The modern devil is cheap dopamine.
The best way out is always through.
Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.
Let it go. Change the channel. Turn it off. Unsubscribe. Unfollow. Mute. Block. Walk away. Breathe.
Recovery is not a race. You don’t have to feel guilty if it takes you longer than you thought it would.
In short, an inability to focus stemming from an addiction to technology can have long-ranging negative impacts on your life. There are numerous strategies for improving your focus. One is to unplug. If you’re struggling with an Internet addiction, a phone addiction, or any other tech-related obsession, you need a digital detox.
Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles and you have to change.
I urge you to find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life that you’ve been given. To stop running from whatever you’re trying to escape, and instead to stop, and turn, and face whatever it is. Then I dare you to walk toward it. In this way, the world may reveal itself to you as something magical and awe-inspiring that does not require escape.
There is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work better: embracing pain.
Because you live in an information tsunami does not mean you have to surf it.
With intermittent exposure to pain, our natural hedonic set point gets weighted to the side of pleasure, such that we become less vulnerable to pain and more able to feel pleasure over time.
Abstinence rests the brain’s reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.
I have seen again and again in clinical care, and in my own life, how the simple exercise of abstaining from our drug of choice for at least four weeks gives clarifying insight into our behaviors. Insight that simply is not possible while we continue to use.
If you want to feel less overwhelmed, make progress on your goals, and have more time for you – it’s time to break your phone addiction.
Practice social media distancing.
Addiction is rarely conquered alone.
Feel the wounded heart that’s underneath the addiction, self-loathing, or anger.
If you replace mindless social media scrolling with reading and learning, a year from now you won’t recognize yourself.
Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.
If you want to stop addiction in its tracks, the best thing to do is remove the option.