-
Welcome to Religious Forums, a friendly forum to discuss all religions in a friendly surrounding.
Your voice is missing! You will need to register to get access to the following site features:- Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
- Our modern chat room. No add-ons or extensions required, just login and start chatting!
- Access to private conversations with other members.
We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!
What helped you?
- Thread starter Spiderman
- Start date
I have been known to have addictive tendencies. I've done the standard medical and social protocols. Meditation has been and will continue to be the most effective 'treatment.'
Nature walks, change of topic, writing. I had job burnout several years back, and took to writing about positive events in childhood. It distracted me a ton, and the gentle positive memories invoked cheered me up. Of course not all people have those kinds of memories to draw on.
Later I helped write a book called 'Life Skills for Hindu Teens' that goes over 10 strategies that are especially useful within a Hindu context, but could also be used by most anybody. The format was to write a realistic fiction short story using a specific strategy to deal with a problem. For example, one story was about teenage suicide, and the youth involved used rhythmic breathing to help himself handle it. Not your normal book, by any means, and anybody might benefit from it, and/or the strategies for coping contained within. I can link it if you want.
Later I helped write a book called 'Life Skills for Hindu Teens' that goes over 10 strategies that are especially useful within a Hindu context, but could also be used by most anybody. The format was to write a realistic fiction short story using a specific strategy to deal with a problem. For example, one story was about teenage suicide, and the youth involved used rhythmic breathing to help himself handle it. Not your normal book, by any means, and anybody might benefit from it, and/or the strategies for coping contained within. I can link it if you want.
Nope. While drugs can certainly affect your mental state they don't actually fix anything IMO. I've always had to work out a solution on my own.
Do meds provide an actual cure or do they end up being a personal permanent bandage for a problem that reoccurs if removed?
I was in a group home for a while for anger and violence issues. I always felt I had a good reason for being angry at the time. Just had to find other ways of dealing with the anger on my own. Nothing provided by the group home seemed helpful to me.
Earthling
David Henson
With mental and emotional problems I've had nothing major, believe it or not. No more than usual. I've always been a loner and sometimes the fact that I was gay and socially very awkward left me feeling very lonely. I withdrew into myself, in a sense, mentally or intellectually evaluating everything around me. I created a division between what I knew was reality, perceived by others, and every possible reality I could imagine myself placed in. I had these "possible realities" in 3 categories. Probable. Possible and Impossible. I maneuvered myself through these in all possible scenarios. From one extreme to the other. I started doing this when I was about 8 years old or so and it made me very self aware. It gave me a perspective and sense of fairness, inside, outside and all possible sides.
This would later be extremely helpful and enlightening, for example when studying the Bible and religion and, oddly enough, when reading Frank Herbert's Dune series. The entire 6 of which you can read free online and I strongly recommend you do so if possible. (link)
With addictions, I quit caffeine, marijuana, ephedrine, and alcohol on my own. With my own inner strength and I'm working on nicotine now, though, man . . . is it a *****. Everyone I know who has smoked has quit with little problem, but I just don't want to do it. I'm down to a few a week, but it's killin' me. I can't think straight, I can't remember, I don't want to do anything but sleep. I hate everything, I don't care about anything at the same time. I'm so angry. I'm not going to give up, though.
Earthling
David Henson
The wallet? How so?
Smoking. I kept trying to quit. What helped was 1. Not being around other cigarette smokers. 2. Being with people who loved me. 3. Being too poor to buy cigarettes. 4. The patch which did not stop the craving but helped me not to be unreasonable. 5. Smoking was like wanting to eat ashes. 6. When I was smoking it was never enough. Even while smoking I was thinking about the next cig.
You just reminded me that I need to empty those 6 month old butts that litter the ash pan of my Weber kettle and ditch the lighter that rests atop.
I assume it's because people buy his art.
Earthling
David Henson
LOL. Well, Duh. It didn't even occur to me. I'm a little slow of late. Thanks.
Earthling
David Henson
Thief
Rogue Theologian
for a short time....I had a lot on my plate
distraction proved the healing
Kung Fu....mixed with a Japanese style of Aiki Ju Jutsu
distraction doesn't make the problem go away
the martial art won't make the problem go away
but training the body takes the mind away.....
you focus to the task at hand
it is difficult to worry other things when a 4th degree black belt is slapping your head
throwing you down
twisting your arm
soooooooo very relaxing it is
Cacotopia
Let's go full Trottle
Cause it's my career and I make lots of money selling my art, well not LOTS lots, but enough to make a living on. It's slow steady hill climb to get the reputation for "expensive" art. But I don't think i would ever want to be stuck there. I want my work to be accessible to everyone even if it is detrimental to the price of my work as a whole, not just prints but original pieces.
PureX
Veteran Member
Nicotine is a tough one. I'm a recovered alcoholic, and that took years of intense therapy, through the fellowship of AA, also with a good professional psychologist, as well as with regular participation in a religious discussion/study group. But I had to wait two more years to even try to quit smoking (I was a 1-2 pack a day smoker). And when I finally did stop, it was HELL!
But I found two things that helped me stay with it. One was that as bad as it was, I could use that 'suffering' as a reason not to fail. I really did not want to have to go through it again! And the other was that I had to stop renegotiating my decision to quit every time I got a craving. I knew that if I did that, sooner or later I was going to decide to smoke, and just one smoke would mean it's all over. So I had to keep telling myself that the decision had already been made, and was no longer negotiable. I looked at it like a broken limb. The break has happened, and cannot "unhappen", now. So all I could do is put up with the pain and suffering of it until it finally 'heals up'. And it does 'heal up'. The discomfort does go away, slowly, and in increments. After a couple of weeks I found there would be a few hours a day in which I was no longer obsessing about smoking. Then, after a month or so, I noticed that I had gone a whole day without thinking about it. And then after six months I'd go several days, and maybe even a week. And so on. (I kept dreaming that I still smoked, in my sleep, for a long, long, time, though. But then when I awoke, I was always very relieved to realize that I had not smoked and blown it.) Hang in there, friend. You can do it! I have been alcohol and nicotine free for 25 and 23 years, now, respectively. And I'm no tower of self-will, believe me. I just know that one drink, or one cigarette, and I'd be right back there where I was: totally addicted. And I do not want that part of my old life back, at ALL!
Last edited: