relapse once doesn’t mean you start from zero again
it’s not about how perfect your progress is, but how you manage to get back up after each and every fall.
I relapse many times on my bad habits.
I was planning to stop all of my bad habits — smoking, scrolling, and even cornography. It’s still hard for me to stop, and I don’t find a way out. I feel like a failure, and I’m starting to hate myself for doing that.
Sometimes I ask myself,
“Why is it so hard for me to stop?”
“Didn’t I decide to stop?”
“Why am I still doing this stupid thing?”
The more I think about it, the more I feel like a failure and relapse again on my bad habits.
I mean, if you’re relapsed today, why not enjoy the rest of the day by going all in on relapse that day, so that tomorrow I could reset again? This is a bad principle to hold, especially when you are trying to stop your bad habits. Then I still get back up and try again and again and again. The result is still the same: I only hold for 3 days, 5 days, and 10 days, and there’s one time I didn’t relapse for 22 days.
Even so, I still relapse afterwards and go back to that range of 3–10 days of no relapse.
I still made some progress
With all of those relapses, I still achieved some of my goals.
I did go to a competition and achieve 2nd place in a competition. I did great in my classes and my assignments. I don’t smoke too much; I still write and study every day. But my ego of perfection makes me always think, “I’m still a failure because I relapse on my bad habits,” or sometimes,
“Even if I make a lot of successes, it doesn’t change me as a failure who likes to relapse.”
It’s like my dark self is trying to make me feel guilty every day.
Other than that, I feel like a failure more and more, and eventually my actions reflect my own mind and thinking. Then I watch some motivational videos about detox and other stuff, but the more I watch them, the more I feel like shit because I relapse. I then started to evaluate myself because I thought, if I wanted to win this battle, I needed to analyze my history and find what’s wrong and what’s right. This could help me guarantee even more success in the future.
I only need to stop for 30 days, and after that, the cravings will not feel like hell anymore.
Analyzing my mistakes
So, I decided to look back and started to realize.
I was making big progress in my life, even though I relapsed over and over again. I did win a competition, finish my semester, and improve myself every day. This leads me to realize that relapsing is not “that” crazy after all. I still love to write, try to help people, and improve myself every day.
Even if I relapsed, I didn’t become a failure; nothing changed in myself as an identity.
After knowing that, my life started to get better.
I’m still not perfect and sometimes relapse, but the cravings and the failure mindset that I had are gone. I became more loving to myself and enjoyed the progress even more. I start with small wins from being consistent in one habit to another. I started to gain confidence that I would, no matter what, succeed in my life. I will eventually stop all of my bad habits.
It’s just a matter of time, patience, and being more loving to myself.
If you don’t love yourself, why would you spend time and patience improving something you don’t love?
Failing is normal
The key is that it doesn’t matter if you relapse over and over again.
This doesn’t mean you can relapse as you like. Keep on thriving to stop doing all of your bad habits, but if you fail, don’t hate yourself up. You are not resetting from ground zero.
Hating yourself for your own failures is a sign of seeking perfection. People don’t randomly punish you for the mistakes you make for yourself. Then why do you punish yourself and hate yourself if you relapse?
Just focus on getting back up and give yourself hope that you will succeed in the future.
Just a principle is not enough, and we need to get into the implementation so that you can take the first small step.
These are steps that you could implement to win your battles with addiction:
1. Find out what you want to stop with your bad habits.
It doesn’t matter, whether it’s social media, cornography, or more.
Find out what you want to stop and why.
It is important to know what your why is, because that’s the foundation for you to keep on moving and fight all the distractions along the way.
2. Find out what’s triggering you and eliminate that.
If social media is holding you back from focusing and starting to work, uninstall it.
If uninstalling it is too extreme, you can try limiting it.
There are a lot of app blockers and app limits out there; use them.
3. Win small battles and gradually increase them.
You don’t have to start big if you aren’t ready yet.
If you want to test yourself, go ahead and stop for 30 days, but if you find it hard, start as small as you can. The more you win, the more you will have the confidence to start bigger. This will gradually increase until you achieve the end result.
I use 30 days because, after that, most of the bad habits and addictions start to feel stupid and easy to remove.
This is where we want to achieve it, so we can use it wisely after that. It’s like a reset for your brain.
Keep on moving
Start planning even more and find what’s triggering you to crave or making you relapse.
Start by doing something small, like stopping for a day or even an hour. At least make a move every day for you to improve little by little. Small progress leads to big progress. The more you win small battles, the more you will trust yourself.
This leads to much bigger battles and challenges until you achieve the goals you want to achieve.
“Small wins are still won, and the journey is more important than overnight success.”
–Bill Waterson
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