You don’t have to be very old or particularly jaded to believe that once you’re addicted to something (from gambling to crack cocaine), kicking the habit isn’t going to be easy. Research shows that with certain dependencies, your brain can be altered for life—forever affecting your ability to feel pleasure—not to mention the fact that chronic drug abuse can harm both judgment and behavioral control, making it just that much more difficult to quit.
When you look up the word “addiction,” it gets even more depressing. You read about enslavement and feelings of euphoria that, if interrupted, can lead to trauma, cravings, irritability, and depression. When you think about the hundreds of thousands of people who die from the effects of various addictions each year or if you listen to your aunt Sally talk about the hold nicotine has had on her since she first started smoking at age fourteen, you think to yourself, Can anybody actually kick an addiction?
But then there’s the less publicized, more encouraging, side of the addiction literature. When you move from the headlines to academic journals, you learn that nearly all addicts recover. And the majority do it on their own.
An illustration of this rather startling good news unfolded in 1970 as the U.S. government waited for sixty-nine thousand heroin-addicted soldiers to return from the very site that got them addicted in the first place—Vietnam. Leaders worried that hospitals and jails would be overwhelmed by the problems associated with these addicted troops. But the problems never came. In fact, 88 percent of those who were diagnosed as “seriously addicted” kicked their habit shortly after leaving Vietnam.1
This remarkable transformation wasn’t a one-off event. Scores of studies have shown that most people do, in fact, overcome their addictions, and many of them do so without any kind of therapeutic intervention. Now, why would this be? Why could tens of thousands of soldiers and even more citizens be able to successfully overcome enormous problems ranging from smoking to heroin addictions?
As you may have already guessed, many of the reasons lie in the first seven chapters of this book. The timeline for overcoming addiction is not set by a rehab center’s calendar, genetic differences, or the underlying power of the addiction itself. Instead, the timeline is set by the speed with which individuals align all six sources of influence to help them change their habits.
Consider the sixty-nine thousand heroin-addicted soldiers who returned from Vietnam. The very action of returning home completely upended the six sources of influence that were supporting their current drug habit. After soldiers traded in their army boots for penny loafers, nobody was shooting at them, and their interests turned from land mines to matriculating, within months, almost all dropped one of the most addictive substances imaginable because all six of their sources of influence changed.
Contrast these returning soldiers with people who return from your typical high-end rehab site. After six weeks of counseling and separation from their drug of choice, patients return to their same homes, where they’re now exposed to the same temptations, same accomplices, and same problems they had when they left—leading to the abysmal success rate of most rehab facilities.
The message from these examples should be both clear and encouraging. We’re not suggesting that rehab has no value in helping people overcome addictions. For some, it plays an important role in helping them acquire skills. However, rehab shouldn’t substitute for you becoming both scientist and subject as you develop your own six-source plan. Learn how to recruit power from everything from friends to the physical environment, and you can overcome any addiction.
Now, before we look into techniques for dealing with your particular addiction, let’s start by examining what your habit has already done to you. That way, as a scientist working on yourself, you’ll know what you’re dealing with.
We’ll start with your brain. As your addiction started gaining power over you, something subtle yet very profound took place deep inside your head. Many of the people you know don’t understand what those changes have done to your brain, so they incorrectly accuse you of staying with your addiction simply because of the unholy pleasure it offers you. As far as the uninformed are concerned, you simply can’t resist the high it gives you. In essence, they are caught in the willpower trap.
However, brain research reveals something you have felt even if you don’t yet know it. With continued exposure to an addiction, sticking with your bad habit becomes less about seeking pleasure than about something else—something that began to reveal itself more than fifty years ago when two young scientists, James Olds and Peter Milner, started tinkering inside (of all places) rat brains. More specifically, Olds and Milner wanted to map the various functions of the brain—by location (something that was completely unknown at the time).
To uncover this invaluable information, the two researchers invented a process of inserting electrodes inside various regions of a rat’s cranium and then pumping in a bit of electrical current. The experiment was mostly a bust. In most regions of the brain, the electricity produced no effect whatsoever.
But just when the two scientists were about to call it quits, they noticed that one rat behaved quite differently from the others. He seemed to like getting shocked. When given the option, he kept returning for more. Upon further inspection, the two scientists learned that this particular rat’s electrodes had landed in a primitive part of the brain now known as the septal region.
