I Am A Slave Of Myself - I Just Realized It

[appleaurorae]

Yesterday, I came to a conclusion. I don't control myself. Many of us struggle of some kind of addictions or bad habits. We do them subconsciously and regret after the fact. I can group them into two types: chronic and constant. Chronic are those which seem like you have quit them, but after some time, you happen to do them again and quit them for a while with the illusion of victory. Constant are the ones you didn't quit ever.

Chronic
One of my chronic addictions is of course laziness and junk food (in my case popcorn, chocolate, bread and coffee). I overcame them several times but fell into the trap again. Similarly with giving away sexual tension too often. I can keep it in control for 3-4 weeks doing it like once every two. But then comes the time of doing it 3 times a day.

One of chronic addictions I won with is an MMORPG (i.e. Tibia). I often just "refreshed" accounts (you need to login once a while in order to prevent account deletion), but it ended in playing and wasting long hours. Now, I didn't login since several months (I started playing like 11 years ago!), this is the longest break I have ever had, so I assume it finished.
How did I cope with it? I somehow convinced myself that it has no value whatsoever. That it just contributes to waste of precious lifetime.

Today, I try to convince myself that bad food I eat is bad for my health. I see that during the latest break-free from this subjection, I just threw one coffee and one chocolate bar into trash without regret. That might have helped a bit.

Constant

My constant problem is need to comment and to troll. Yes, I am addicted to trolling. It's just too automatic. I enter YouTube and comment on politics and religion, spread hatred, sometimes to fill others with my ideals and sometimes just to troll. And the worst is when I comment on Facebook, because then, I am not anonymous and it's very easy to track me down. I tried multiple times to quit it, but this just happens too fast.

What did I do to fight this? Firstly, I unliked and unfollowed any political pages on Facebook. On YouTube I added a separate channel, with a lovely name and only post comments with blessings.

I also recently had a problem with writing too much with two (best) friends on Facebook. I just had to complain about something, write simply anything, any stupid words, emoticons. For two weeks I logged out, deleted Messenger and other apps from my phone. The idea was to see whether they care as much about me as I about them. None of them wrote to me since three weeks. I think I just freed from toxic relationships I was keeping alive myself.

So, basing on above description, what are your constant and chronic bad habits, how did you cope with some and what do you want to do about others? Share you experiences and ideas.

[Consept]

Hey man, thanks for sharing.

I think a big thing is just being aware of what you're doing as much as possible. You shouldnt just assume something is bad, you should try and just non-judgementally witness everything, if you can do this you'll soon work out what to drop and just do it as a matter of course. 

A lot of the time with addictions you do it to become unconcious so the best antidote is to remain concious. 

Personally my habits are definitely food, although I've cut out a lot of stuff, but I do get sugar craving's,  sometimes fruit doesn't cut it. Also I used to get ocd thoughts where I literally can't stop thinking about a subject I don't want to think about. I still get them but I'm more aware of what they are rather than thinking my thoughts are me. Its tough but that really is the goal just build up that awareness 

 

 

[Pelin]

@appleaurorae thank you for your honest post. I think writing about it even can lead to a positive change.

My chronic addiction is also video games of various kinds, but I'm clean for 2 months except the ten minutes I played with my husband Street Fighter on playstation. ? He is one of the healthiest players I've ever seen, I've a lot to learn from him.

Coffee, I do not find it a bad habit if I brew coffee myself (and sometimes grind). If I drink it at a place like Starbucks it's just sugar and cream, yeah I feel guilty.

My constant addiction, as you call it, is multitasking. Meditation is helping it, but even sometimes I can't meditate because of the things to do and my mind never shuts up. Slowly trying to heal this part of me and focus on the damn moment.