Weak willpower. I competed in natural bodybuilding for 12 years. I had to quit everything to get in the best shape I could. Plain pasta for months on end, no pop, no beer, no junk at all. I ate at certain times, slept for certain hours. I missed 3 workouts (other than illness) in 12 years. I still train 5-6 days a week, never missing a workout and rarely eating poorly.
I quit many things. To do so, I simply quit.
Yep. As far as drugs, etc go, health should overrule. But health is taken for granted to people don’t recognize what it is worth. Either way, to kick an addiction, you quit. But you asked ‘How’ you overcome an addiction, so I say you quit! Why you overcome it is the reasons we’ve just said.
That probably sums it up rather nicely. I just wonder why there are tons of intelligent self critical people out there who struggle day in and day out with addiction.
Barack OBama smokes. He has smoked most of his life and has tried to “just quit” several times. Im sure from an intellectual perspective he knows all the reasons why he should quit. Why doesnt he? I highly doubt our next president has a weak willpower.
I mean he doesn’t ‘want’ to quit. I mean really want to. He doesn’t want to do what it takes. So he has no willpower regarding his addiction.
The addiction he is concerned with is POWER…
This is the thing with us complicated humans. We often have multiple contrary wills. We are ‘divided against our self.’ This means that it’s not so simple as: You want to do it, so just do it. Seeing as how often, we both want to do it and we don’t. Or my intellect may want to quit a drug, but my unconscious still desires to take it. Equally, I may think that child abuse is wrong, and yet feel an overpowering sexual desire for children. This is why the lines between ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are not so simple as many assume, and why it’s helpful to having a strong understanding of human psychology before you go judging people.
Currently, science is searching for a possible genetic link to addiction, i.e. some people are genetically predisposed to acquiring addiction. There are many people who transfer addictions. For example, they’ll be hooked on booze, then quit, only to become hooked on coke, then quit only to become hooked on gambling. In addition, addiction seems to run in families. I think the root cause might be some sort of mental illness.