While I've learned many things on my
journey, one of them is that sometimes the answer I'm looking for
might be disguised as an answer to a seemingly unrelated topic. For
example, I understand the difference between my habits and my
addictions, but to explain the differences
to someone else is hard.
Surprisingly, my muddled answer was
presented in an organized way by none other than Mr. Money Mustache –
a financial guru.
Crazy, right?
I'm a big fan of his because he's
hilarious and makes great financial suggestions for people of all
walks of life. He posted an article sometime in March about what he's
learned about habits and how they affect us. How I missed this
wonderful post until now is mind-boggling, but boy, did it really
ring true with me.
An excerpt:
If someone asked you to define “habit”, what would you say? Until recently, I probably would have said something like “a repeating pattern of behavior, which is hard for some people to change, and easier for others. And the ability to change habits is sometimes called “willpower”.
But I was surprised to learn habits are much more than that. As it turns out, habits are little chunks of auto-pilot behavior that get burned right into your neurology - permanently. Once you develop a habit, you can never truly erase the program, even if you manage to deactivate it.
I am a creature of habit – of many
habits actually. Most of the things I do are on auto-pilot, and as I
digested the rest of his post, all those muddled thoughts about
habits vs. addictions started clicking into place. I finally
understood how to explain the difference.
Simply put: my habits are solutions that travel on an automatic pathway to a solve a single problem.
Need to pee? Walk out of bedroom,
enter bathroom, relieve self, flush toilet, wash hands and continue
on with the rest of my day.
Itch on my leg? Scratch it.
Done driving? Turn car off, exit car,
shut door, lock car behind me.
One problem, one logical solution, one
pathway to said solution. Simple.
My addiction on the other hand, is
the accumulation of many habits with the same illogical solution:
food.
Feeling happy? Eat.
Feeling sad? Eat.
The car broke down? Eat, fix it, then
eat some more.
Got a bad grade? Cry and eat.
Aced the test? Celebrate by eating.
Got a new job? Celebrate by eating
because I can afford to eat more.
Gave into temptation while dieting?
Throw the diet out the window and gorge.
Walk through the door of my house?
Immediately open fridge to eat.
The insanity of my mind tells me that
every good and bad thing in my life must be rewarded or punished by
food...when in reality,
stuffing my face accomplishes nothing. Food won't fix my car. It
won't help me get a better grade on the next test. It doesn't really
make me happy either.
While my addiction is food, my
recovery has nothing to do with it. Whenever I focus on food itself,
I miss the mark. By missing the mark, it creates a never
ending cycle of substance abuse to reward/punish myself for things
both inside and outside my control. That's why diets are so popular.
Diets focus on what foods I can or can't have for the diet to work,
but they never address why I'm addicted to food in the first place.
Since
my addiction is a group of habits with the same, insane
solution that never actually fixes the problem (and since habits are
permanent, auto-pilot pathways) then I will forever be a food addict.
These habits (permanent patterns) I created will always be engrained
in my brain.
Sounds hopeless, but in reality, it's
freeing.
Like Mr. Money Mustache's comments
about breaking spending habits, I too can break the habits that feed
into my addiction. Instead of focusing on the food addiction itself,
I have learned to focus on the patterns that lead to my addiction and
replace them with better, logical solutions.
Car broke down? Fix it.
Ate something I shouldn't have? Oh
well. Forgive, forget and tomorrow is another day.
Feeling sad? Go take a walk, figure
out why I'm sad and face the problem head on.
Feeling happy? Tell someone about it
and go do something fun (without food) to make me happier.
Easier said than done, but I'm still
happily plugging along on my journey. My recovery is about progress,
not perfection. One day I'll wake up, look at myself in the mirror
and say, “Wow, look how far you've come. Look how much you've
learned. Look at who you really are.”
So, here are some replacement habits
I've been working on recently:
Walk
through the door and wait ten minutes before opening the fridge:
Sometimes
I forget to even go into the kitchen now. Success!
Keep credit card/money out of
wallet when running errands that don't require money: while
some might think this is risky, I've learned to always check the fuel
gage in my car before leaving the house, and to always have my cell on
hand (and at least halfway charged).* If worse comes to worst, I can
walk to the nearest business and call someone for help.
Cook multiple servings of food
and turn them into homemade frozen dinners: this has really
helped a lot. I started doing this because I'd had some allergic
reactions at a few fast food restaurants (fast food is the main part
of my addiction, by the way), so I decided to make some frozen dinners
that I could turn to whenever the urge to go out and eat hits me. It's
worked wonderfully, and they taste 10x better (and cost 10x less per
meal) too.
While these new solutions deal with
food, they aren't about food itself. I'm retraining my brain
that there are better, more logical solutions to my problems. I'm
more aware of my thoughts and actions then ever before, and that's
where all the progress on my food addiction has come from. I also
know the moment I stop paying attention to my thoughts and actions,
those old habits will take over. I've learned that I can't coast
uphill, and that my recovery requires my own active participation in
every moment of my life.
If any of you have an addiction that
you want to overcome, I urge you to find the patterns (habits) that
lead up to your addiction and work on replacing them with better,
more logical solutions. Mr. Money Mustache is way more articulate
than me, and I would just be copy/pasting everything in his post
since he explains how to replace habits much better than I could, so
feel free to head over there if you have the chance.
I just want you to know that I love
each and every one of you. You all have a long journey ahead, but
it's absolutely worth it.
*Mr. Money Mustache would give me his
customary punch in the face for my frequent short trips in the car
and my high(ish) cell phone bill, but hey, I'm still learning. :)
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