Book - Tools to Beat Addiction

Exercise: A Values Mind Experiment

Think of something that you at one time in your life were addicted to, or else that you were (or are) very much tempted by. For example, did you at one time smoke or gamble compulsively?

Did you ever drink excessively? Do you now very much enjoy having several drinks? Do you sometimes really pig out on chocolates or some other sweet?

Now reflect—why did you give up the addiction or not take the excessive habit further? What keeps you from indulging in your current pleasure/vice continuously, or excessively?

These things are core values of yours—values toward yourself (i.e., self-respect), health, appearance, work, family, consciousness, and so on. First, simply appreciate that you hold these values. Second, see if you can utilize them in some other way, to change an area of behavior you have a less firm grip on than the one your values currently curtail.

Exercise: Values Worksheet

To further assist you in identifying your core values, list the three worst losses you could suffer in life, such as:

Your health

Your family or life partner (or their approval)

Your appearance

Your relationship to God

Your intelligence

Your standing in the community

Your self-respect

Your job/profession/work skills

Your friends

Your ethical standards

Something not mentioned above

Make a list of how your worst habit is affecting these three things.

Now describe a way that you can keep focused on each of these values as leverage to change your addiction.

Notes

1. E.M. Dawson, E.M. “Understanding and Predicting College Students' Alcohol Use: Influence of Attitudes and Subjective Norms.” Dissertation Abstracts International 61(3) (2000):1320 B.
2. M.L. Barnett, “Alcoholism in the Cantonese of New York City: An Anthropological Study,” in O. Diethelm, ed., Etiology of Chronic Alcoholism (Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas, 1955), 179-227.
3. Ibid., 186-7.
4. B. Glassner and B. Berg, “How Jews Avoid Alcohol Problems,” American Sociological Review 45 (August 1980): 647-64.
5. See N.E. Zinberg and W.M. Harding, eds., Control Over Intoxicant Use (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1982).
6. Glassner and Berg, 653-61.
7. K.K. Bucholz and L.N. Robins, “Recent Epidemiologic Alcohol Research,” in P.E. Nathan et al., eds., Annual Review of Addiction Research and Treatment (New York: Pergamon, 1991), 7.
8. L. Saxe, C. Kadushin, A. Beveridge et al., “The Visibility of Illicit Drugs: Implications for Community-Based Drug Control Strategies,” American Journal of Public Health 91 (December 2001): 1987-94.
9. Quoted in P. Kerr, “Rich vs. Poor: Drug Patterns Are verging,” New York Times (August 30, 1987)
10. S. Peele and A. Brodsky, The Truth About Addiction and Recovery (New York: Fireside, 1991), 100.
11. D. Yee, “Number of Black Men Who Smoke Is Dropping, CDC Says,” Associated Press (October 10, 2003).
12. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Cigarette Smoking Among Adults — United States, 2000,” MMWR Highlights 51:29 (July 26, 2002).
13. Alcoholics Anonymous (New York: AA World Services, 1980, originally published 1939), 46, 49.
14. W.R. Miller, V.S. Westerberg, R.J. Harris et al., “What Predicts Relapse? Prospective Testing of Antecedent Models,” Addiction 91 (Supplement 1996): S155-71.
15. Ibid, S155.
16. Alcoholics Anonymous, Comments on A.A’s Triennial Surveys (New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, 1990).
17. B.S. Tuchfeld, “Spontaneous Remission in Alcoholics,” Journal of Studies on Alcohol 42 (July 1981): 626-41.
18. Ibid., 631.