Why Beating Addiction Feels Like an Endless Battle
The following chapter is from Limit Breaker: 101 Short Stories, Essays, and Insights to Improve Communication Skills
How do we control addictions?
Do we stop cold turkey, or to we ease ourselves out of it?
I had a friend from college who became an alcoholic when he graduated from undergrad.
The guy had a lot of pressure dealing with law school & being in his profession.
One time, he invited me into his law school where he had to do a mock trial.
For law school, there is a class where you prepare the entire semester to be part of a trial.
You are presented with a case. Given a judge. Witnesses and all that.
This was dope.
I was invited to be a part of the audience and watch.
As I was watching my friend in action, talking about why his ‘client’ was innocent…I noticed something.
‘What?’
He seemed a little loud.
Maybe he was getting in the lawyer zone.
But maybe it was something else.
I’ve seen him in our undergrad parties before.
Can tell when he has had a little too much to drink.
He gets loud.
The tone he had in the mock trial sounded strangely similar to our undergrad moments.
Others thought he was in the zone.
I thought I’d give him the benefit of the doubt.
Once the trial was over, a few of us went to the back to meet up with the mock trial participants.
As soon as I greeted this friend…
I got a strong whiff of Jack Daniels.
Yea.
He had been doing this case tipsy or drunk.
That was one of the memories I had of him before he went to seek help.
Before he admitted to himself that he was an alcoholic.
I feel for him.
When I was young, I wondered why people didn’t just stop.
Could it be that hard?
But that’s when he was saying he feels STRONG sensations in his body when he just tries stopping.
He starts shaking & goes through insomnia.
You learn something new every day.
Seeing this friend go through alcoholism showed me to be more understanding when someone is battling addiction.
It seems easy from the outside.
Difficult when you’re actually going through it.
One thing I recall him doing was easing himself out of alcohol.
Where he would not quit cold turkey but gradually do less & less.
To take it a level further, he had an accountability buddy, support system & app that measured how many days he went without alcohol once he was in his groove.
When he saw the days piling up, everything felt more REAL.
Overcoming this addiction was doing wonders for his confidence.
This story isn’t about telling you to quit alcohol.
Instead, it’s to showcase insights regarding addiction.
There are different forms of addictions that different people face.
The mind has the tendency to make us overdo something at certain times.
Whether it’s an addiction with porn, alcohol, social media, sweets etc.
It’s good to remain aware of how others are going through addictions.
Doing some research to keep your mind aware of this niche of information.
There are frameworks that have been designed so you can move with more clarity if you ever stumble upon it at a certain moment.
Never say ‘that could never happen to me.’
Life has a way of proving us wrong.
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