How To Let Go Of Addictions

Do you ever find yourself pushed by some invisible force to do something that you know is unhealthy? Perhaps you've been battling with this habit for a long time and have not found any reliable way to overcome it.

You know what you should do but when you are in the moment, you can't help but give in to the craving.

Addiction is defined as:

* A habitual or compulsive involvement in an activity.
* A compulsive physiological and psychological need for a habit-forming substance.

I define addiction as "habitually feeling driven to do something in the moment that will drain one's energy and which one will regret later."

Foods, TV, relationships, thought patterns, and so on, can all become addictions if they begin to drain our health, wealth, and happiness.

If we logically understand the addiction is bad for us, then why do we do it?

I believe addictions are not the problem, but rather, a symptom of a deeper problem. The true problem is with energy, and addictions are the ego's way of dealing with the problem; a form of improper self medication.

I also believe that the solution is not to 'destroy' the addiction but to 'let it go' by bringing in more of the right energy that our body is craving.

This way we focus on what we want rather than pushing against what we don't want. This way the law of attraction works with us rather than against us.

The Energy Balancing Act of Addiction

When our body becomes out of balance, it reaches for the best solution it can find to reestablish balance. In our advanced world, we receive many mixed signals which may confuse the body into thinking something is helpful when it is not.

For example, when a person feels high anxiety or stress at work, their body reaches for the fastest way to reestablish the energy balance within them: for some, it's a cigarette.

It instantly calms their nerves and numbs their body. The trade off of this quick fix is the unhealthy toll it takes on the body, leaving it more imbalanced in the long run.

Smoking is the body's primitive way of trying to balance the energy within itself. So if one tries to give up smoking by simply stopping smoking, they will feel a HUGE short term energy imbalance of anxiety.

At this point, it's a battle of will-power to endure the energy imbalance long enough until the body learns to balance it through other means. Usually this imbalanced is simply expressed through a new addiction.

It doesn't need to be this hard.

Stopping smoking is only half of the solution. The other half is replacing it with a similar, life-sustaining energy that addresses the imbalance.

So in the case of anxiety and cigarettes, the person could learn powerful breathing techniques (part of the smoking high is just inhaling lots of oxygen anyway), meditation or some other practice.

This will bring in calming, soothing energy to treat the anxiety. The change from smoking to breathing or meditation doesn't have to be an instantaneous shift, just incremental. If a person is smoking a pack a day, start to slowly replace it with the new energy.

A pack a day will turn into 3/4 a pack a day plus 5 minutes of meditation, then 1/2 a pack a day plus 10 minutes of meditation, then 1/4 a pack and 20 minutes of meditation, and so on until its 0 cigarettes and all meditation.

The reason incremental changes are helpful is because energy often takes a little longer to manifest. So the first few times of breathing or meditation, they may not notice any change, but the energy is being summoned and continues to build.

Eventually, the energy will fulfill the person and letting go of the addiction will be the most natural next step.

The Emotional Origin of Addiction

Another phrase for "energy imbalance" is "emotional imbalance."

I believe there are two components to addiction: 1) The emotion that started it 2) The body's current craving for it

That is to say that every addiction has behind it a motive for it, or an emotional void trying to be filled. In one of the EFT training videos, an older woman came to Gary Craig (the founder of eft) and asked for help with quitting smoking.

She said she was constantly stressed and cigarettes were the only way to calm her down. He dug a little deeper and eventually she admitted, with tears in her eyes, that she was sexually abused by her father.

He immediately started the tapping procedure on her and released years of stuck emotions. He did a few more rounds and her craving had vanished in less than 10 minutes.

It was apparent that these emotional wounds were still active in her and smoking was the only way she knew that could ease these feelings. Once the feelings of anger towards her father had subsided, there was no need to smoke.

By addressing the emotion, the craving disappeared on its own.

Many people underestimate the powerful connection between emotions and physical health. They are practically one in the same.

In David Hawkin's Power vs Force, he states

"All attitudes,thoughts, and beliefs are also connected with various pathways, called meridians of energy, to all of the body's organs."

Emotions, which are simply extensions of thought, manifest in your body through your meridians. This means that when you are feeling negative emotion, your meridians become blocked. If this blockage occurs for long enough, then it will move to a specific organ and cause a specific health problem.

