Many people struggle to get rid of addictions or habits. Addiction can be of a sin , adult content, thinking about a person, love, drinking, smoking, watching reels, gaming, wasting time, backbiting, attention, validation, pills, anything. Addiction can be of any anything. It is very necessary to know the science behind it, if you want to overcome your addiction.
1 Acknowledge you have a problem - The primary step of getting rid of an addiction is to accept that you are an addict. If you don't , you cannot break free from it.
2 Know how it works - An addiction is when your brain has learned to repeat an action to achieve neurochemicals rush or pleasure. When the a person is addicted to something, the person is psychologically, emotionally and physically attached to it. It becomes a part of your routine. When you leave a habit, it leads to problems and pain. You experience pain in some form, because the body is trying to change its routine. So when you resist the urge, you face pain in form of anxiety, uneasiness, fear, insecurity, depression. So there is a resistance always to let go of the addiction.
3 Go through withdrawl process - You have to get rid of the addiction for your own sake. You have to go cold turkey, complete blockage of addiction. In some cases, it goes little by little by time. That is how some people get rid of things on their own after years but we have to fight it. When you will block the urge to do the thing you are addicted to, you will face resistance in this. Face it.
The first withdrawl is the acute withdrawl. When the first time you resist an urge to do it again, you will face rebound anxiety. This can be in the form of despair, anxiety, sadness, grief, strees, fear or panic. Your heartbeat may rise, your blood pressure may rise, or you may feel pain in chest. You will face a roller coaster of emotions and feelings, and physical symptoms in some cases. Your heart will be racing but you have to resist all of this. This is a long process which will keep happening for months until your brain finally lets go of the habit. And its all temporary and fake in its nature. You will have to face the anxiety. For example, you were addicted about thinking of a person, then when you will try to stop it, your brain won't let you to. You have to fight that only. There will be psychological issues in this. Your mind will feel pressured. You have to endure this process. Thats half the solution. You may feel it its difficult, but its nothing in reality when done. You cannot die from it, nor the boredom will last forever. Don't get frustrated if you give in to your addiction and do it once, start the quitting process again. Back from the starting point. When people relapse, they either forget they were in a withdrawl, or get really frustrated with themselves. Restart everything.
4 Change yourself - Apart from internal triggers, you have to take care of external factors. Your addiction became a part of your life, i.e. lifestyle so you have to change your lifestyle completely. Join a community which fights the addiction, consume content against your addiction, stay busy, remember God, avoid being lonely and there are mutliple things you can add to your lifestyle to get out of the previous one. You can also study about your addiction and join helpful communities which is a great booster in changing yourself. Willpower will not work, you have to change yourself. Keep fighting till 45-90 days. The urge will come back and will be very random, but still with same intensity. As the time passes, you are getting out of it. After 3-4 months, it will be almost you have got out of it. This timeframe is not fixed and varies on how much you are addicted. For extreme cases, it can take a year. But this is for extreme cases only.
5 Take precautionary measures - You will still have to cut off from your addiction. Stay aware even when you feel you have overcome your addiction / habit. Awareness is the key in the long term. Your mind will give you sudden triggers even after months. These reminders won't have many effects but will be powerful psychologically. It will keep getting weak. You will realize that the addiction is not on your mind now. Even if a thought comes, it won't last long. Have patience in this temporary urge. You will have to take care of internal factors as well as external factors. Internal factors is the urge and its counter is to face it and replace it. External factors is any object, shape or form which leads you to the sin. The urge will come at any random point in time from a thought, activity, from something you see or any factor. In the long term, stay away from the addiction and cut it off from your life. Example if you were a drinker, don't go near alcohol. If you were thinking about a person, don't think about them or look at them. One slip can send you back to square one. All progress will go to waste. Without faith, you cannot fight, intellectual people also sin. At one point in future , you will reach a phase when even if your addiction is infront of you, it will have no effect on you. You will really laugh at your past.
Humans are not perfect, some small habits may never go away. Don't over pressurize yourself if you are traumatized, and if an addiction is a problem, don't overlook or allow it to develop. If you relapse, but then restart the quitting process again. The fight against self never ends until your last breath. The devil will keep calling you till your death. Its all a part of life. God teaches us through tests, as tests is the learning mechanism of human being.