The thing about quitting one addiction is how obvious all others become.
Now I know how much better life is without the one thing that made it worth living, I’m out of excuses.
When I quit alcohol and drugs 9 months ago, I subsidised them with cigarettes, screen time and sugar. Cigarettes I gave up 2 months after, and I’m making progress with my screen time.
Now it’s sugar’s down to go down!
Wanting to lose weight is all nice and good,
but I’ve made this decision a million times before.
In order to quit drugs and not just fantasise about doing so, it took a significant mental change.
Some call it a spiritual awakening, a re-shifting of priorities.
An emotional attachment to food an an undiagnosed eating disorders where I starve myself and then binge to the point of not being able to walk does not go away when we just want it to.
I knew that sheer willpower was not going to get me there, and it didn’t.
So when a month ago I read an Ask Me Anything on Reddit about a living kidney donor, I was intrigued. I had thought about this years ago but used to be terrified of needles.
If I couldn’t lose this weight for my own health,
could I do it for someone else?
Sure, I realise how extreme this is.
I’m not only pursuing organ donation because I want to lose weight.
I felt strangely drawn to the process, and devoured all recommended literature and videos about it. I thought about how many people die a year, and how lucky I was to have a healthy body.
So I started talking to the right people who gave me a further push:
My weight was too high to start the process.
Usually you need a BMI of maximum 30 to donate an organ, but they’ve lowered the needed BMI during COVID-19 to avoid complications.
This means I would need to loose 12kg.
The key is not to give myself a choice,
not to indulge fantasies,
and to celebrate my life decisions.
It took me many tries to quit smoking, and I learned many lessons during this time:
I learned that longingly wishing to have a drag did more harm than good. It’s best to distract and have a proven replacement at hand when cravings hit.
It’s so much better on the other side. At the time it seems cruel to give it up, but once we’re through withdrawals and have adjusted to our new life we can see how much better we’re doing.
Soon I will forget that my life used to be different. Now all I know is eating chocolate and crisps every day with weekly takeaways. Once enough time passes, memories of binging will disappear and healthy living will become the norm.
While I may not even be suitable to be a donor,
trying to find out has become a great motivation to kick this addiction.
Is there an addiction that you’re trying to lose?
I’m always intrigued how external epiphanies can give us the push to do stuff, like the death of a loved one due to lung cancer helping us to stop smoking. Why can’t we do this for ourselves?
What do you think?
Reparent Your Soul 
I love to think about adding in more good to all areas of my life. The focus stays on positive stuff and gets it away from the white knocking response to all I’m doing wrong! Hang in there xoxoxo
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That’s a great attitude, thanks for your comment!x
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Though I have conquered my smoke addiction but still there are handful of vices that are the source of self created misery….. but I am confident that Ill over come them too..
“Nothing has power over us , unless we ourselves allow it to”
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I love that quote! I think patience is key here, it’s all about progress not perfection.
We will get there!
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Beautiful name, Jasmine:
I suppose I am trying to rid myself of an addiction to wanting to just give up and die: suicidation. It has always been my go-to thought that helped me to motivate myself to keep going: that if things got too bad, if I simply seem useless and am unable to make any kind of a contribution to the world, I could always take the quick way out, so now, get busy and think of a better solution.
It has always worked for me, but it is not a happy way to live my life. It forces me to think of an alternative to the “permanent solution”, but it means I am always mostly looking forward to resting eternally. I imagine that there is more to life than this.
And yes, being patient with myself as I look for reasons to want to live other than contributing to society for, is important. Thank you for your question, and for your post, and for sharing your progress with us, Jasmine,
Stay safe,
-Shira
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Hi Shira, thanks so much for your open and honest comment! I know where you’re coming from with the suicidal idealisation, for me it wasn’t that I didn’t even want to stop living, I just wanted to stop living the life I was having! Sometimes it was also just my way of thinking about death, about things ending in general.
Its a horrible feeling, this being stuck and constantly tired and dissatisfied, but in my case I knew what I wanted to rid myself of, I just felt too guilty and didn’t think it possible to cut ties from my old life.
Hope you feel better soon Shira, I know that it can span for what feels like forever but our pain with help others to heal one day. Sending love x
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Thank you, Jasmine. I find that my work via my blog tends to help, when folks find it useful. That, for me, makes the biggest difference.
Stay safe,
-Shira
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