EFT and TAT are both energy techniques that work directly on fixing your meridians (instructions for both can be found at http://www.yangtown.com/blog/ ). By clearing out the meridian blockage at the heart of any addiction, you remove the source of the addiction.

Then you simply have to wait for the changes in energy to manifest into your physical body.

Consciously Participate in the Addiction

One of the main difficulties of overcoming an addiction is the fact that our conscious brain wants us to stop but our primitive survival brain doesn't. This creates stress and conflicting drives within us.

A powerful way to transfer power from our primitive brain over to our conscious brain is through simply choosing to participate in the addiction and becoming fully conscious while doing it.

Since we know that the addiction is bad for us, when our primitive brain drives us to do it, our higher brain starts to judge ourselves during or after the addiction.

In an effort to shut off the guilt induced by the thoughts of this logical brain, we ignore or repress the thoughts altogether, effectively giving our primitive brain total power over the addiction until it becomes an automatic and unconscious reaction and we are powerless to stop it.

You can tell if someone is in the automatic unconscious reaction stage if they refuse to face reality. They go into denial which is them trying to silence outside criticisms, just as they have silenced inside criticisms.

By consciously choosing to participate in the addiction, we are shifting power back to our consciousness until the addiction becomes a choice rather than an unconscious reaction.

So whatever the addiction is, choose to experience every moment of it by being fully present. Then you can let it go when it suits you.

Using the Power of Meaning instead of the Force of Discipline

Another source of power to support you while letting go of addictions is the meaning you give to letting go of the addiction.

Why should you let go of this addiction? How does it fit in with your mission? Where are you headed with your current path?

True power comes from meaning so the meaning we give to any situation will determine how much energy we have to fuel us.

That is why it is so crucial to find your mission and begin to live it, as that meaning will energize every part of your life.

So for instance, my mission with Yang Town is to empower men with spiritual wisdom. So when I looked at drinking alcohol, which I can feel draining me, I simply have to connect it to my mission.

I think, "Should I let go of alcohol or not?....Well, by letting go of alcohol, my body will be in a better state to receive universal energy and consciousness, which will give me more wisdom in my life, which will inspire the articles I write, which will better help myself and other guys, which will provide me with more abundance, which will further allow me to devote my life to my mission. Done. I will let go of alcohol."

The power to let go of addiction comes from meaning you give it.

So for example, if one of my buddies or an attractive woman is pressuring me to drink, it's comparing their approval against my mission. It's not even a choice. In the past, if the meaning is 'so i can be healthier', fun with my friend in the moment will blow away 'healthier.'

Once you make a decision backed with energy of your mission, you will actually feel really good. When I made the decision to let go of alcohol, I was actually excited to live this choice.

What many people do is they try to force themselves to give up an addiction.

Force is the same energy as the addiction itself.

Force is all about the short term gratification, is complicated, and requires endless energy to accomplish. Power is simple, graceful, and meaningful. Force burns out quickly whereas power endures for long periods of time.

Force drains. Power energizes.

That is why it seems like a constant struggle to "make it through another day." This is simply a sign that one is addressing the addiction using force.

When one is using force, they will often beat themselves up if they give in to the addiction. Under force, its very easy to throw away all the progress with just one slip up.

With power, the person has compassion for themselves. They understand that the addiction is the body trying to balance itself as best it can.

If I caved into the temptation of something, then I just say "its ok, I'm coming closer to letting go of this completely" and I don't beat myself up about it.

Letting go of addictions can be exciting and natural once you:

1. Find life supportive forms of energy to replace the addiction
2. Use EFT and TAT to balance your emotions
3. Consciously participate in the addiction to gain power over it
4. Align yourself with a powerful meaning by connecting it to your mission
This is not to say that these various activities are "good" or "bad." It's just when they become an addiction, the quality of your life is at risk. A true spiritual warrior can consciously choose to engage in any activity knowing full well the trade offs inherent in the choice.

It can also be very beneficial in building character to just let go of everything and see how life changes.

Ask yourself, "What people, activities, or substances are draining my health and happiness?"

"What would my life be like if I let them go?"