Acceptance and Owning the Vice
The acceptance here doesn’t mean surrendering yourself to the grip of your vice. Before you go on blaming people or situations, you must first admit that you have a problem with your vice. Acceptance and admission of the fact that you have a problem are the first steps to working out an effective solution for it. Your sense of reason may have been frequently overwhelmed by the false sense of satisfaction that your vices may bring due incorrect brain programming. It’s time to correct that and to do so, you need to realize it yourself. Only then can you find the resolve to change your ways and start the next few steps towards getting rid of your vices.
Identify the Vice That You Are Dealing With
Knowing your enemy is a good strategy to win any war, including personal ones. If you are to wage war against your vices, you must at least know the vice that you want to deal with. Different people have different vice and different capacities for holding multiple vices. Thus, it might be possible that you have more than one vice to deal with. Take down one vice at a time if you have multiple vices. Start off with the most significant or problematic one before proceeding to the next one. Take a moment to study and research on the vice that you want to take care of and eliminate. Know about scientific and medical studies and findings concerning the vice, the classic symptoms, warning signs and effective management and intervention strategies.
Seek Advice and Intervention
These two steps have been intentionally set as the broad ones because you’re going to need more than one type of advice and intervention if you want to effectively deal with your vices - in short you’re going to need all the help you can get. When seeking advice regarding your vices, it’s not enough to just follow the advice of your family and friends. Seek advice from medical professionals and mental health professionals and spiritual advice from religious leaders in your community. They may all point out that you need to do something about your vices, but they can also give you specific steps and guide on how to proceed with the change.
Intervention here also refers to more than one approach. Your vices don’t just affect you physically, but also mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well. They can also put a strain on your finances, relationships and your job. Take alcoholism for example. This vice is one that encompasses all the aforementioned negative effects. If alcoholism is your most problematic vice, the most commonly applied interventions would be alcohol rehab, alcohol detox, alcohol counselling and support groups. The efficacy of these interventions has been proven with varying rates of success. This is because of varying personal factors of every vice-afflicted person. Not all are fully motivated to end the vice. Some may falter halfway and experience a relapse or recidivism, which nullifies the intervention. Thus, a holistic approach is needed when it comes to applying interventions for vices. Aside from the scheduled intervention sessions, monitoring and progress checks are essential in checking for signs of improvement or possible recidivism and apply the proper approach to prevent the latter.
Identify The Triggers
As mentioned before, vices are incorrectly programmed or conditioned brain responses to an unhealthy or undesirable practice. When speaking of conditioning, most of us will remember Ivan Pavlov’s experiments with certain triggers that evoke a certain behavior in dogs. What’s happening when we are under the spell of our vices can be analogous to Pavlov’s conditioning experiments. There can be things, situations and even persons we can associate with the triggering of our unwanted vices. Seeing the bright neon lights of a pub while heading home can trigger you to make a turn to get a drink. The convenience store signboard can also become a lure that brings you in and buy a six-pack. Even boredom, anxiety, depression and other negative emotions can trigger us to open a can or bottle of beer to get some relief. Knowing these triggers can help you as you undergo treatment and intervention and even after the intervention is finished. The real test of your resolve doesn’t end in the rehab center or any intervention or treatment facility. It’s what you do after the treatment ends that counts. Identifying the triggers and having the clarity of mind to take the next logical step is a sign of success.
Constructively Deal with the Triggers
We have to put emphasis on constructively dealing with the triggers here. Avoiding the triggers to your vices can only be half as effective if you don’t add proactive measures to stop the triggers. While rerouting and avoiding places that trigger your vice can help you avoid it, there will be times when you will still have to pass by such places; and when you do, be prepared to bring along things or people that help preoccupy you and take your mind off of the vice trigger. Your family or good friends can be good companions or your tennis racket, your gym clothes or relaxing music can help you ignore the lure of the triggers. It just takes resolve and resourcefulness to do something constructive about dealing with triggers and not just some half-baked attempt at avoiding them.
Make a Positive Substitute
You don’t want to spend the rest of your life avoiding triggers and depriving yourself of some good, clean fun. To effectively stop your vices for good, it’s time that you develop a positive substitute for them. Create a plan on how you can handle situations and triggers by replacing positive substitutes for them. Start the changes in your home. If you want to get rid of alcoholism for good, create your own natural and healthy drinks. You can make juices out of fresh fruits or stock fruit juice drinks in your fridge. Also, make sure to bring your own fruit juice drink if you will be attending a party or gathering where booze might be served. Be ready to say ‘no’ to offers of drinks, even just for one sip. Saying no to tempting offers of getting back to your vice is proof that you have broken the grip of the vice and you are on your way to living sober, clean and healthy.
Stopping your vices permanently can be tough. It can take dedication, time, patience and a strong will to take a journey to recovery and vice-free living. You must also know that your efforts will not go far without your support group – your family, friends and dedicated intervention professionals. Learn to appreciate them and show them your gratitude by being a testament of a successful fight against you vice and permanently winning over it.
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