Any tips on helping someone get over a psychological addiction?

Just like, use your will power lol xD

Addictions are habits. Habits work like this: you get a cue that triggers a craving (or desire, or impulse), you follow the cue and go through a routine that satisfies the craving and then you get a "reward" (which can be anything, from the secretion of dopamine in your brain to an itch in your foot). For instance you may have a habit to go jogging in the morning. The cue may be simply getting out of your bed, or brushing your teeth, or your whole morning routine, the routine is the jogging itself and the reward is the feeling of wholesomeness or tiredness you get after your jog (or it may be something like staring in the mirror, admiring your own body).

These are the 3 things you must identify with any habit if you wish to change it, but it's usually a little more complicated with addictions, because you tend to have more cues and the reward is usually not very clear. For instance, with smoking you have many cues, the most important ones being the physical addiction. Your body feels the lack of nicotine which forms a cue for the psychological addiction. There are usually other ques, like drinking coffee (plenty of smokers tend to always smoke a cigarette when drinking their coffee), going out, socializing, eating etc.

Point is, you must identify the cues, the routine (which is usually the addiction itself, it shouldn't be too hard) and the reward. Then you change the routine. Instead of doing whatever it was you were doing before when you had a cue, you now do something harmless and try to keep a similar reward. For instance, the easiest way to quit smoking is to replace it with nicotine gum, because the reward is really similar. Or, the best way to stop eating chocolate is to carry around some fruits and eat one of those every time you get the craving. The new reward can be different, but the more similar it is to the old one, the easier and faster it will be for you to quit.

>>18072869
Thanks, that's some good advice I'll relay to my friend.

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>>18072808
You think bad things are going to happen to you if you dont give in to your addiction, but its not real

>>18072808

every addiction is different. if you want real answers we need real context, because each ones handled differently.

tellign you to reward yourself with dessert doesn't help if its food addiction for instance.

>>18072808
meditate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaNO09cPS6c&spfreload=1