Encouraged by the intriguing effect, the two scientists hooked electrodes to the septal regions of several rats and then set up a lever system whereby each could control the electrical shocks—and the accompanying bolt of joy. It wasn’t long until the rats were pushing the lever incessantly. Many became so obsessed with the lever and the feeling it gave them that they pushed it until they collapsed from starvation and exhaustion.2
It’s no surprise, then, that Olds and Milner concluded that these rats were having fun. Surely the rodents were stimulating themselves into a state of bliss. Dozens of brain researchers picked up on their finding, and it wasn’t long until many saw the connection to human addictions. For decades, scientists assumed that addicts, like rats hooked to their precious levers, were driven by their lust for pleasure.
That is, until scholars began sticking electrodes inside human brains—and then doing something they couldn’t do with rats. They asked those same humans what they were feeling. Now for the important finding. When human subjects explained how they felt when their “pleasure center” was being stimulated, they didn’t use the word “pleasure” at all. They chose words like “urges,” “cravings,” and “compulsions.”3 This is an important distinction. When it comes to humans, the compulsive behavior Olds and Milner first observed in rats turns out to be related more to wanting than to liking. It’s more like scratching an itch.
In one way, Olds and Milner got it right. Addictions as diverse as alcoholism, smoking, pornography, gambling, cocaine and heroin abuse, video gaming, shopping, and overeating all involve the septal region. In another way, however, the two researchers were wrong. Over time the motivation to continue with an addiction often transforms from seeking pleasure to satisfying cravings. Worse still, with repeated use of an addictive substance or act, the septal region of an addict’s brain changes in a way that reinforces and maintains the cravings—making the addictions less satisfying but more compelling.4
This urge-creating mechanism helps explain why nearly half of all smokers who’ve undergone surgery for early-stage lung cancer resume smoking within a year.5 This is also why the average alcohol or drug abuser who tries to quit is back at it within four to thirty-two days—even though the abuser hates what it’s doing to his or her life.6 Addicts—even when given a life-threatening warning such as early-stage cancer—don’t fall off the wagon merely because they’re looking to create a good feeling; rather, they’re trying to resist a profoundly disturbing urge that surges up from within the primitive parts of the brain.
Hopefully this short historical review helps put your change plans in perspective. Research reveals that you can kick your addiction and it may not require an expensive treatment center. It’s also clear that you’ll need to be patient. Changes require you to overcome powerful urges stimulated from deep within the brain, and this takes time. It will also take several tactics. You will eventually need to amass a combination of the six sources of influence to keep you away from your addiction. You’ll need to do this while your brain recovers from the insidious adjustments it has already made.
But take hope. Delaying gratification won’t always be hard. Research shows that over time, withdrawal symptoms will subside. Next month will be easier than this month. The month after that will be easier yet. A year from now—although you may still have some lingering urges—your urges may be accompanied by a whole new set of feelings.
As your urges lessen or even subside, you’re likely to look at former temptations with wonder and disgust rather than longing and fascination. This is certainly the case with former smokers, who often can’t even stand the smell of tobacco once they’ve kicked the habit. The same can happen with other vices. You can literally learn to hate what you formerly loved.
Now, let’s turn to your personal addiction and what you can do to overwhelm it. To do so, we’ll follow one of our Changers, Lee W., who struggled to quit a two-pack-a-day smoking habit for more than ten years—three years in earnest. While Lee’s journey took longer than you might want to take, his path provides clues about how to not merely end your addiction but do so much sooner than he did.
Lee first tried to quit smoking when he developed bronchitis after a cold. He stopped smoking without any nicotine replacement or help. He cruised along without a blip until about a week into his reformation, when he found himself in a bar, drinking with a friend who smoked. When his friend lit up, so did Lee. And then he kept on smoking. Within a few days Lee was back to his old habit. For a year Lee refused to try quitting again—simply because he was convinced that he regressed because of his lack of willpower rather than as the inevitable result of a poor plan. You may have drawn the same erroneous conclusion about your previous, but failed, attempts to quit.
Lee’s problem was with his plan. First, he failed to identify crucial moments. He was motivated to quit by an isolated event (the bout with bronchitis) that quickly passed into history. Lee also failed to create a robust six-source plan, and then he was blindsided by temptation in a crucial moment. Since Lee fell into the willpower trap by erroneously blaming his lack of personal integrity and self-control, he succumbed to discouragement.
Then Lee’s circumstances slowly changed. His maturing children began to ask why he smoked. Concerned about being a bad role model for them, he decided to get back to work—not initially on himself, but on his change plan.
