This is the most important aspect of changing lifestyle addictions.
The habitual motion of using hands for smoking. The timing of when you smoke, or when you play out any other habitual action in life. The ritual of when you drink. When you smoke. How you drink, and how you drink. Maybe how the two interplay together. You need to change up the situation.
When I first broke up the habit of smoking tobacco, I found myself fidgeting a lot… or drinking quickly. Essentially, it sped up whatever else I was normally doing with my hands.
Try to forget that silly shit about tobacco smoking actually playing a certain part in your psychology like ‘I needed it to calm down’ or ‘I was anxious without it’ … All the physiological evidence with tobacco and nicotine is the opposite – it doesn’t calm you down, and it doesn’t quell anxiety. It is a psychological trick nicotine plays on the brain. So, forget that shit. Just try to find something else to do with your hands – this is the bi-product of quitting, your dopamine levels are all fucked up and you feel slightly ancy, or else, unsure of how to use this energy.
If right now, you’re still believing that you need nicotine to deal with something (live life, or handle something, or accept something), you’re destined to struggle.
So I began to drink more, or sometimes eat more. I would essentially be moving my hands back and forth to my mouth more often to quench some type of appetite, because I was used to doing it with a cigarette.
What you believe, will belie your destiny
Push through this time. You need to push through it so you develop a more natural level of dopamine and habitual action with your hands. It’s hard. It doesn’t come easily. If you don’t push through it you will end up back in the same position. This is a type of action you’ve probably been cementing for nearly a decade or more.
It all ties back into ‘doing other things’.
You have to do things differently. And it starts with thinking about things differently.
If you think that you’re going to need to smoke because it was something you’ve always done previously, then you’re going to struggle. Just remember, nothing you’ve done in the past determines what you’re going to do now.
Now is always a new moment
“There are only two days in the year that nothing can be done. One is called yesterday and the other is called tomorrow. Today is the right day to live. .”
Dalai Lama
The past is gone and the future is in your hands! This is the crucial dilemma in understanding your path. Make a choice. You are completely free to do so, every time you want to make one.
A habit is defined as something you do naturally or without thinking. Something you may gravitate towards because it feels common, because it has become easy. Change can be hard. But only because it requires will power and the urge to do what is not as easy. If you remember that nothing you’ve done in the past determines your next decision, change becomes EASY!
The Addiction Paradox 