I beat addictions to buy a house. One habit at a time.

What is this website all about?

On the 20th of April 2023 I have hit my rock bottom. I am drinking alcohol uncontrollably everyday. I am gambling and taking narcotics all the time. I spend all day at the PC looking at social media, gaming and consuming porn. My relationship with my parents is poor but I am forced to live with them due to an inability to live with myself. I often fantasise about running away from my debts and problems in pursuit of starting a new life. But all of this would be a very large commitment to undertake. Probably including fleeing the country. I don't want to do that.

This little rascal is Mr. Addiction. He is fleeting. He is ephemeral. He is unrelenting and unenduring. For Mr. addiction, life only exists in the snapshot that we call the present. The future and all the dreams that may come with this are not the concern of someone who lives just for the desire of today. I like to think of addiction as intense motivation gone awry. He does want the best for us, but his perspective has zoomed in too far to understand that pursuing novel and short-lived highs causes a deleterous effect for our happiness. He simply does not understand the damage he is causing to his surroundings.

He's the nemesis to Mr. Addiction. They are in constant battle with one another. Left unchecked, this state of flux will rage on until the strongest reigns victorious. Mr. Self likes to plod along at a steady rate, making small incremental improvements to the foundations of his life in order to build upwards. Herein lies the problem. Mr Addiction's hedonistic desires leaves nothing but rubble around him after every episodic outburst. Every month Mr. self has to rebuild the foundations, and his resolve isn't strong enough to keep restarting indefinitely. Eventually, he will regress and stop building, and there's no guarantee he will ever start again...

The intertwining of Addiction on the Self creates a third party; Mr. Stagnation. He is moulded by the battle; He thrives from precarity. So long as the foundations remain unsteady, Mr stagnation remains at his strongest. This figure has no wants and no needs so long as he is provided with a distraction. He is content with no future. No friends. Nothing. With this in mind, he wants the status quo to remain to avoid any semblence of hardship. He hopes the battle of the Self continues for 100 years if it means he can remain placated.

It's easy to focus on Mr. Addiction initially. That's what I did anyway. The issue with this approach is that it leaves Mr. Self wide open to rumination, dwelling, blaming; All in all going down a dark path. Spending a lot of time reading self-help books may feel like you are making leaps and strides but ultimately it's all but mentally stimulating yourself into believing progress is being made. It feels good to knuckle down and read, make graphs, post all day on support groups online. I know this all too well. I have over 50 self-help books. But, There is only so much you can read, there is only so much thinking to be acheived. Imagine scratching an itch over and over again, eventually it bleeds. It is easy to fixate on the addiction cycle to understand.. only to tumble down the proverbial rabbit hole to self-soothe, sabotaging your progress in the process.

My obsessive aproach to understanding why I'm like this has yielded little return despite trying for years. So it's time to approach with a new angle of attack. Naturally, the weakest link within the three factions is Mr. Stagnation. His only purpose is to undermine Mr. Self in order to maintain his symbiotic relationship with Mr. Addiction. Unfortunately for the blue idler, Mr. Self has the power to break free from being undermined should he realise that the battle is not fought on 2 fronts. Should he divert all of his resources from Mr addiction and instead towards fighting Mr. Stagnation, the weakest link in the chain may shatter, leading to a break in the ranks, providing opportunity for ground to be gained. What's more, Mr. Self. has an ace up his sleeve...

...The pink cloud. This creature appears when an addict has ceased a period of extensive use. It feels like the nightmare is over and you can put all of this addiction nonsense behind you. You feel euphoric, motivated and elated that you can move on. These feelings can last from days to weeks to months before the reality kicks in that you still live with Mr. Addiction and he does not let up. The honeymoon period does and will end. Thankfully the pink cloud can be weaponized by using the temporary burst of motivation to get stopgaps put in place to reduce chance of relapse by changing habits and lifestyle.