Deep Dive
Shownotes Transcript
Addictions. We've all had them. And some people out there are seriously struggling. But no matter how they may make you feel in the moment, you gotta get rid of them. Because it's getting in the way of you accomplishing your goals. Whether you want to become the President of the United States, the next Gordon Ramsay, or do you want to be like me? Sit down in your chair all day, edit a video, and only get one minute of it done. I've noticed there's been a plethora of addictions rising in Gen Z. We got TikTok, the Julius Caesar, video games, and God forbid...
The Hub. Those were some dark times, bro. I don't wanna talk about it. But there's many more, and I don't wanna sit here all day and try and list them. Some can be fine in moderation, like going through social media, but others... absolutely not. And a lot of people try to cope, and they're like, "Ooh, I'm not addicted, bro." Yes, you are! You are addicted. Do you see yourself? You practically go insane when the vape is missing. Step one: acceptance. You gotta accept the fact that you're addicted.
It doesn't matter what you're addicted to, you just gotta know it in the back of your head. You gotta know that it's a problem and it's really affecting your life. Like for example, me, sometimes I notice myself doom scrolling on social media for no apparent reason. Like sometimes I see some baddies on Instagram and I'm lost. I'm gone, it's over. And kind of ask yourself this question, what about this addiction is holding me back?
Well, in my case, it's making me procrastinate a lot more, bro. My brain would much rather get the easy fix of dopamine than the long-term return from working. No matter how much we've evolved from cavemen scratching their ass and throwing rocks at the wall, no matter how smart we got, well, maybe some of us, we still got that same desire in our brain. We want what's easy. We want what's rewarding. Our brain wants dopamine, and it wants to get it any way it can. And that's what we gotta understand.
Step two, find the root cause. Really dig deep. Really try to understand yourself and realize, why am I doing this? And for my case, I think it's because I don't touch grass enough, bro. I barely go outside. All right, don't get me wrong, bro. I'm not a fucking Discord mod.
I don't sit in my cell and just rot away all day. I go to the gym. I go shopping I do what I gotta do. I hang out with friends sometimes but most of my time is spent editing This video is gonna take fucking ages to make I will have the most serious case of swamp ass when this video is done But just finding that something in real life whether it's like playing an instrument karate Working out at the gym finding that thing you love outside of work like a hobby or something is a source of dopamine in itself So you got to basically take that addiction and replace
Replace it with another source of dopamine. That is healthy. Step three. You gotta find a reason to quit. If you really wanna quit your addictions, you gotta lock in, dude. You can't be fucking around. You gotta give yourself a reason or else it's not happening. Write it down. Do whatever you gotta do. Like, for example, if your addiction is vaping, you could write, I wanna quit vaping because I don't wanna f***ing die of lung cancer. That is a very good reason to quit vaping. Make sure you see it every day. Set it as your phone wallpaper. You can make it as vile as you want to. You can make it say, Hey, Bumpkin!
Mom, don't get f***ing lung cancer. Personally, I like doing this because it's funny or you could just be more serious about it. But you got to have a sense of direction or else you're getting hit with a f***ing flashbang and walking around in a circle. Because if you give yourself a reason, you're more likely to do it. Because when I told myself to
quit without any real reason. I just felt lost and it just didn't feel right at all. And if anything, the addiction really got worse. Now that you threw the Nick stick away, you're locked in. You really want to quit. Step four is you got to build better habits to replace the bad one. Let's say Jordan vapes and he wants to be a doctor. He can't pay attention in class because he's too busy thinking about his vape. And if he loses his vape, forget it. He's tearing the whole fucking house down. He's got to stop everything he's doing just to fucking find it. And let's say Jordan likes music.
He's really interested in music. Jordan could make music instead of vaping for a source of dopamine. Then he can slowly cut down on his nicotine intake until it's out of his life. Like basically you want to take your mind off it. So the urges aren't as frequent. But of course, another thing you want is an overall goal, like a life goal. Like what do you want from life?
You really got to understand that. And trying out a bunch of different things, you will find your true passion that way. Do you want a wife, four kids, a white picket fence, a regular day job, and a family dog? I don't know. But you really got to devise a plan to get there. And you really got to lock in on your short-term goals to get to your long-term ones.
It's almost like a ladder. You got to keep climbing up the ladder to get to your end goal and building better habits Now will help you get to your goal much faster. Honestly write down your goals. Keep them written down I got them as my phone lock screen So I see them every time I open my phone and sometimes that just gets me to shut my phone right off But as unfortunate as it is the next step happens to the best of us It's always going to happen when you first start to break an addiction step
five is relapse. As unfortunate as it is, having moments when you slip up is part of breaking an addiction. I had a TikTok addiction when I was in my freshman year of college. I would just scroll all day endlessly and I would just sit in my dorm for hours at a time. But there were moments again when I was doom scrolling. And if it happens, you got to learn from it, bro. And plus the first couple of days is when the urges are the most strong. You're going to feel like a
prisoner counting down days with chalk and you're gonna feel like writing a whole f***ing joker manifesto about how bad it was. Day one without my vape. I am truly in my villain arc sitting in this dark corner without a single puff of my Julius Caesar. My mom took it away and I was crying and I was like what is the meaning of life?
