The 7-Word Question That Has Helped Me Overcome Every Addiction in Life

And can hopefully help you do the same.

I’ve had my fair share of addictions in life and the same method has helped me overcome each one of them.

In my first year of college, I was addicted to anime. I would stay glued to my laptop late into the night, going to bed as late as 4 AM and waking up the next afternoon, only to continue the binge. With munchies for company, I put on a lot of weight as well.

With a deathly pallor, deep bags under my eyes, and a paunch, I not only looked but also felt like shit.

I eventually quit it. But last year, when the lockdown started, a new one sprout up — porn and masturbation addiction. This wasn’t near as bad as the previous one, but not a single day went without me feeling the itch to watch porn and get off to it.

A Simple Question to Recognize an Addiction

Sure, I didn’t act on the urge every single day but nevertheless, the urge was present and that’s what characterizes an addiction. As Psychology Today says:

“The focus of the addiction isn’t what matters; what matters is the need to do something when that emotional stress makes itself felt. Ceasing the addictive behavior threatens to return thoughts to whatever that source of emotional stress is.”

A simple question I like to ask myself when I need to check if something is an addiction or not is, “Would I be able to live without it?”

Overcoming an addiction is not exercising self-restraint to keep it under control, but rather eliminating the urge itself.

Here, it was a clear no. The only thing holding me back from watching porn and getting off to it every day, or worse, multiple times a day, was self-restraint. Overcoming an addiction is not exercising self-restraint to keep it under control, but rather eliminating the urge itself.

If you are doing something that you know is bad for you but have justified it with an excuse, “I have it under control,” just ask yourself if you actually do and if you could live without it.

Self-Restraint or Motivation Won’t Cut It

The problem with willpower is that it is a limited resource. And whenever mine ran out, I would give in to the constant urge only to wallow in regret later.

We all do this. A video, an article, or a story fills us up with motivation and we vow to quit a bad habit and change our lives. Or we sit down to reflect some time and swear to make a change.

I relapsed a whopping 27 times, every single time within a week.

But temporary spikes of motivation or the use of will-power aren’t viable solutions. In psychology, this can be explained by The Arousal Theory Of Motivation — motivation “porn” or sudden bursts of inspiration “arouse” us but when this arousal comes down, the motivation is gone.

When I decided to try NoFap — basically abstinence from porn and masturbation, I relapsed a whopping 27 times, every single time within a week.

But on the 28th time, I did something different, and it’s been close to two months of abstinence now.

What Changed the 28th Time

The 27th relapse was a grisly one, and I was so disgusted with myself that I fell into deep introspection.

As I questioned my motives for quitting porn and masturbation, I found that there weren’t any powerful ones — “I just want to try it out. See how it feels.”; “It’s supposedly magical and many people swear by it.”

Temporary spikes of motivation or the use of will-power aren’t viable solutions.

I fired up my laptop, cracked my knuckles, and did some serious research. I learned quite a lot and by the end; I was convinced that porn was poisonous. And the anecdotes of people whose lives were changed by porn abstinence filled me with a genuine curiosity to seriously try it out.

Now, every time I felt an urge to watch porn, a reminder of its devastating psychological effects killed the urge. On the 9th day or so, I started seeing its benefits, which further motivated me to keep going.

I even did something that I would never have dreamed of earlier.

I started going out, my self-confidence increased drastically, my courage to approach women shot up, I went out on dates, and soon started dating someone as well. I even did something that I would never have dreamed of earlier — I cold approached someone.

It’s been close to two months now, my life has completely changed and I can’t see myself watching porn ever again.

The Seven-Word Question You Need to Ask Yourself

The way I quit anime was also something similar. After getting frustrated with myself, I dove deep into the science of addictions and the brain’s pleasure system. What I learned gave me enough reason to quit it.

This is what’s at the core of quitting an addiction — actually wanting to quit it. You can “wish” to quit something but unless you are strongly convinced that it’s bad for you, you won’t be able to.

Research shows the same. A study conducted on cocaine addicts that recovered on their own without the help of rehab camps, therapy, etc. found that — self-change occurred only when they decided the costs outweighed the benefits.

So the question you need to ask yourself is, “Why do I want to quit it?” When you try to answer this for the first time, you are certain to come up with a lot of unconvincing reasons and the onus is on you to acquire convincing ones.

You can “wish” to quit something but unless you are strongly convinced that it’s bad for you, you won’t be able to.

When you ask yourself this question, a string of other ones will follow — “Why is it bad for me?”; “In what ways has it affected my life?”; and “In what ways will my life change once I overcome it?”

In my case, binging anime had given me a migraine, sucked away all my time, dissuaded me from working out and socializing — two things that I used to enjoy, and affected my health.

Similarly, porn and masturbation drained my mental energy, made me objectify women, cloud my thinking, and killed my motivation to seek real-life “action.”

So when you want to quit an addiction, ask yourself, “Why do I want to quit it?” and find convincing enough reasons.

Final Words

Even with strong motives, the exercise of willpower is still a necessity. But the good news is that it gets easier with time. In the first few weeks, the urges were plenty and frequent, but nowadays, they’re bleak and rare.

Another thing that helps is actively doing other things to improve your life as well. In my case, I fixed my sleep schedule and started taking cold showers every morning. These things synergized well with porn abstinence and helped me stay on track.

To summarize — develop powerful reasons for quitting your addiction, act on them, exercise self-control when necessary, and do other positive things.

There are few things more liberating and satisfying than getting rid of an addiction.

So start now.

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