##### 🛠️ Addiction Fast An Addiction Fast can help with mild to moderate [[🛡️ Addiction|🛡️ addictions]] by taking advantage of knowing [[🛡️ Addiction#How Addictions Begin|how addictions begin]]. If we can get used to a substance or behavior and return our baseline level of happiness, we can remove one and return to our baseline too. Our task is not to abandon our lives and live in a cave, just to identify one or two things we or our loved ones find problematic *to our own lives* and abstain for 30 days. It's an experiment. Try and see what happens. It'll maybe worse before it feels better, we're likely to experience some amount of [[💡 Withdrawal|withdrawal]]. After the first 10-14 days, we'll feel better – either because we've [[🦮 How to feel your feelings|🦮 metabolized emotions]] or because other [[💡 Protector Parts|Protector Parts]] have taken responsibility of the [[💡 Exiles|Exiles]] the addicted protector was looking after. Or both. - Call a sponsor, stay connected to other people, maybe even fast together. Support groups, loving partners, family members, friends – do it together. - If doing it alone, let trusted people know. - Learn to sit with the emotions without reaching for the thing. Observe how the craving comes and goes. Urge-surfing. - Alternate activities. [[🕯️ Movement and Exercise 👟]], [[🛠️ Cold Exposure]], [[Intermittent Fasting]], etc. Anything more challenging than the craving. - [[🛠 Protector Toolkit]] ###### See Also - [[🕯️ Doing Nothing]] [^1]: