Overcoming Bad Habits

[nailit]

Anyone here overcome any bad/unhelpful habits and if so how did you do it?

[Baldric]

Gave up smoking 20ish years ago purely by will-power while working with a lot of smokers.
Well pleased.

[nailit]

Baldric, I would be as well. Did you replace smoking with sweets/mints or anything else?

[Cloverjo]

The usual smoking and overeating. I gave up smoking by using an Inhalator. I don't know if they are still manufactured.

I stopped bingeing on food by 'allowing' myself to eat what I wanted and not try to starve or deprive myself.

[Baldric]

No, I don't have a sweet-tooth at all, given my background I just went with WP, it works.

[Maydup]

I struggle to overcome bad habits Nailit. I wonder if some of us have an inbuilt tendancy toward addiction while others dont, just as some people are born with say, a sense of humour, or a temper.

So life is a permanent challenge. Just as I give up one thing its replaced with another bad habit. I did manage to quit smoking about 10 years ago and did it by going cold turkey while on holiday. I grew out of excessive drink and drugs too, but I now struggle to resist sweet food and am miserably overweight, and I am also addicted to my screen. I cannot go long without checking news, playing a computer game, tap, tap, tap, its so rude! what did I do all evening before I had an ipad?

[Samuraisan]

I used to be able to sulk for ages, then when Mr.Sam and I got together 44 years ago, he didn't fall for it ( he ignored it) so I gave up ! Gosh, I had forgotten about that !

[nailit]

//I stopped bingeing on food by 'allowing' myself to eat what I wanted and not try to starve or deprive myself//
Clover, I think I know what you mean there, I'm always trying different diets but 'deprivation' diets always seem to backfire.

Baldric, well done on the smoking but what is WP?

Maydup, you have put my OP better than me ;-)

[nailit]

LOL Sam, my ex could sulk for England. Wished I'd have his wisdom then....

[-Talbot-]

No, I haven't.

[Baldric]

Nailit, Will Power.

[nailit]

Oh right Baldric, thanks.

[Old_Geezer]

No. I still surf here.

[Old_Geezer]

Not that I've ever had a habit I'd admit to wanting rid of, but if I did I'd do so be sheer determination.

[Old_Geezer]

BY !!!!!!

[Islay]

Maydup I think you are right some are more prone to addiction than others - I also believe it is heridatry
Grandfather, mother and brother all had booze addictions - for me it was food!

[kvalidir]

I am still struggling not to bite my nails, so not doing well with that, but recently I had too much to drink (I've always had alcohol in moderation only) and it made me feel awful, not in a hung over sense, but I felt totally paranoid, anxious, powerless and weak so I've decided to give alcohol a total miss ( barring maybe the odd glass of something with food at some point). I'm seriously scared of ever feeling that way again as it seemed like my life came into really sharp focus in the most destructive way, so I guess scare yourself enough and you won't do something :/

[nailit]

//so I guess scare yourself enough and you won't do something//
Unfortunetly addictions/habits don't seem to work that way. Ive known enough people who have been given a 'last chance' and carried on regardless.

[Islay]

My mother saw what booze did to my grandfather and it didn't stop her drinking, she scared herself several times and nearly lost her life on more than one occasion and it still didn't stop her drinking - she died of it in the end at 59 years old.
You would have thought that seeing all this my brother would not drink - but hey ho guess what - another person addicted to booze

[nailit]

// I think you are right some are more prone to addiction than others - I also believe it is heridatry //
Agree to an extent. But I seem to be the black sheep of the family with my own struggles with certain addictions.

[kvalidir]

Yeah my father had a massive drink, violence and hard drug habit when he as younger, and nothing stopped it until he dealt with the root cause of it when he met my mother ( which in his case was his father physically abusing him, then he said his desire to damage himself just fell away- he viewed it as an extension to his father's abuse, he wasn't there to do it anymore so he did it to himself. I'm not sure how valid that is tbh, but that's his theory. I certainly think there are addictive personalities, and I think he has one, he exercises a lot, and is very driven in everything he does, so I'm more inclined to think he replaced one addiction with another tbh.