Dude. It's not that serious, but you'll have like mad withdrawals and urges. But if you run to the trash can and take your fucking vape out of it, it happens, bro. So you gotta sit down and think, how can I improve my plan? So that's why step six is to keep it pushing. No matter what happens, you gotta keep pushing through it. And if having somebody help you
and like hold you accountable is gonna help you get through it, then that will 100% help you on step six. And you've got to realize like, yeah, I did slip up, but I'm improving. So it's fine. But don't use that as an excuse. Like if you're at a party or something, you're with your friends and be like, ah, you know what? I could take a bunch of hits out of a babe. The next day you're gonna be fiending, bro. That's not how it works. But in order to truly make progress, you have to avoid triggers. So you don't even think about it.
Like, because if all your friends vape, that's gonna make you wanna join in, and you're gonna feel like you're missing out. Or sometimes, bro, you just think with the wrong head, and, uh... that happens. And it's crazy, sometimes in order to break the urges, you've really gotta have a fucking war with yourself in your own head. And for any of you trying to break an addiction, yeah, you 100% know what that feels like. Like, the internal conflict is nuts. It's quite literally like the devil and the angel on your shoulder.
Really? But after all that step seven, you're finally making great progress And at this point your overall quality of life will be better like you'll start to feel better Your dopamine receptors won't be fried depending on what the addiction is. Your attention span will be much better You'll get more dopamine from like day-to-day things like social interactions and honestly bro. I think that's my issue I got a fucking skibbity ass attention span and i'm really just
Dazing off in the middle of social interactions. You will literally just feel better living life. And honestly, the simple things will make you feel a lot happier. Because with these addictions, there's just too much dopamine flooding into your brain at once. And it kind of fries your dopamine receptors. That's just what happens. Or God forbid, instead of making progress, you could go backwards. You could say, fuck it, I'm going to the babe shop today.
and buy out their whole fucking store. And unfortunately with some people, that's what happens. And honestly, it's happened to me a lot too. The addiction creeps back into your life and it takes over your life again. And it's so easy to fall back into that cycle of indulging in that addiction. Because if you do indulge in that addiction, your brain will go back to where it was and it will continue to want more and more and more.
That's why you can't just sit there and be like, oh, just one hit, bro. One hit won't hurt. It will hurt. Trust me, it will. And if you get back into that cycle again, you got to think and review your past attempts. You got to realize what made me relapse? What made me get back into this addiction? And unfortunately, if you go back to it, you're back in square one. As unfortunate as it is, that's how the brain works, bro. And sometimes you just have to take more and more extreme measures. I used to be addicted to reading my comments.
And what I would do is every time I would read a comment, I would do 20 pushups. And I guess it's because like I was scared about how people felt about me and what they thought of this video and that video. But it worked now. I got to a point where I read them a healthy amount. So you may just have to change up your strategy. Like coming into this with a different game plan can really change it up so much for you. Like last week, the Eagles got
fucking blown out by the buccaneers pause and that's because they came in with a better game plan like having a different plan can turn so much around for you you just got to figure out what works and step eight is freedom you will finally no longer feel the need to indulge that has completely disappeared from your brain as you start to relapse less and less it starts to appear in your mind less frequently but this step may take a long time to get to because you're gonna keep relapsing the whole time or
Well, some people are just built different and go cold turkey on it. And sometimes just going cold turkey as long as possible is even better. Your brain will still sometimes just out of the blue have dark ass thoughts. Like, come on, bro. Just one hit. But at this point, you have conquered your addiction. So you were able to build a mental strength that says, man,
Shut the f- You are free from the shackles. As you continue to relapse less and less, you will get to the top of this ladder. Or this metaphorical ladder I created. I don't fucking know. And there you go. One thing that was weighing you down from trying to reach your goals is gone. Poof.
Just like that. Well, yeah, breaking an addiction takes a lot of time though. I'm not gonna lie to you. But the addiction is more serious or you feel like you can't get rid of it on your own. Please go see a therapist or a counselor or somebody that can help you break it. Because again, I'm not no scientist. I'm not a therapist. I'm not nothing.
I'm just a dude in his room, alright? And as for the more serious addictions, I've never experienced that. So I'm not sure if I can really help you. But I try my best. If you enjoyed this video, I'm sure you'll enjoy my playlist of a bunch of other videos just like this. Go watch it right now.