Addictions are brutal. 

It doesn’t matter if it’s junk food or cocaine. They leave you feeling helpless, alone and ashamed, all of which make them that much harder to overcome. 

In fact, addictions are often culprits of the most terrible situations a person can find themselves in: car crashes due to over-drinking, overdosing on a powerful drug, cardiac arrest because of poor nutrition, or cancer caused by smoking.

We’re not trying to make you feel bad or paint an unpleasant picture in your mind, but these are things that we felt needed to be said to make it clear just how serious addictions are. 

And to really drive the point home, take the example of David Hasselhoff, who was a very famous actor back in the 1970s and 80s. You can search him up. 

The point is that his alcohol addiction got so out of control that he was temporarily banned from seeing his daughters. His visitation rights were revoked. 

Can you imagine not being able to see your children, or someone you love, because your addiction puts them in harm's way? Because this thing has so much control over you that you would unknowingly hurt someone you care about? 

That sounds horrible doesn’t it? 

If you’ve experienced something like this, then we genuinely sympathize with you, and we’re sorry you had to endure that. 

Hopefully though, you haven’t, and the point of this post is to prevent you from finding yourself in such a situation, because it’s entirely possible if your addiction gets out of hand. 

And if you’re reading or listening to this, thinking that it’s too late, trust us, it’s NEVER too late. It’s always worth it to overcome the crutch that your addiction is. Even if you can’t undo the damage it’s already done, you can prevent it from doing even more harm. 

So, let’s start by looking at how most people deal with their addictions (spoiler alert, none of these things actually help). 

What Most People Do

1. They Try To Hide It

This is by far the most common way people try to address their addictions: by pretending they don’t exist. 

Look, we completely understand that certain addictions can leave you feeling very ashamed, and that they’re things you’d never want anyone to know about you. 

But we’re not asking you to go announce to the world what you’re addicted to. 

All we’re saying is that by hiding your addiction, pretending that it doesn’t exist, you’re not acknowledging it, and that itself is a problem. 

Because until you accept that you’re addicted to something, you can’t do anything to address it. 

You need to expose it for what it really is, whether that’s by saying it outloud in an empty room, or just thinking it in your head - labeling it for what it is reduces the power it has over you.

So if this is what you’re doing, and be honest with yourself, it’s time you exposed it. If you don’t do this, then the rest of this post isn’t going to be helpful to you. 

Acknowledging that you have a problem is the very first step towards solving it. 

2. They Do Nothing

Ok, so at least you admit that you have an addiction. 

Sure, but choosing to do nothing about it is still a choice, and it’s a terrible one. In fact, we’d argue that it’s the worst one. Yup, even worse than pretending that your addiction doesn't exist. 

Why? 

Because if this is you, then it means that you know you have a problem, but you’ve given up on fixing it. You’ve chosen to let it control your life. 

What’s worse is that not doing anything to try to resolve your addiction, and letting it go unchecked, is exactly how you end up facing the worst possible consequences of that addiction. 

It’s like we said before, overdose, accidents on the road, cardiac arrest, cancer, and trust us, there’s a lot more we can add to that list. 

By doing nothing, these are the things you’re actively choosing to allow as possibilities for what might happen in your future. 

3. They Try To Address The Symptoms

Honestly, this is better than the previous two for sure. At least you’re trying to do something about your addiction. 

And the fact that you’re reading or listening to this post means that you’re probably in this category, so you should be proud of yourself for that. 

Now, when you Google “How to break an addiction?”, more often than not you’re gonna find strategies for resisting temptations, for not “feeding the demon” as they say. 

However, these are surface-level. At best, they help you in the short-term by keeping you from reaching for the bottle a couple of times. At worst, they prevent you from addressing the actual problem. 

We’re not saying that they’re useless. They definitely have their place and can be effective, but only if they’re used as a supplement to the real work. 

What do we mean by that? 

Well, the first thing you have to realize about all addictions is that they have one thing in common: every single addiction, no exceptions, is a coping mechanism. 

A coping mechanism for what? 

Improperly managed stress. 

The worse that stress is, the stronger the coping mechanism. 

For example, if you’re stressed about a test, you might binge eat a box of donuts. 