Lee started by examining his own crucial moments. He realized that while he was very motivated to not smoke most hours of the day, there were a handful of times or circumstances when his urge was greater than he could withstand. Lee’s crucial moments came after meals, during breaks at work, when he was with family or friends who were smoking, and when he was drinking alcohol.
As Lee worked on his change plan, he had a chance encounter with a friend that improved his plan in an important way. Lee was describing his crucial moments to his friend Tiffany, when she said, “It’s nice that you’re trying to change how you respond during those moments, but shouldn’t you first do your best to prevent those moments entirely? Why not get a patch?”
Lee had always thought of a patch or nicotine gum as a sign of defeat, and he told Tiffany as much. Their conversation grew a bit heated, and at one point Lee told her with a dismissive tone that “patches are just a crutch.” Tiffany smiled at him for a few seconds and then said, “Exactly. And what idiot would refuse a crutch when his leg was broken?”
Lee bought patches that afternoon.
There’s a lesson to be learned here. Even before you start identifying your crucial moments, use whatever resources you can to minimize your danger points. Sudden withdrawal from drugs such as heroin, barbiturates, and long-term alcohol use can cause agonizing and even life-threatening reactions and should not be attempted without help.7
So, think about getting a crutch. When your own brain becomes your enemy, you qualify for a crutch as much as anyone hobbling on a fractured tibia. Involve a physician who can recommend or prescribe one of the many drugs that reduce withdrawal symptoms.
With that said, let’s be clear that overcoming withdrawal symptoms is not the same as kicking the habit itself. In fact, withdrawal symptoms play a relatively minor role in maintaining addictions. Just as using a crutch won’t heal your leg, using a patch or similar device simply puts you in a better position to begin building the habits that will change your life. As we’ll see later with Lee, the heavy lifting won’t be done with these short-term aids. Over the long haul, you’ll need to identify your crucial moments, create vital behaviors, and engage every one of the six sources of influence on your side.
The fastest route to creating your own vital behaviors is to start with three actions typically associated with defeating an addiction. From there you can look to your own crucial moments and then tailor your own vital behaviors.
1. Say No. Since all addictions will eventually be solved by not engaging in the bad habit, the first and most important vital behavior is to say no.
Suggesting that you need to resist temptation by saying no is simple enough to do, but actually resisting the temptation can seem impossible—for all the reasons we’ve just described. Nobody is going to be saying at this point, “At last, now I know what to do. I need to stop putting cigarettes in my mouth. What was I thinking?”
The power of nominating “say no” as the first and most important vital behavior comes with the six-source plan that will motivate and enable you to do so.
2. Engage in Incompatible Activities. This next high-leverage action isn’t so obvious. It involves distraction. Psychologist and addiction expert Stanton Peele suggests that recovering addicts need to engage in a meaningful activity that is incompatible with their current addiction. Dropping an addiction leaves a chasm. It’s essential that you fill that hole with an incompatible activity—something that will absorb your time and interest, carry you on to higher accomplishments, and make it difficult for you to give in to your cravings.8
We can’t tell you exactly what your distraction technique should be, but we can learn from Mimi Silbert, the head of San Francisco’s Delancey Street (a residential program designed to help convicted felons and drug addicts turn their lives around). Since Delancey Street sports a better than 90 percent success rate, when Mimi talks, we ought to listen.
“You’ve got to get addicts out of their head,” Mimi suggests. “For most of their lives they’ve thought about one thing—their own wants and cravings. So we assign each new resident another person to watch over. As our residents learn to care for others, they fill the void of their former addiction.”
So, avoid focusing on your own cravings by focusing on others’ needs and challenges. For instance, Lee started a blog to describe his journey to recovery—and help others do the same. As the weeks passed, Lee had more than a hundred people following his story—many of whom joined him in kicking a bad habit of their own. Working on his daily blog entries began to occupy Lee’s attention in a way that both distracted him from his cravings and reminded him of why he wanted to drop the habit in the first place.
This second vital behavior helps in another way. Recovering addicts often spend a considerable amount of time blaming themselves and being criticized by others, and their self-esteem suffers. However, when they help another person succeed, it can go a long way toward helping them earn back their self-respect.9
3. Become Physically Active. There is a third vital behavior for overcoming addictions, and although the science isn’t completely settled yet, contemporary research into brain activity is so promising, we’d be foolish to overlook it.10 The latest science suggests that as you start to lay out your personal plan, you should include physical activity. You can walk, run, swim, climb stairs—any form of aerobic exercise appears to help.
