‘The only thing I can’t resist is temptation’ (Oscar Wilde)

Self-control *sighs*

I know what’s good for me. I know what’s bad. I know moderation is important. And yet, ‘…I do not do what I want, but the very thing I hate.’ (Roman’s 7:15). As humans we love control, and yet we suck at controlling the one thing we can control – ourselves.

Procrastination. Pornography. Compulsive spending. Alcohol. Gambling. Vaping. YouTube. Facebook. Twitter. Chocolate. Coffee. Cocaine. We all have our addictions, bad habits, guilty pleasures, and vices, and it begs a couple of questions: why is self-control so hard and are there any secrets to growing in self-control?

Yes. I will offer three.

Secret # 1: Willpower is great, but unreliable

Imagine it’s December 31st. You make a list of goals. You’re full of hopeful optimism. ‘This year’s the year’, you tell yourself. ‘I’m actually going to do it’.

A few days pass…

You’ve had a big day. You’re tired and hungry. ‘I should exercise,’ you tell yourself. But before you know it, you’re eating chips in front of the telly – not exercising. How did this happen?

This phenomenon is true for a myriad of vices you promised yourself you wouldn’t do. But as the old proverb goes, the road top hell is paved with good intensions. Even the firmest of resolves will fall flat. It’s not enough to say, ‘I’m not going to do so and so’. At some point your willpower will dwindle down to dust and abandon you.

Willpower unreliable. In fact, it’s reliably unreliable.

You’re only as strong as your weakest moment.

Solution: Plan for your weakest moment.

If you’re only as strong as your weakest moment, plan for it.

If you’re typically only weak from 8-9pm (for example), plan to keep busy for that one hour and the rest of the day will take care of itself.

Perhaps your only weak when you’re hungry. Be smart and avoid excessive hunger.

Perhaps your resolve breaks whenever you’re with certain friends in certain locations. Avoid that location. Maybe avoid those friends.

The gist is to identify ‘high risk situations’ (the classic acronym HALTS: hungry, angry, lonely, tired, stressed is a good place to start) and implement practical strategies. Think ahead. Use your brain.

The trick isn’t to resist all temptation, but rather to intervene early so you don’t have to. Make things easy.

Secret # 2: Cravings keep us alive

The Role of Dopamine

Dopamine is a neurotransmitter (i.e. a brain chemical) that has garnered much notoriety in recent years, and for good reason; dopamine is the neurotransmitter most implicated in pleasure. Broadly speaking, dopamine is released in our brains:

a) after we do pleasurable things (eliciting pleasure) and

b) in ANTICIPATION of pleasure (eliciting cravings).

Thus, dopamine both motivates and reinforces behaviour.

Let me explain why this is a good system.

If we don’t eat we die. Thankfully, dopamine motivates us to seek food and eat it (I’m quite partial to dark chocolate, but ye who is without sin shall cast the first stone). But it gets even better. As we eat, Dopamine is again released - making us feel awesome - reinforcing the behaviour. Fabulous!

Without Dopamine, we might forget to eat. We might find it boring. We might stop. And then we would die (seriously, dopamine-deficient lab rats can’t be bothered to eat - and starve to death though food is accessible).

And it’s not just limited to eating. Drinking water. Conserving energy. Finding love. Connecting with others. Dopamine motivates and reinforces an array of behaviours essential to our well-being and survival.

From Scarcity to Abundance

So, what’s the problem with dopamine? Nothing. For most of human history dopamine has been man’s friend – keeping him alive. Let’s be real, from the pre-neolithic era to the turn of the twentieth century, history was hell for just about everybody. Food, water, shelter, safety… all the basics were hard to come by and it was dopamine that motivated and reinforced behaviours that helped man survive in a brutal world of scarcity. Dopamine driven cravings kept us alive.

But now… well now we live in a world of abundance. We have Netflix, hot water bottles, doughnuts, coffee, sugar cubes, and YouTube. We experience the same cravings as our hunter-gatherer ancestors, but we live in a completely different world. The net effect is a tendency towards overconsumption. The formula is as follows:

Cravings + Abundance = Overconsumption

Removing abundance isn’t an option, so how do we deal with cravings? Two solutions: we can satisfy the craving or allow the craving.