But if you’re stressed about paying rent next month, and are worried about being homeless, you might drink one too many bottles. 

So the real work with breaking any addiction can be broken down into two major steps. 

The first, is identifying the source of the stress that’s causing you to use your addiction as a coping mechanism. 

The second, is alleviating that stress by learning how to manage it in a healthy way, which over time, will allow you to rid yourself of the addiction. 

And that’s what we’re gonna teach you exactly how to do, right now. 

How To Actually Break An Addiction

Before we start, we want to make it clear that these are general guidelines. 

Unfortunately, we can’t tailor advice that’s specific to your situation because we’re writing to a large audience. 

These principles will definitely work for you, because they work for everyone. 

But if you need additional help, we’d suggest you look to a professional who can cater their expertise to your particular situation.

Alright, let’s get into it! 

Step 1: Identify Your Stressors

Easier said than done right? 

Well, here’s two ways you can do just that: 

The Week-Long Reflection

This is a strategy that our Founder came up with to evaluate important decisions before making them. 

You basically spend some time, ideally every morning after you’ve woken up feeling well-rested, reflecting on the same thing every day, for a week. 

So in the case of identifying your stressors, we’d suggest that you reflect on the following areas of your life: 

• Your Health (both physical and mental) 

• Your Relationships (family, partner, friends, socializing in general, community etc.) 

• Your Work/Career (financial situation, career-outlook, goals, passion projects, etc.) 

• Your Adventures/Fun (hobbies, new experiences, charity, exploring your curiosity, etc.) 

For each of these areas we want you to ask yourself the following questions (and yes this includes the sub-categories we’ve mentioned in each one): 

• On a scale of 1-10, 10 being “amazing”, how would I rate my life in this area? 

• Am I excited about what I’m doing in this area of my life? 

• Am I satisfied with this area of my life? 

• Is there anything about this area of my life that I would want to change? 

Now this isn’t an exhaustive list. 

There are so many more questions you can ask yourself to stimulate thoughtful reflection, so feel free to go online and find other self-reflection questions that resonate with you. 

Once you’ve answered these questions honestly, every day for a week, you’ll know which area or areas of your life are contributing to your stress. 

The reason we ask you to do this for a week is because reflecting on just a single day is like only considering one data point when making a decision. 

Your mood and energy levels among other things will vary based on the day, so by reflecting on the same thing for a week, you’ll have an “average” of what you really think (which is more accurate). 

If you want an extreme example, consider our Founder. They had to make a very important decision that would influence the rest of their life, so what did they do? 

They used this method, but instead of reflecting on their decision for a week, they reflected on it, at the same time every single day, for 9 months!

Obviously, they were then able to look back through all of their reflections and figure out the best way to move forward. 

A Time Audit

The second method you can use to identify your stressors, whether on its own, or in conjunction with the week-long reflection, is conducting a time audit. 

It’s pretty simple. Now keep in mind, simple doesn’t mean easy, but it is straight-forward. 

Just set a recurring hourly reminder on your phone, or whatever device you use most often, to write down what you spent the past hour doing (and if you did multiple things, specify how much time you spent on each thing). 

Do this for a week. It doesn’t have to be very detailed, it just needs to include enough information so that you can categorize it. 

Remember the categories we mentioned earlier when we were talking about the week-long reflection? 

What we want you to do is at the end of every day, after you’ve filled out your time-log, go through each entry and organize it based on the categories we gave you earlier. 

For example, if you spent an hour working out, that’s best categorized under “Physical Health”. If you spent 30 minutes talking to a coworker during lunch, that’s best categorized as “Socializing In General”. 

If you do this every day, for a week, by the end of the week you’ll know what you spent roughly all of your waking hours doing, and which category each of the things you did falls under. 

And before you tally up how much time you spent doing something in each category, we want you to ask yourself: “How much time do I want to be spending on this category?” 

Again, this means answering the question for the sub-categories as well, so not just: “How much time do I want to spend on my health?” 

You want to ask: “How much time do I want to spend on my physical health?” & “How much time do I want to spend on my mental health?” 

So once you’ve answered this question for all the categories (and their sub-categories), now you can count up the time you spent in each of the categories. Compare the time you spent on the category to the time you’d like to be spending on that category. 

