Before I go on with how you will approach this, I will give a brief explanation of a habit loop, so you have the base understanding to make this work.
Background knowledge
Pic related is a habit loop. It's an automated response to a trigger in the hopes of getting a reward. When you see or hear a trigger, you get a craving for the reward you associated with the routine. So when you see or hear a trigger, you will do the routine in hopes of getting the reward.
Cue : A cue is a trigger that makes your brain go into automatic mode and which habit to use. For this example, assume the cue is seeing the vending machine.
Routine : A routine is the activity you perform almost automatically after seeing or hearing the necessary cue. In this case the routine is you buying and drinking a soda after you see the vending machine.
Reward : The reward is what helps our brain figure out which loops are worth remembering or not. A reward can be anything. In this example, the reward is an energy boost from the soda and the feel good feeling associated with sugar.
Changing bad habit
Habits don't die. They don't just disappear, once one is created it's unerasable. What you can do though, is change the habit. The golden rule of habit change is this: Keep the cue and reward; change the routine.
So obviously, if a person wants to change a habit they need to first identify the routine they want to change and the cue and reward associated with said routine.
Routine is easy enough but reward and cue will require some observations on your part, specifically around the time your routine is taking place. Try to figure out what the trigger is, whether it's your friend or a certain location etc. Make sure to journal what you notice on your phone or on a sheet of paper.
Next, you will have to identify the reward. This one isn't as simple as it seems. This might even require some experimenting to narrow down. Sure, the obvious automatic assumption is that with your weed habit, the reward is your high, but it's not always that simple, maybe you like the high because it eliminates your boredom or it gets rid of your feels. Try to figure it out.
Once you figure out your cue and reward. You will need to find a routine that is good for you but that will also activate a similar reward response. So if for instance if you find out you smoke weed because it gives you time to eliminate reflect on the day, you could instead replace the weed smoking with going for a walk. So you see your cue, trigger, get the craving for weed and instead of lighting up a joint going for a walk.
The next and final ingredient to long lasting habit change is belief. Surround yourself with people who want to improve or start journalling daily and reasserting your goals and your belief in yourself everyday. If your religious, that can also help, assume God is on your side with this change or a future version of yourself or whatnot.
So tl;dr
>Identify cue, routine and reward
>change bad routine into a positive routine with a similar routine
>Believe in yourself xD
>Success
==Power of Habits by Charles Duhigg== explains this stuff significantly better.
Other tactics you can try
>tactic 1
Tell yourself that if you still want to smoke weed in 10 minutes, you'll smoke it. This eases that feeling of anxiety/anticipation associated with cravings. Within this time, remind yourself of your goals and why it would be better to do something instead of weed. Get it out of your sight within this time frame. When time is up, you've either grown enough resistance to keep it at bay or you give in. If you give in, don't worry, this takes a few trys to get used to.
>tactic 2
Second approach is pic related. It worked for smokers, may work for you. Keep in mind it's something that takes practice and will gradually grow on you. In the study, on the first day of this the smokers gave in, on the following few days their smoking decreased by a good bit.
>Tactic 3
Another strategy is burning the ships. Delete weed dealers and their phone numbers, tell them you are quitting if they contact you. Throw any weed you have in the toilet and flush.
Good book to check out that has a lot more strategies: ==Willpower Instinct==
If you identify your cue and reward and need to figure out what to change your routine to, just ask man.
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