Stacking Xs

Daily Meditation 468–6/8/2023

Addiction is painful.

Drugs.
Alcohol.
Sex.
Attention.
Cigarettes.
Porn.

It can feel impossible to escape the swirl of a drain when you’re addicted. There is a powerful gravity to it that sucks you in.

Just making it a day without your vice feels like climbing a vertical mountain…
But looking to a week seems outright impossible.

Try this.

Say you’re addicted to pornography.

First of all, don’t paint yourself as a sinner right out of the gate. You can have your “come to Jesus” attitude about your addictions later. Save your emotional energy by avoiding the feelings of shame you may associate to your addiction for down the road.

The negative emotions bring you down an octave and make you more susceptible to giving in further.

Second, grab a notebook.

Number out 1–24. These are the hours of your day.
1 is whatever hour you start.

Day one, make a fat, thick, deliberate X for every hour you don’t look at pornography.

Maybe you make it 3 hours. Or 4 or 8.

Use a marker and put that number in bold on its own sheet, then hang it somewhere for you to see. Or carry it in your pocket. Or write it on the back of your dominant hand.

Then do another day.
Then another, yet.

Once you can get through a long stretch without looking, move it over to full days.

Mark every day on your calendar with that fat, thick, deliberate X.

Focus on stacking Xs for as many days as you can without looking at porn.

Or without cigarettes.
Or alcohol.
Or drugs.

Whatever your vice.

“One day at a time,” after all.

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These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”