7 Stoic Steps for Breaking an Addiction
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What is the significance of Stoicism in overcoming addiction?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. We're all trying to get clean from something. Everyone has some form of sobriety they're trying to get to, some habit or compulsion or addiction that they're trying to break. Well, what if the secret to sobriety, to getting clean, to breaking free of this form of slavery actually dates back more than 2,000 years? Sure, we live in a modern world where temptation has been turned into a multi-billion dollar industry, where we're surrounded by systems designed to hijack our attention and channel our worst impulses. But people have always struggled with this.
And Stoicism has been a philosophy that's helped thousands and thousands of people get clean, break bad habits, regain that self-mastery that the good life requires. I'm Ryan Holiday. I've been writing about stoicism now for almost two decades. But like you, I have my addictions. I have my temptations. And stoicism has helped me in my journey of sobriety, of being the person that I want to be. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode from some people who have used stoicism to get clean, get sober, and most importantly, to stay so. And hopefully it will help you too. What was getting sober like for you?
For me, it was like I had played a show in New York. It was my first time in New York. It was like one of those little shows that nobody got paid. You kind of came up there and I was like, all right, I have to go to New York. And little did I know the show made zero difference. in my career but that whole experience changed my life and I got up there and again alcohol and as soon as my feet hit the ground got out of the car I just started drinking and I drank so much that day I drank more than I you know have ever drank before and I woke up the next day no idea what happened and that's such a scary feeling too especially as a female to just let your guard down like that, especially where I was staying.
I was not in a safe part of town. Like, we had no money, me and my band, so we were like, you know. And it was just like a hangover for me that was heavier than anything I'd ever experienced before. And that lasted for days. I remember the next day, I was like, hey, can somebody grab me a drink? We're at Penn Station. And they came back with a beer, and I'm like, I meant a water. And they just assumed. They just assumed. And so I had a beer. I took one sip of it and I put it down. I was like, ugh. It just, it tasted different to me. Sure. And, you know, my motto was just always like the best way to kill a hangover is start drinking again. Sure. You know, kind of like counterbalance it, which is super dumb, but...
that was it that was the last drink i ever had and i remember i got home and it just seemed like everything in my life was just like kind of falling apart a little bit and i was just like what do what am i doing kind of thing and i'm like i i have an issue and everybody's like oh you're too young whatever you need to chill out but i'm like No, man, I seriously, I am drinking more than I should be able to drink. And it's like taking over my life and I'm doing stuff I don't want to do. And that's a problem too that we kind of have. I think it's getting better where people are starting to realize you don't just have to be some 40-year-old man that lost his job and just wakes up and pours Jack in his cereal in the morning.
Yeah. there's sobriety and like alcoholism like it looks different for everybody sure and i i was just like all right let's let's try not to drink let's just like work on this and i was like all right i'm not gonna drink for a month and then you know like that slowly started to change and so I had to change up my habits for sure. It was like, you're gonna be that person that loves sparkling water. We're gonna do it. And now I do, but it was just like things like that. Like, all right, you gotta have something. If you have to have something in your hand, like make it water.
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