Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com.
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
You have what is called an “addiction”. An addiction is a self-destructive behavior you can’t control. Or rather, that you can control but not with the normal ease at which you normally control your own actions.
There’s two ways out of an addiction. One is far more effective than the other.
The method that’s more effective short term, but less effective long term, is willpower. Just force yourself to hold off on those treats. Wait five minutes, then dig in. Next time, try waiting six minutes. Just brute force your way out of the behavior.
The method that is less immediately effective, but far more effective long term, is to heal your psychological trauma so that moment-to-moment consciousness is not painful. This will remove the base motivation for pleasure-seeking, making that junk food mildly attractive, but nothing more.
In my own experience with addiction, brute forcing an addiction merely leads to another addiction forming. The only lasting addiction relief I’ve gotten in my life is from deep psychotherapeutic work, with men’s groups, with zen training, with individual therapy, and with native american healing ceremonies.
If your addiction were to alcohol or crack or something else that debilitated you, I’d recommend starting with the brute force method just to get breathing room. But a junk food addiction is more subtle, and doesn’t immediately debilitate you, so my recommendation is to go for the trauma healing strategy.
However, if your job is at all in danger, then I recommend the brute force method to begin with, because the inflammation caused by junk food will affect your job performance and if there’s any danger of losing your job then you need to take immediate action to protect it.