. Having a life that is free from addiction is better than a life where you’re shackled down. You don’t want to live life in chains now, do you?

But you might be thinking, “That’s easier said than done, man! You don’t know what I go through!”

Yes, I do! All addictions work the same way: you get a strong craving and you give in to it. Period. And what makes it an addiction is that you ALWAYS give in to these cravings, even to the point where you’re making adjustments to your schedule just to give in to these cravings. But what I am telling you is that if you take the attitude of “it’s easier said than done,” then guess what? You won’t EVER lose your addiction. But if your attitude is that your addiction needs to “Get Gone,” then you WILL conquer your addiction. I don’t care what you’re addicted to, all addictions work the same way. And you could kill those addictions the same way: STARVE IT.

No more nicotine patches? Don’t smoke “lighter cigarettes” or drink less of the “hard stuff.” STARVE your addiction. Attack it! Be aggressive! Act like you’re fighting for your life. Because by simply weaning yourself off, you give temporary relief, but the roots are still there. You pull a weed at the stem without getting the roots, then you just don’t see the weed anymore. But while the roots are still in the ground, it WILL come back — and it might bring some friends along, too!

Go after those addictions with a vengeance! You don’t treat addictions like they are nothing. They are ruining your lives! Be aggressive with your addictions, and you’ll get some aggressive results!

Aiyo A. Jones, M.S.

NCSF-Certified Fitness Trainer

Source by Aiyo Jones