How does physical activity help with addictions? Think about the symptoms you feel when your cravings are really kicking in: nervousness, anxiety, sweaty palms, and an upset stomach. A quick-step walk around the block will often eliminate most of these symptoms. Plus physical activity seems to reprogram the brain’s internal circuits, which, if left unchanged, would maintain addictions.11
Lee admits that he enjoyed smoking a bit. He didn’t love it, but then again he couldn’t imagine not smoking. Plus, whenever he went more than two hours without a cigarette, he began to feel jumpy, distracted, anxious, and frazzled. He described going without cigarettes as “going crazy.” How was he ever going to learn to love that?
Lee began by taking withdrawal symptoms seriously. Research confirms that people who taper off of their addiction or use a replacement therapy are more likely to succeed in the end.12 So Lee used patches and later nicotine replacement gum to help with his withdrawal symptoms. Of course, these were just a start. But they made it easier to stay personally motivated to change.
To add to his personal motivation, Lee thought about his long-term aspirations and the role smoking played in them. He told the whole vivid story of why he wanted to quit. He started by writing, “I want to quit so I can feel healthy, live active, and be here for my children and grandchildren.” That statement was sort of a bland start, so he made it more graphic by adding a more vivid reminder of his default future.
Lee placed on his mobile phone a photograph that showed him holding his baby daughter. To most people the photo looked like nothing more than a tender memory of someone he loved. But to Lee the picture sparked feelings of determination because of the history behind it.
Here’s the whole story. Shortly after Lee’s wife snapped this picture, Lee lifted his smoldering cigarette to his mouth. Since it had taken a few minutes to pose and take the picture, the ash at the end of the cigarette had become long, so when the butt struck Lee’s mouth, the ash dropped… onto his daughter’s upturned face. And while Lee felt awful about dropping ash on his little girl, he felt even worse about how his habit was likely to affect her in more lasting ways. Lee saw the dropping ash as a symbol of everything she might suffer as she experienced the devastating and crippling effects of either second-or firsthand smoke.
So Lee popped the photo onto his phone and then added another sentence to his Personal Motivation Statement. “The Ugly Truth: When I choose the next cigarette, I’m putting cigarettes ahead of my daughter.” This harsh, unflattering statement helped Lee tell the whole vivid story in crucial moments when he was tempted to light up one more time.
Next, to help change how he felt about these decisions, Lee made a commitment that before lighting up a cigarette, he would stare for thirty seconds at the photo on his mobile phone and read aloud his Personal Motivation Statement. If after doing this he still wanted to smoke, he could do so.
Lee also used value words to counter the excuses he sometimes told himself. Whenever he was tempted to say, “I’ll have just one,” he would challenge the thought by saying, “I will become a smelly smoker again.” When he caught himself thinking, “I need a smoke,” he’d verbally respond, “I’ll never be a sucker again!” Lee found that making audible and explicit responses to these thoughts literally changed how he felt about his choices.
About a year into his struggle, Lee received a phone call from Raul, a former friend—actually, more of a former smoking buddy. When the company Lee worked for went smoke free, throwing him and the other smokers out into the back alley during their breaks, people who might not have ordinarily hung out together now did. Despite the fact that Raul was nearly twice Lee’s age, they became buddies.
For three years, until Raul retired, the two talked about kicking the habit, but it was just talk. Neither made any progress. Raul was now calling to see if Lee knew the phone number of still another one of their alley smokers—and then the conversation turned to the latest goings-on. It turned out Raul was in the hospital recovering from lung surgery. It didn’t look good. In a flash, Lee was thrust into what he felt just might be his default future. He thought of lying helplessly in a hospital bed every time he felt tempted to smoke.
Lee also focused on building a new Lee by exploring the opportunities that being a nonsmoker would create for him. He decided to add to his roles of father, husband, and provider a new role. He would also be a hiker. Lee’s wife and daughters were thrilled with their new weekend treks. He had read that exercise was a good way to suppress the urge to smoke, and the article was right.13 Lee never felt jumpy, fidgety, withdrawal feelings when he was striding up a hill.
One of the most important motivational tools Lee used was to take his overall strategy and make it a game. He stopped thinking of quitting as a lifelong quest and began breaking it into small wins. His first increments were only a day. And, as in any good game, he kept score. He created a chart that he posted privately in his closet. Each day he would place an X on the chart, demonstrating how many consecutive days he had “won.” Then he would set his next goal—another single day. Thinking of daily challenges rather than lifetime struggles gave him a sense of hope and determination that increased his motivation substantially.
