How to Overcome an Addiction

Steps

1. 1
   Admit there is a problem and be willing and open to change. If you really don't want to stop yet, then just going through the steps to overcome an addiction to please someone else, or because you think you should, is just going to waste your time and everyone else's.
   
   
2. Assess how willing to change you really are. Usually this depends on how serious your addiction has become and how much of your life has been destroyed by it, although that isn't true for everyone. It doesn't matter exactly how willing - just that you can be honest with yourself about how willing you are. Determine whether you are a little bit willing, healthily willing or willing to do absolutely anything to overcome your addiction.
   
   
   
3. If you are a little bit willing then probably what is known as community based treatment would be best for you. Joining a new club, sports team, or other kind of community group will help you make new friends and start a new chapter of your life in which addiction is not a part. Positive social interactions can stimulate the release of neurochemicals which elicit feelings of happiness and satisfaction without the need for drugs.^[1]
   
   
   
   • If you want to try for extra credit then you could also seek some kind of therapy or counselling with a therapist who doesn't specialise in 12 Step recovery - be sure to ask!
   • Anti craving medicine might also suit your needs if you're a little bit willing since it can remove the physical dependency aspect of your addiction. If you combine it with the community based treatment then you will also have something that can help you keep busy and distract you from mentally craving the focus of your addiction.
4. 4
   If you have a healthy willingness to change then counselling or therapy might suit your needs. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), behavioral therapy, Motivational Interviewing, Gestalt techniques and life skills training are amongst the techniques that have been proven successful for those seeking to overcome addictions. A therapeutic setting ensures that you will have privacy and that the treatment will be based on your particular needs and goals.
   
   
   
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5. 5
   If you are willing to do absolutely anything to overcome your addiction then 12 Step recovery may suit your needs. 12 Step is a spiritual program of recovery based on non-commercial fellowships of addicts and isn't for everyone. But with Alcoholics Anonymous^[4] having successfully helped hopeless drunks overcome their addiction in the first half of the 20th Century, when nothing else worked, the 12 Step program is a method favoured by addicts of all sorts. Narcotics Anonymous^[5] provides a 12 Step program for drug addicts and there are also smaller fellowships for smokers, overeaters, sex addicts and many others.
   
   
   
6. 6
   Join an internet group or website that offers support, resources, and information to aid in your recovery..