Be it Instagram, Facebook or other Social Media: They all have one thing in common with alcohol: They trigger our reward system with cues and cravings. The question is, how can you get by these cravings as a substitute for alcohol?

I found out that uninstalling my social media accounts helped me a lot to get rid of the scrolling hell of Instagram. Plus, the filter bubbles, algorithms and trolls don’t give me any feeling of comfort or security, they only lead to bad mood and depression behaviors, aggravated by the depressing effects once you stop following the dopamine loop.

I asked myself, why I was so grizzly mooded in the first week after stopping the use of social media, and the answer was: psychic withdrawal systems. My mind craved for the dopamine loop of insta, and I simply blocked it out. So I started gaming on my phone, but not the usual “pay to win” crap and idle gaming with tons of ads in between. They would only be a shale substitute for instagram doom scrolling.

I tried playing games I loved back in the day: Worms, Monkey Island, Thinking games. It may seem as it is only another cheap substitute to doom scrolling, but after a level of Worms it is much easier to stop because a level is finite. Doom scrolling is not.

Mindfulness + finite gaming experience = getting to a halt. I found out that gaming uses much less screen time than doom scrolling. And I spend more time with real world news than fake tinfoil hat news from social media. This is a win – win – win situation for me. And I am rid of one more question I asked myself if having a bad mood was just because I stopped drinking.g

Until next time: Keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.