As Lee created intentional tactics to help him feel more motivated to change, his feelings about his cravings transformed. He began to feel pride and satisfaction when he went another week without relapse. Quitting became pleasurable rather than painful.
When Lee conducted a skill scan—examining both his abilities and his knowledge—he realized that he didn’t know much about addictions. So he read a couple of popular books, checked out some websites, and talked to his doctor. Lee was surprised by what he uncovered. For instance, he’d thought that once he was past the withdrawal symptoms, he’d be done with smoking. Now he understood that urges, on some level, were likely to continue long after his withdrawal symptoms ended. He wouldn’t let that catch him by surprise.
Lee also learned that depression is quite prevalent among smokers and addicts of all stripes—even kids who are addicted to video games.14 Furthermore, this depression is a major barrier to recovery.15 Lee didn’t think of himself as being depressed, but he talked to his wife about it and they decided to check in with each other every evening to review each other’s days and to “count their blessings.”
Most importantly, Lee took steps to learn the will skill. He knew he’d continually find himself in tempting situations, and he worked to develop strategies for dealing with each instance. Most of his strategies involved distraction techniques—for instance, Lee learned that his own urges have peaks and valleys and that the most powerful peaks lasted around twenty minutes. So Lee found activities that he could use to distract himself until the urge subsided. He already had added exercise to his antismoking quiver. He jumped rope, did jumping jacks, or merely jumped in place until his heart was racing and he was gasping for air. To further distract himself, if one of his family members was around, Lee would immerse himself in what they were doing. He’d help his older daughter with her homework or talk to his wife about her day.
A few months into quitting, Lee discovered he could actually use magic to reduce his urges. Part of a smoker’s addiction is tactile. Lee longed to hold a cigarette in his hands and fingers. So he put this compulsion to use by learning close-up magic tricks. Lee kept cards and coins nearby and found he could often master a new trick in about twenty minutes of deliberate practice. Lee refused to fiddle with and eat food as a means of satisfying his tactile urges. He knew that eating was one of the most common distractions people use, and he didn’t want to gain weight.
Lee’s wife had quit smoking when they started having children, and she clearly wanted him to quit as well. However, she didn’t want to turn into a nag. Plus, Lee didn’t want to be nagged. After a few failed attempts to talk about the issue, Lee’s smoking had become a no-discussion zone. Whenever he lit up, she clammed up.
But this was just plain stupid. The two would have to find a way to talk honestly and respectfully. So Lee held a transformation conversation. He sat down with his wife, explained his plans, and then asked her for help. To avoid nagging, they agreed that it would be okay for her to celebrate any success she might observe him enjoying and to ask at the end of each day how well he had done.
Lee also had two conversations that distanced him from the unwilling. The first was with his father, an adamant smoker, who lived just blocks away. Lee didn’t want his actions to offend his father. Lee explained that he needed to stay away when his father was smoking but wanted to stay close as a son. To his surprise, his father was supportive, saying his granddaughters deserved clean air.
Lee held a second distancing conversation with his smoking friends at his latest job. These were the folks he could beg a cigarette from anytime he needed one. Again, Lee was concerned that his quitting might offend a colleague or even end a friendship. And again, people were more understanding than he’d expected. Like most people, they didn’t begrudge a person giving up a habit—particularly when it’s widely seen as unhealthy.
Lee also added new friends by joining an outdoors club that organized weekend hikes. The club was made up of nearly all nonsmokers and introduced Lee and his family into a whole new circle of outdoor enthusiasts. In retrospect, Lee was surprised at how influential another group of friends was.
About a month into his change effort, Lee felt bold enough to put a declaration on his Facebook wall. He let his 213 “friends” know that he was quitting smoking and that he would report every day on his three vital behaviors. Eventually the report turned into a simple count of how many days of “healthy living” he had achieved. More than half of these friends would regularly give positive feedback on his page. Lee began to look forward to giving the nightly report and would secretly check his account at work because it felt so gratifying to see the accolades pour in.
Lee told his daughters he was putting his money where his mouth was by using carrots… and the threat of losing carrots. Here’s how Lee was able to invert his economy. He calculated he was spending about $5.50 a day on cigarettes, so he went to the bank, secured a stack of forty one-dollar bills, and put them in a display box in the living room. Then Lee told his girls, “This is the money, forty dollars a week, that we’ll spend on family outings and other fun stuff—if I don’t burn it up in cigarettes.”
