Let’s try to understand these concepts and what to do about these phenomena.
Let’s start with addictions, which come in two types:
- Biochemical Addiction: This occurs when our body needs to get some element from the outside because it has temporarily lost the ability to produce certain elements on its own or because it gets more elements from outside than it can produce on its own. In either case, there is a chemical addiction to something.
- Thought Addiction: This is when we feel better when we use something or get calmer when we smoke, for example. There are certain thoughts that persuade us to use something from the outside, which are also anchored by emotional reactions. If smoking helped calm us down in a certain situation, we superimpose this effect on all other smoking processes, and it supposedly calms us down.
If the addiction were only biochemical, any person could easily get rid of it just by waiting some time—20 to 40 days, and any biochemical addiction would disappear. But it is not so simple with thought addiction. People can struggle for years or even decades to get rid of them, even when they realize these addictions harm their lives. Visits to a psychologist, too, most often will not be effective for a long time. Why does this happen, and what can be done about it?
Before answering these questions, let’s look at what attachments are.
Attachments are thoughts about the object of attachment and the self. Often, these attachments are anchored by emotional reactions and experiences, making them even stronger. Attachments can be to a person, to one’s condition around that person, to things, events, principles, beliefs, one’s perceptions, and even religion.
I have intentionally looked at these two terms superficially, as this is enough for you and me to understand what we are talking about.
What Do Addictions and Attachments Have in Common?
By having them, people become unfree. When people are not free, they suffer. You may argue, how can that be? But consider this: you can feel love, for example, and not be attached. You can care and wish well for your child but not be attached to them. As soon as your condition depends on someone else or something else, you stop controlling your life. So, a lot of suffering comes to your life.
But most importantly, attachments and addictions are just thoughts
They are just thoughts. If you study this article and do a few exercises, you will understand in detail what thoughts are and what you can do about them. To stop suffering from attachments and addictions, you need to truly understand and realize that they are just thoughts. When you fully experience understanding of the nature of thoughts and start using your attention, you will easily get rid of these attachments and addictions. To experience the understanding of what thoughts are, you need to observe them. Explore what thoughts are without getting involved in them. You can do this on your own or with the help of my training programs.
I won’t elaborate in this article on what thoughts are, but you can read more about it here.. Try to remove the importance you give to thoughts, and you’ll notice that they will stop controlling your life. Then, you will stop suffering from them. There are seven ways to get rid of thoughts, which you can explore.
Sometimes, a person may have an addiction that they don’t feel negatively impacts their life. If this addiction doesn’t poison their life or worsen it, and there’s only the thought that it’s bad, this thought alone won’t help. It’s crucial to live through the realization of how negatively the addiction affects one’s life, whether it’s through health, time, or other means. Without this understanding, there won’t be enough motivation to get rid of the addiction.
When people ask me how to get rid of an addiction, I suggest exploring what happens to you before, during, after, and in between episodes of the addiction. Look closely at how your addiction affects your life. Explore this impact through attention, noticing what happens to your body, your thoughts, your mind, your emotional state, your ability to manage your attention, your interactions with others, your timing, your quality of life, and so on. To do this effectively requires strong “muscles” of attention, enabling you to truly observe different aspects of yourself.
What helped me get rid of all my addictions and habits was the close observation of how they were affecting my life. I realized that these addictions are just thoughts and that they are not mine. When I observed the whole mechanism of how these thoughts influenced my life, they fell away on their own. Apart from using my attention, I didn’t have to put any more effort into it. The addictions dissolved by themselves. The same thing happens with others during and after training sessions.
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