I am halfway through my dopamine detox , and just like the last time, the feeling is that this is going too fast. I know, that sounds weird.
We’ve all heard people say that their vacation is going to fast, but this is the far opposite of a vacation. Any sort of detox is a sort of torture, but I have had people say to me that a dopamine detox sounds like 40 days without any happiness what so ever.
And, I have to say that for the first week I would have agreed with them.
The weird thing is that you don’t realize how caged in you are by all the ‘pleasures’ of life.
The biggest shocker to me was when I went and played pool with that group from meetup.com. It was a herculean effort to drag myself through those doors. Who wants to go to a bar and hang out with a bunch of random strangers with no alcohol.
The first ten minutes of that experience was like any other time at the bar. I chatted with people nicely while grabbing at my Coke every 30 seconds and taking small sips. It was only after that I realized that the drink is like a safety blanket.
Over a few hours playing pool I eventually totally forgot about my Coke. I didn’t even end up finishing it until the very end.
Once I realized that I could function without having to go out for a cigarette or having a beer in my hand it became super easy and really fun to be there. I have since had multiple social experiences and I feel more and more free to be myself.
This feeling of freedom extends to all the dopamine stimulants. Normally, when there is a pie in the fridge or chocolate chip cookies in the jar, they are calling your name.
For the first week of the Dopamine Detox I was well aware of that, especially the bowl of dropjes that was on my kitchen table.
Believe it or not, I now walk by that bowl of my favourite candies without even thinking about it. The thing is that you can’t know what it feels like to be free if you have always been in chains.
I feel like my own man and want to keep on going. In fact, I am almost sure that I will extend my detox to 60 days this time. I still have a lot of things to work on and would like to ingrain my good habits a bit more.
The Dopamine Detox is also a cage so I wouldn’t want to continue this forever. I want to be completely free, but I will need to come up with a way to maintain the freedom without any cravings!
3 thing to-do list
- Do My stretches first thing in the morning.
- spend 3 hours editting book
- write a segue between part 1 and 2 for the book
