8 Effective Ways To Leave Your Addiction Behind

Do you know? That 60% of the world’s population especially youths, are seriously struggling with one addiction or more. While the rest try not to go back to it but eventually do in the long run. And you might want to ask why? It is normal, I’ll tell you. Firstly, I will do a breakdown on what addiction is, who eventual becomes addicts and why they do.

• What is Addiction?

Addiction is the compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance or materials known by the user to be harmful (such as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal. It is the act of devoting or surrendering (oneself) to something habitually or obsessively e.g. (gambling, pornography, etc. on a negative scale) while positively we can find ourselves addicted to our passions, music, reading, gaming, surfing the net, worship and what have you. “Addiction is a bio-psychosocial disorder. It's a combination of your genetics, your neurobiology and how they interact with psychological and social factors," said a public health advisor.

• Who Becomes an Addict?

The innocent and clueless oneself. Yeah you heard me right!

From the above definition of addiction, an addict is someone who willfully surrenders him or herself habitually or obsessively to something. They are the clueless ones who if they had known better to not have taken as little as a taste, will not have fallen into a cage of what could be a life time struggle. Think about any experience that makes you feel good. It could be successfully beating your work target, eating a hearty bite of creamy chocolate cookie or a soothing shot of brandy. May be a puff of cigarette, weed etc. on a cold rainy night, or a flip through pages of xxx rated magazines. And what have you.

These experiences don't automatically lead to addiction. So what makes a particular habit or substance an addiction? What propels some people to seek out these experiences, even if they are costly or detrimental to their health and relationships? One thing is certain nobody starts out intending to develop an addiction, but many people get caught in its snare.

• Why Do People Become Addicts

Based on research and investigations on causes of addictive behaviors, it is believed that people who developed addictions were somehow morally flawed or lacking in willpower and prone to depression. Overcoming addiction, they thought, involved punishing miscreants or, alternately, encouraging them to muster the will to break a habit.

The scientific consensus has changed since then. Today we recognize addiction as a chronic disease that changes both brain structure and function. Just as cardiovascular disease damages the heart and diabetes impairs the pancreas, addiction hijacks the brain. This happens as the brain goes through a series of changes, beginning with recognition of pleasure and ending with a drive toward compulsive behavior.

The brain registers all pleasures in the same way, whether they originate with a psychoactive drug, a monetary reward, a sexual encounter, or a satisfying meal. In the brain, pleasure has a distinct signature: the release of the neurotransmitter dopamine in the nucleus accumbens, a cluster of nerve cells lying underneath the cerebral cortex. Dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens is so consistently tied with pleasure that neuroscientists refer to the region as the brain’s pleasure center.

All drugs of abuse, from nicotine to heroin, cause a particularly powerful surge of dopamine in the accumbens nucleus. The likelihood that the use of a drug or participation in a rewarding activity will lead to addiction is directly linked to the speed with which it promotes dopamine release, the intensity of that release, and the reliability of that release.

Even taking the same drug through different methods of administration can influence how likely it is to lead to addiction. Smoking a drug or injecting it intravenously, as opposed to swallowing it as a pill, for example, generally produces a faster, stronger dopamine signal and is more likely to lead to drug misuse.

Effective Ways to Leave Your Addiction Behind

Below are pointers to successfully and effectively release yourself from the cage of addiction and leave it behind forever.

• Realize Your Addiction

Become fully aware of your condition and accept the fact that you’ve been caged by your tendency to certain actions. And be cognizant how it endangers your life.

• Seek Freedom

Desire to be free from your negative habitual inclinations

• Talk About It

Speak up with medical specialists, and people who have passed through the struggle and has successfully left it behind. They normally create a forum for discussion sessions. In cases where you cannot find this forums locally, you could search them out online. When you do, do not hold back share your experience and difficulties, and be willing to learn and try out other people’s success story mechanisms.

• Stay Away

At times people think it is impossible to do without certain things in life. The truth is that with time, you could do away with anything you don’t want in your life. Yes just give it time. You could start from day without your addictions, two days, then a week, and gradually into a month, 3months and then a year and more years till you realize your freedom. Note, it’s not going to be easy at first. But with determination and will power in place, you’ll achieve the mile stone of leaving your addiction behind.

• Refuse to Give into The Urge

Always remember that you are a special being, who has been endowed with a strong will and the power of choice. The call is always yours to make if you believe in your heart, and be willing to take responsibility of your actions. Like the horse for example can be taken to a stream, but it is solely dependent on the horse to take a sip of water. How much more you that is human?

• Replace Your Obsession

Transfer the energy you spend on your addiction to something exhilarating. Like blowing a wind instrument, reading helpful books and tips like this article, meeting new people, keeping your distance around people who could pull you back into the cage of addiction, writing, going for hikes, traveling and changing your environment and many more fun thing you could occupy yourself with.

• Love Yourself

Learning to appreciate yourself is in itself a breakthrough to freedom. Love everything about yourself because you are the only version of you in the whole wide world. And you count. Always remember you’ve got a light in you that is meant to beautify the world. Don’t let depression, pain, and addiction hamper your shine. Always push for your happiness and sanity of mind. It goes a long way!

• Engage in Exercise

Exercise has been repeatedly found to reduce stress, anxiety, and depression. As these are major symptoms of withdrawal, experts are increasingly suggesting that exercise can alleviate withdrawal symptoms.

While engaging in other ways of curbing your addiction, there is need for a physical approach too. Exercise and work outs increases your self-consciousness and confidence. It helps with managing cravings, as a backup therapy to talk therapy. Over the years, exercise has been recognized as a self-help tool among people recovering from addictions as support for recovery, but only recently has exercise been recognized as a treatment for addiction in its own rights.