If you’re spending significantly less or more time on a category than you’d like to, it’s probably one of the areas of your life that’s contributing to your stress.

Working too much and not sleeping enough are the most common stressors we’ve observed. 

Step 2: Address The Stress

Alright, so by implementing either of the two strategies we mentioned in the previous section, you should have a decent idea of which area or areas of your life you need to work on. 

This is the part of the post where unfortunately we can’t cover every single thing, because the combination of areas that are lacking in your life will be completely different from someone else’s. 

Therefore, in this section we’re going to cover some general advice that you can implement for each category, just to give you an idea. 

But at the end of the day, your situation is unique, and you’re going to need to figure out how to manage your particular stress in a healthy way. 

Please use the guidelines that we’re about to give you, but if these aren’t sufficient or you just don’t know what else to do, we’d strongly recommend reaching out to a professional. 

Lastly, before we begin, we’d like you to keep something in mind: “Don’t let perfection get in the way of progress.” 

You probably won’t be able to implement everything we’re about to tell you, and that’s okay! As long as you’re taking steps to improve your situation, even if it’s just by a little bit, that counts!

The more you improve your life, the more you enjoy reality. And the more you enjoy reality, the more present you’ll be, and your temptations to escape reality through a coping mechanism (eg. an addiction) will eventually disappear.

It’s not going to be easy, but it is going to be worth it. 

So let’s get into it! 

Health

• Resistance-training, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day, something is better than nothing. 

• Incorporate more movement into your day, like getting up every hour to walk for 5 minutes. 

• Eat more minimally-processed foods, so potatoes instead of french fries. 

• Have good hygiene 

• Meditate and practice mindfulness throughout the day; it’s one of the greatest superpowers you can have. 

• Practice gratitude every morning to start the day on the right foot. 

Relationships

• Tell your family that you love them every day. 

• Organize weekly activities to spend more time with your family and friends. 

• Have a conversation with a stranger every week. 

• Do your hobbies with other people. 

• Join a club. 

• Do something with other people to give back to your community. 

Work/Career

• Learn a new skill. 

• Start a side-hustle or a business. 

• Attend career-development workshops. 

• Start a passion project that also looks good on your resume. 

Your Adventures/Fun

• Take a new route to work or wherever you have to commute to. 

• Try a new recipe every week. 

• Spend some time learning about whatever piques your curiosity. 

• Read more. 

• Travel more; it doesn’t need to be an expensive vacation, it could be a day-long road-trip over the weekend. 

• Do something silly that makes you and someone else laugh. 

By the way, we already mentioned something for hobbies and charity in the relationships category. 

Get creative, you can come up with things that allow you to spend time in all 4 of these categories simultaneously. What we’ve given you here are just some ideas of things you can do. 

For example, if you love playing tennis, you could organize a weekly activity for the community, roping in your family, friends and whoever else wants to join, and conduct a free tennis tournament that’s open to anyone. 

By doing this, you’re exercising, you’re present, you’re spending time with people you care about, you’re doing something fun, you’re giving back to the community, and the more people who join, the more impressive it’ll look on your resume if you want to include it. 

Summary

Ok, so before we wrap up, here’s a quick summary of what we’ve talked about here: 

What Most People Do:

• They pretend their addiction doesn’t exist

• They don’t do anything about it 

• They try to address the symptoms

Why These Things Don’t Work:

• If you don’t accept that you have a problem, you can’t do anything to change it 

• If you do nothing about it, obviously it’s only going to get worse 

• Addressing the symptoms fixes the problem temporarily; you need to tackle the root cause to fix it permanently.

How To Actually Break An Addiction:

• Identify the stressors in your life that are causing you to use an addiction as a coping mechanism

• You can do this by using the week-long reflection

• Or you can conduct a time-audit for a week 

• Or you can do both of these things! 

• Once you know where the stress is coming from, make gradual improvements to your life to manage the stress in a healthy way. 

• And if you need additional help, reach out to a professional!

That’s A Wrap!

We hope you found this post valuable! 

If you did, then consider sharing this post with someone you think it could help! The bigger our community, the more we can all help each other :) 

Thanks again! 

Your Internet Siblings: The Healthy Kangaroo Team ;)