Then, every week on Friday the family would sit together and discuss how Lee had done. Lee was scrupulously honest about his lapses, demonstrating to his girls that honesty was more important than succeeding every time. If he had smoked on one of the days that week, then he would remove $5.50 for that day from the recreation fund. Then the family would plan their weekend adventure with the money that was left. Whenever Lee was about to light a cigarette, he would imagine how disappointed his girls would be, and it helped him resist temptation.
After a few months with more successes than setbacks, Lee and his wife decided to invest in their smoke-free future. They did this in a way that took advantage of loss aversion. The two of them took down their tobacco-scented curtains, had their carpets professionally cleaned, washed their walls, and threw out Lee’s smoking chair. Then they brought in new curtains and a replacement chair. All of this would be wasted if Lee went back to smoking. For Lee, it felt as if he were scrubbing away his old life and revealing his new one.
Sometimes addicts leave their bad habits behind by making a wholesale change in their environment. They enter an in-patient treatment center or move across the country. But you needn’t be so dramatic to draw on the power of things. Sometimes small, simple changes in the physical world can be equally effective in turning one’s environment into an ally.
For instance, Lee took immediate steps to build fences between himself and cigarettes. He and his family went on a “search-and-snuff” mission, scouring their home to find and get rid of cigarettes, ashtrays, lighters, and other smoking-related objects. Lee also went through his car and workplace to make sure they were all tobacco-free zones.
They also worked to remove the cues that used to prompt Lee to smoke. That was one of the reasons they replaced his smoking chair. He put up a sign next to his wet bar that stated: “Drinking ≠ Smoking.” Lee also set decks of cards where ashtrays used to sit. The cards would be there to give him something to do with his hands.
Finally, Lee made use of tools. As we suggested earlier, Lee used his mobile phone and computer network to remind and encourage himself to change. Before each meal (when he knew he would have the time to smoke and would be tempted) Lee programmed his phone to bring up a photo of his children, people walking in the woods, a shot of a person lying in a hospital bed, and other reminders of what he wanted and didn’t want in life.
Tens of thousands of American soldiers dropped an aggressive and powerful heroin addiction by completely upending their world. They left the steamy jungles of Vietnam and kicked their addiction in a matter of weeks. That’s what happens when you engage all six sources of influence at once.
Most people take a more circuitous route. Lee certainly did. Why? Because like most people, Lee discovered many of the strategies he used to succeed through a lengthy process of trial and error. Each time he had a setback, he didn’t give up and become discouraged, but instead examined the new crucial moment and came up with tactics for dealing with it.
You now have a way of accelerating your path out of addiction. The most important thing you have is not the specific tactics we’ve described, but a way of learning new tactics. You know, for example, that you need to learn more about your own crucial moments, your own vital behaviors and ways the six sources of influence work for you. As you listen to others’ experiences overcoming addiction, pay attention to which of these three strategies they’re advising you to use. Did they help you spot a new crucial moment? Did they share a clever way of transforming accomplices into friends? Organizing your learning this way will help you learn—and change—faster.
Don’t Go It Alone. Take note. If your challenge is a substance addiction, then it’s especially important to check in with your physician first. Drinking and drugs can have bad health consequences that will need to be managed even as you quit your addiction. In general, confidentiality and physician-patient privilege laws make it safe to involve your doctor, even when your addiction involves illegal substances. Even if your addiction is purely behavioral, doctors and clinicians may be able to provide you with tools that will help mitigate some of the negative symptoms as you get through the first few weeks or months.
Remember, You’re the Rule, Not the Exception. As most people study what it takes to kick an addiction, they quickly decide that, unlike the people in the success stories we’ve shared, they won’t have to go to so much work. Instead, they’ll use their superhuman powers to resist temptation and choose merely one or two tactics from the material we just covered. That’s right, a good talk with their best friend plus a few months of gutting it out and they’ll do just fine. Once again the willpower trap claims another victim.
Don’t kid yourself. You’re a human being. That means you’re not an exception to the rule that you need to overwhelm your problems by attacking them with all sources of influence. Remember, any sources you don’t use to your advantage are likely to be working against you. And although putting together a more robust change plan may involve more tasks, over the long run it will result in a whole lot less struggle and failure.
In fact, if you take the time to continually study what works for you and what doesn’t, then, if you make changes to your plan to suit your newly discovered challenges, you—along with your six sources of influence—can change anything.