Solution 1: Satisfy Cravings

Satisfying cravings is about substitution. It’s about satisfying the underlying need without the bad habit. For example, I crave chocolate more when I’m hungry. Rather than eating an entire block of 80% dark chocolate (yes, I have that capacity), I have a sandwich first, and lo and behold, my craving disappears.

Human’s work like this:

They crave some Need - They act - Need fulfilled

On my off days, this happens:

Hunger - Eat half a block of 80% - Satiated

When I practice what I preach:

Hunger - Eat sandwich - Satiated

Identifying the need isn’t always easy. As an example, people are often driven to pornography because they are bored or stressed. If you’re bored, do something fun. Stressed, do something that helps you relax.

In short, satisfy the craving.

Solution 2: Allow Cravings

Craving don’t last forever. They come and they go. Consequently, you don’t have to grin-and-bear-it forever, you just need to accept and tolerate the discomfort for a little bit. Once the craving has passed, as it always does, it’s easy to make the sensible decision. Imagine the craving as a wave: rising, rising, peaking, and then subsiding.

The Three D’s is a useful skill: Delay, Distract, Decide

- Delay acting upon the craving for 20 minutes

- Distract yourself for those 20 minutes

- Decide after 20 minutes if you want to succumb or not

At the end of the day, a craving is merely a constellation of physiological sensations. They can be strong but bring it on. You can handle it. Promise.

Secret # 3: Modern vices are potent, accessible, and varied – leading to widespread addiction

Potency

Different substances and behaviours release different amounts of dopamine.

- Chocolate raises dopamine by 50%

- Sex 100%

- Nicotine 150%

- Methamphetamine 1000% (this isn’t a typo)

The more dopamine a substance or behaviour releases, the more addictive it is. That’s why methamphetamine is more addictive than chocolate. That’s why chocolate is more addictive than broccoli.

The truth is, we live in a world with unprecedented access to an outrageous variety of high potency dopamine releasing substance and behaviours called Super-Stimuli. We don’t just have food; we have junk food, artificially enhanced with fat, sugar, salt, flavours, and msg (among others) to make it unbelievably tantalising – and addictive. We don’t just have sex; we have pornography. A person can view more surgically enhanced naked bodies in a single day than anybody has ever seen in a lifetime. And we don’t just have friends; we have followers…perhaps thousands of them, liking and admiring us the moment we share what we had for breakfast, effectively hijacking our deep biological need for social belonging and acceptance. It’s intoxicating. No wonder we’re hooked.

Accessibility and Variety

Gone are the days of hunting or foraging for our food. Now it comes to our door, ready to consume in a safe little package. It’s so easy, so accessible.

And it’s not just food.

The smart phone has been described as the ‘the modern-day hypodermic needle’. In each of our pockets, we have easy access to a near endless array of high potency, addictive Super-Stimuli. YouTube, Facebook, online gambling, online shopping, online news, Reddit, Instagram, TicTok, Twitter… they all release large amounts of dopamine. They are all inherently addictive. They all draw us in like a moth to a flame, making us more depressed and more anxious, and more enslaved (for a good resource on how addictive substances impact our mental health: Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke is a good, easy read).

Our substance of choice is at our fingertips.

Given the ubiquity of highly addictive stimuli – and given the fact that most people are at least a little addicted to something – how do we regain self-control?

Solution # 3: Dopamine Fast

A dopamine fast is the hardest - but most effective solution in regaining self-control, especially if your bad habit is a bona fide addiction. It involves a four-week period of abstinence from a substance or behaviour that you find difficult to control. That’s right. No chocolate for a month.

*Stares into the abyss*

A dopamine fast allows the neurochemistry in the brain’s reward/ pleasure pathways (that have been hijacked by the potent substance or behaviour) to re-set. It allows the brain – which has become problematically super-saturated by dopamine – to settle back to its old, pre-addicted homeostasis (i.e. internal balance). It needs time to heal.

A dopamine fast can be extremely difficult. People complain of intense cravings, increased anxiety, irritability, and mood swings (among others). However, the intensity of these withdrawal symptoms are a sign of how addicted you are. It is a sign of how much better off you’ll be. Indeed, it’s a sign your brain is indeed healing.

Depending on the extent of your addiction, after a dopamine fast, you can enjoy less cravings, less anxiety, improvements in mood, and greater self-control. For some, they have their life back.

To control yourself, you must first deny yourself. This is a core tenant of secular addiction recovery, but it’s also very Christian. We got there first.

“…God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Secrets of Self-Control

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