

Breaking your bad habit is 'in the cards' - Addiction & Subtraction - johnthebeloved
http://addictionandsubtraction.com

======
gesman
Nice read, well written but it won't work.

Just like many self-help articles or books - the article mistakes consequences
for causes and tries to guide the person to eliminate destructive
consequences, without even looking or touching the causes.

Addictions is a mind reaction to avoid pain. In many cases it's an inner
emotional pain alike feelings of guilt, worthlessness, desperation or
depression. Addictive substance or destructive habit is nothing more than a
painkiller - the only way mind know how to avoid feeling or reducing pain.

The real cure is not "replacing your destructive behavior with something
better.".

If the real cause of addiction - the inner pain is not taken care of - the
addiction returns in different shape, form, habit or substance.

THe real solution is steering mind to look at the pain directly, observe it,
feel it, see it for what it really is and let it be dissolved with the light
of your consciousness.

Addiction starts with pain and ends with pain, or more precise it ends when
pain is observed directly, without mind interference.

~~~
theorique
It sounds like you're suggesting the real solution for addiction is meditation
and mindfulness?

~~~
gesman
Here's how it works: negative thought causes discomforting or outright painful
feeling within the body.

Once negative feeling and emotion roots itself in the body it keeps invoking
similar painful thoughts. Such thoughts in turn keep causing alike feelings
and the vicious cycle continues feeding on itself and growing itself, like a
weed.

To uproot the weeds you either need to eliminate negative feelings or
eliminate negative thoughts.

Meditation, mindfulness or conscious breathing attacks this from the
"thoughts" side. "Positive thinking" philosophy also tries to resolve this
vicious cycle by replacing negative thoughts with positive one. This works
well for very moderate cases of negativity, like temporary irritation or non-
life threatening negative events.

The problem comes when people with stronger, deeper, longer living pains (such
as strong anxiety, or depression) tries to resolve it this way. Stopping
thoughts no longer works because thoughts in that case are just a consequences
of deep emotional pain within the body.

The only solution in these case is to locate and resolve the pain directly
within the body.

In other words - you cannot think or meditate your way out of depression. You
have to approach it from the body feelings/body emotion side directly,
bypassing any thinking.

~~~
theorique
Interesting idea - is it grounded in a particular spiritual tradition? Are
there any texts I could read (or places I could study) to learn how to do
this?

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ww520
Good habits indeed have life changing benefits. I made an app a while back to
help myself to visualize my daily progress in forming habits. So far so good.
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsyste...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mhillsystem.dailybadge)

~~~
bockris
I've tried several versions of this type of app and they never worked they way
I want them to. Yours looks nice. Installed.

------
ambler0
Made me remember this: [http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-
productivity-se...](http://lifehacker.com/281626/jerry-seinfelds-productivity-
secret)

------
johnthebeloved
Here is another habit-breaking project I saw from a fellow HN reader. If you
missed it, check it out: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5131995>

------
LatvjuAvs
Game that makes you become addict of a game. Life is one big addiction spanned
across multiple treads of what we enjoy.

When we encounter a statement that says something you enjoy is bad and is
addiction, and should be get rid of, we either fall into denial, ignore
statement or find something else to be addicted. Or have some other way to
overcome this imaginary wall set by society.

Someone just gets addicted on fighting addictions :D

