If you drink alcohol, or if you take some kind of drug regularly, try the following thought experiment. What events do you most look forward to?
I will bet you there are the events where you get to do these things. So if you drink alcohol, you look forward to dinner time or you look forward to that party that's coming up or when you get to go out with your friends to the bar to see how artificial it is, resolve that the next one you go to, you're not going to drink at all or you're not going to do the drug. And now ask yourself, how much am I looking forward to that event? And you'll find not at all.
This creates a conundrum. If I give up these sources of artificial pleasure that can lead to addiction and desensitize me or just bring misery down on me later by missing them, then I'm miserable because I don't get to socialize with anybody. I don't have fun. I don't go out. breaking addictions is very hard, not just because you have to break the physical addiction.
but because you then also have to change your lifestyle to the lifestyle that you would be happy in without that substance. For example, if I want to drink because I get to hang out with friends and be social and I do that enough and pretty soon I'm hanging out with a whole bunch of friends that I actually would not hang out with sober.
I can't tolerate these people sober. I can't tolerate these topics sober. I can't tolerate these venues sober. I can only do it drunk. Well if I stop drinking, then what happens? I have to get rid of these friends. I have to get rid of these activities. I have to find brand new activities and brand new friends. This is very hard and very socially unacceptable.
these fake relationships and these fake activities were just being held together by the alcohol. I realized a while back that it's actually a problem to really look forward to holidays and to weekends. Because it indicates two things. One is it takes the joy out of the everyday, because now you're living in the future, you're suffering the rest of the time. And second is it means you have accepted a way of life in which most of your time is spent.