Break Any Bad Habit, Vice or Addiction Quickly and Simply
by Daniel J Schwarzhoff
Artwork by Kristen Schwarzhoff / See
Whatever addiction, bad habit, vice, or obsession you suffer with, there is just one, single and simple, root cause. And once you grasp it, there isn't a single bad habit or addiction that you can't swiftly and easily overcome.
No psychology. No counseling. No sermons or lectures. Just one realization that will change your attitude that will compel you from within to successfully give up any vice, permanently, and without any possibility of relapses. And you'll stay free of it for as long as you keep up what I am going to propose you do in this piece. Interested?
The Silent Architect of Vice and Obsession
It has to do with stress. But not in the way you may think or have been told. Now, before you think I'm about to tell you how to avoid or manage stress so that then you'll be able to give up your fixations with smoking or overeating or drinking, forget it!
You'll never kick a bad habit or find lasting comfort by avoiding or trying to manage stress. That is because stress does not affect you in the way you may think or have been told. The solution to vices, bad habits, and addictions is simpler than you think. And it is that simplicity that can make more nefarious, being sometimes difficult to recognize.
First realize that stress pervades the universe. It is an unwavering, dark force with no boundaries. Whether you're on Mars, the Moon, or 20,000 leagues under the sea in a diving bell, stress finds its way to every human being.
Instead of futilely trying to escape it, our attention must go toward mastering our response to its omnipresence. That alone determines whether we survive and thrive in this stress-filled world or get beaten down by it, suffering from the pressures of daily living.
And if that's true, then ultimately it really isn't the stress that is the problem. It's us. But we can change.
But let's take a quick look at just how stress works.
Resentment Drives Addiction
Stress is really just the word we use to describe temptation allowing resentment into us, where it feeds the bitter, dark energy of hate to the ego. It loves that! This may be a radical departure from what you thought stress was. But if you look at your past reactions you will see that whenever you react resentfully to a stressful situation, the ego gorges on that negative energy. It nourishes, inflates and begins to dominate, playing God—judging others as unworthy of your love or approval.
And so you feel discomfort. It is an uneasiness that we know as anxiety. It is really a "call" of conscience to stop judging, to stop playing God.
When someone says that they are stressed, what they really should say is that they are resentful. Because that is what has gotten into them. Then they became angry about something, and now they feel like crap. They feel bad for having played God.
So, anxiety is actually your friend!
It's supposed to save you from falling to playing God, from making the same mistake that every man and woman has made since the first two were in The Garden.
But rather than conforming to that inner guidance system by forgiving, you instead seek to quash the discomfort of the anxiety in support of ego, so you, really It, can continue to judge, entertaining anger. And you run and hide from God to play God, just like Adam and Eve did, if you recall that story.
This is How All Bad Habits and Addictions Begin
The avoidance of truth, that you are not God, steers you to the psychoactive substances and behaviors you've that previously discovered and abused to deliver anxiety-suppressing pleasure. You become a pleasured-centered being, gross and disgusting, compulsively eating or drinking or sexing your way to poor mental and physical health. And you canon stop. To stop would mean seeing what you've done.
These are by no coincidence, the things we identify as "addictive", the food, sex, drugs, alcohol, even relationships or exercise. You can become addicted to anything that stimulates the brain's pleasure center, modifying the release of neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. All of those activities become fixations.
As the flood of feel-good chemicals override anxiety, there comes an artificial sense of relaxation and well-being. But it is only temporary. And once it stops, the anxiety immediately returns. Then you are anything but a wellbeing. In fact, you are quite an ill being, spiritually, bodily, and mentally.
And so you are obsessively compelled back to the food, back to the drink, back to the person who does not love you so that you can please them to reclaim their approval—all to feel better again...even better than you deserve to feel.
The Underlying Cause is Beyond Physical Dependency
As you can see, the explanation of addiction here goes much more to the psyche than to purely physical aspects. Those only come later as physical tolerance to substances and even to behaviors builds. Not understanding it is how relapses occur—all relapses!
So, if you could just face stress without responding with resentment, you wouldn't feel the need for the relief that psychotropic activities provide in the first place. That need and repeated use would never push those activities to physical dependencies stage either. Tolerance would never build.
You would be obsession-free, completely able to regulate your behavior, using substances like foods and certain medications or social activities necessary for our wellbeing without ever abusing them.
You could never be addicted to or obsessed with anything. Not a person, not a substance, not a religion, not even with your self. You would be a balanced, emotionally stable human, connected with your Creator, His will, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Sustainable Freedom Beyond Relapse
And if you ever did find yourself in a predicament where you failed to meet the temptation to resent properly, and that negative energy of resentment did get in, you'd re-discover the presence of mind within to pause and resolve the stress-resentment issue.
Then you'd be able to kick virtually any bad habit, vice, or addiction, never to return to it or substitute any other fixation for it either.
Your visit to the rehab center would be successful and final. Your NRT patch would work like a charm. Your cold turkey method would work too. Your 12-Step program would absolutely work! Even quitting without any human aid or program whatsoever—all legitimate taper or detox methods would work as well as any other. You would just stop and never start up again.
How To Do It Quickly and Immediately
So I say, if there is any bad habit you want to kick, first eliminate the need for whatever that habit supplies you, and quitting becomes a breeze. Discover and exploit a way to become resilient or immune to stress, no longer reacting resentment but now with emotional neutrality. Then the need will never arise.
You probably would like to know how to do this. It's called conscious awareness, and you can practice it right now. To start, sit alone at bedtime with your eyes closed. Be aware of your thoughts, even the thoughts about thoughts. Notice the brightness within your mind and extend it to your two hands fingertips touching in front of you, allowing energy from your mind to flow into them and your body.
Use no mantras, music, or sound effects. Do not focus or concentrate on breath, breathing or any words, like affirmations or set murmuring through the mind. Only wordless observation. Do this twice daily for up to 15 minutes each time. If you do it properly, without willfulness, you will awaken right from the very first time.
If you keep it up with this, conscious awareness will begin permeating your thoughts and actions, as you go through your daily affairs, fostering resilience and emotional neutrality. You will experience a detachment from the ego, enhancing conscience and heightening intuitiveness.
Within a few days or maybe even hours, you'll begin to notice newfound awareness that revises how you perceive the world, and soon you will know perfect peace. You'll be free of anger, having mastery over resentment and without the emotional need any for the bad habits that may have haunted you in the past.
Even if you didn't get this message soon enough and are already in the throes of some addiction, you'll be able to stop simply and quickly. You will be able to break any bad habit, any addiction, and vice. Literally, overnight.
You will have no obsession to do anything you don't really want to do. And you won't even have to make excuses for it as you may have in the past. You just won't do it anymore, on your own volition because the need will be gone, having regained the ability to regulate your behavior.
Guided Mastery Over the Cause
Though simple, this technique can be tricky to do at first. But with a little practice, in just a few days you can get it. The See App will come in handy here, as it allow me to guide you through it. It is suggested you use the app for a minimum of three months at first to set in motion the practice that I call Non-Contemplative Meditation.™
The simple exercise I've just described, combined with my voice to guide you, presents the technique in a way that you could not experience otherwise. It's a great way to be certain you stay on track to get the hang of it.
There's a free trial as well as a sample that you can begin using immediately. Once the trial ends, you can keep going with the See App, or find Non-Contemplative Meditation on streaming platforms like YouTube for free.
For now, if you are looking to get rid of a nasty substance addiction or behavioral habit that's been nagging you, ruining your life, I suggest you get started right away with a test drive. Available on iOS and Android.