Hold That Thought
Dismantling Habits Before They Dismantle You
In the long, laborious slog of breaking a habit—any habit—one technique was suggested to me early on by more than one professional:
Slow it down.
“It” being the invisible, deceptively complex mechanism at the heart of compulsive behavior.
The idea was simple: slow a trouble-making impulse long enough to trip it up. It even came with a Sherlock Holmes component—oddly satisfying—unraveling the mystery of my madness one clue at a time.
It’s helped.
I slow down anything trigger-y or troubling—urges, reactions, conflicts—to minimize drama.
I do it all day long.
I did it yesterday—big time.
First, some familiar, subliminal habits:
Wake up. Stretch. Shuffle to the fridge—and devour a quart of ice cream.
Driving home, excited to take the dogs to the park. Turn left, turn right—pull up to Margaritaville instead.
Home, idly binge-watching. It begins to rain—boom, I’m reaching for something regrettable.
On the surface, those U-turns look simple. A slip and a shrug. Commonplace. But they’re anything but simple. Compressed into the short journey from “everything’s fine” to “picking up the pieces” is a cascade of yes/no choices, tangled in feelings, memories, rationales, motives, and more.
Slowed down, they might look like this:
Wake, stretch, smell neighbor’s baking banana bread, remember Grandma’s kitchen. I miss Grandma—Ben & Jerry’s.
Driving home, “yay” happy dogs await, “ugh” cheating ex on the sidewalk, feel feelings—margarita(s).
Rain equals the worst day ever. Screw TV. Text drug dealer.
Stretch the moment further, and you’ll find micro-forces at work: discipline, shame, reward, faith, rationalization. An invisible feeling becomes “here I go again,” followed by scolding for not being “strong enough.”
Slowing things down creates room to intervene. Space to learn what the much-mocked “trigger” actually is for you. Accomplish that once, and you win a round. Stack those up, and even a sprawling addiction can be dismantled.
A bit about me:
I’ve always been patient. Easygoing. Now, with my crises mostly in check and a toxin-free bloodstream, I’m practically Zen.
I don’t get angry.
But everyone has buttons. If mine are pushed, my overreaction is rooted in something PTSD-ish I haven’t fully unpacked. Suddenly I’m beside myself inside myself—lit up, rattled, a pinball machine on tilt.
So—yesterday.
Right after dropping my dog at the groomer, I learned of a major betrayal. Someone as familiar as a sibling had shared intensely private information with the one person on Earth I didn’t want having it. It was deliberate. Vindictive.
Bazillion buttons pushed.
Without effort, the slowdown kicked in—and I watched myself in action. This wasn’t an everyday urge. It was an iceberg-size choice, a wrecking ball in the shape of an old habit.
Here’s what it looked like, slowed down:
Happy day.
Dog dropped off.
Shocking news.
Prehistoric alarms: violation, rage, humiliation, fear.
Freeze response, which for me means silence. Don’t speak. Period.
Silence becomes isolation.
Isolation becomes disappearance.
Worst case: suicidal thoughts.
Less worst: painkillers. All of them.
Nine dominoes fell at once—as if hearing the news and deciding to end it all were a single, logical step.
What I witnessed was a tactic I’ve used for decades: silence myself, swallow anger, protect the perpetrator by absorbing everything.
Surprised? Not really. A lot of my past suddenly made sense. For 30–40 years, I was blind to those dominoes as they fell, which meant I lived in “disappear” mode without knowing why. By the time I checked into rehab, I was an inferno masquerading as a sad, quiet man.
Whew. I’m glad I’d already dropped off the dog.
An hour later, one of my essential process groups met. The universe, ever the comedian, offered this icebreaker:
What coping mechanisms have you relied on in recovery?
Here is my holy grail for Zen living:
Use my words.
Plus…
Make soup. Chopping vegetables is non-negotiable.
Binge-watch a British police procedural.
You’re welcome.