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Originally Posted by lifetimelearner  I once tried one of Tony Robins methods
there is a part in his book where a man addicted to chocolate was told to eat nothing but chocolate all day and drink water and nothing else
well the man did this and got sick and supposedly from that moment on he never ate chocolate again
I did that one day and got sick
but 2 days later I was eating chocolate again |
Everyone has different levels of tolerance for pain and different things they associate with pain. Therefore, some techniques of behavior modifcation will work better on some than others, you have to find the one(s) that work for you.
That man got sick enough to associate more pain with eating chocalate than it was worth to him.
2 days after you got sick, you craved chocolate again and you knew if you ate it in moderation, you wouldn't get sick. The man started associating chocolate with pain. You only associated massive overeating of chocolate with pain. If eating chocolate made you violently ill everytime, I think you'd quit in short order. The guaranteed pain would outweigh the temporary pleasure.
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I have seen diabetics lose limbs and continue to eat sweets
I have seen people drink themselves to death -literally
I have seen people smoking even though they just came into remission from lung cancer
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Because these people still get such immediate gratification from their habit of choice, the pain of quitting is still greater than the potential pain of the consequences. After all, once you've lost limbs or are terminally alcoholic, the addiction may intensify because you feel so hopeless. Some people just give up. It's easier/less painful.
As for quitting drugs for the sake of your baby, it was more painful to you to risk the health of your child than to quit. The mother/child relationship is of a higher order in your mind than your role in other family relationships. Your mind experienced extreme pain at the possibility of harming your child. Some addicts don't have these strong associations, and it is more painful for them to quit (though they may try) than to take a chance of harming the baby. BTW, it still must have taken a tremendous amount of strength and integrity to do what you did, so kudos to you.