The dictionary describes addiction as: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. Okay, now we know exactly what an addiction is. And I think that we would all agree that people think of being addicted to both alcohol and cigarettes. I also want everyone to understand that the question posed in this article isn't coming from someone who has only an academic view of addiction. I've personally quit both drinking and smoking after engaging in both proudly for the better part of 15 years. Was I an alcoholic? I don't make distinctions like that, but I know that I drank a twelve pack of beer a day, on average. I also smoked a pack a day on average for the entire time I drank alcohol. It's perplexing how the two coincided. Once I quit drinking, I then no longer wanted to smoke anymore either. So I stopped smoking as well.
My point to all of this is that I quit both of them and it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was led to believe. At the time I smoked, everyday I heard from some well meaning person how difficult it was going to be to quit smoking. And the same rule was true for drinking, although most people don't talk about stopping drinking. I think that's because drinking alcohol isn't looked upon as a "bad" thing in our culture. Smoking is looked upon as being almost as bad as carrying a loaded gun around and firing it indiscriminately, while drinking is accepted as being fine in moderation. Rather than quitting drinking, people talk about cutting down. So people say things like, "I like to have a beer or two, what's the problem?" Or "I'm not an alcoholic; those people have to go to meetings." In reality, they're both bad for you and everything you hear either justifies the action or explains how difficult stopping the action will be.
What I realized as I was quitting both bad habits was the fact that stopping them was in my mind, rather than some physical addiction that we all hear so much about. Let's take smoking for example. I tried to quit smoking three times before I actually made it. I tried the gum (which seemed to help) and quitting cold turkey. The problem was I didn't change my thinking. I still thought it was going to be difficult, so it was and never stuck. Then I changed the way I thought about quitting smoking. I said things to myself like, "this isn't going to be hard, I'm just not going to smoke" or "It's all in my head, I'm just used to smoking a cigarette, it's become normal to me and that is an illusion". I did the exact same thing with drinking. Doing these things and not putting myself in the vicinity of people who did, made it easy to stop both behaviors.
My point is that once I was free and clear of both behaviors I realized that it was more about what I thought about the substances than the substances themselves. If I was "addicted", it sure wasn't that hard to stop either of them. My great realization in the process was that it was all mental.
My point to all of this is that I quit both of them and it wasn't nearly as difficult as I was led to believe. At the time I smoked, everyday I heard from some well meaning person how difficult it was going to be to quit smoking. And the same rule was true for drinking, although most people don't talk about stopping drinking. I think that's because drinking alcohol isn't looked upon as a "bad" thing in our culture. Smoking is looked upon as being almost as bad as carrying a loaded gun around and firing it indiscriminately, while drinking is accepted as being fine in moderation. Rather than quitting drinking, people talk about cutting down. So people say things like, "I like to have a beer or two, what's the problem?" Or "I'm not an alcoholic; those people have to go to meetings." In reality, they're both bad for you and everything you hear either justifies the action or explains how difficult stopping the action will be.
What I realized as I was quitting both bad habits was the fact that stopping them was in my mind, rather than some physical addiction that we all hear so much about. Let's take smoking for example. I tried to quit smoking three times before I actually made it. I tried the gum (which seemed to help) and quitting cold turkey. The problem was I didn't change my thinking. I still thought it was going to be difficult, so it was and never stuck. Then I changed the way I thought about quitting smoking. I said things to myself like, "this isn't going to be hard, I'm just not going to smoke" or "It's all in my head, I'm just used to smoking a cigarette, it's become normal to me and that is an illusion". I did the exact same thing with drinking. Doing these things and not putting myself in the vicinity of people who did, made it easy to stop both behaviors.
My point is that once I was free and clear of both behaviors I realized that it was more about what I thought about the substances than the substances themselves. If I was "addicted", it sure wasn't that hard to stop either of them. My great realization in the process was that it was all mental.
Trevor Kugler is co-founder of JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 20 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country.....Montana!
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