Alcohol. Quit on the 29th of August.

Coffee. Quit on the 1st of July.

Excess sugar. Not sure when I quit. A few weeks ago.

Dairy. Haven’t cut out all dairy, but lowered my intake by like 90 percent. A few weeks ago.

Masturbation. Quit several weeks ago. Made me tired. Sleepy. Hungry all the time. Less assertive. Seemed to have other negative effects, but am not 100 percent sure so I won’t mention those. Quit a few weeks ago. But experience tells me relapsing is easy. So am most afraid about this one.

Social media. Had another flirt with the weapons of mass destraction recently after a long time of abstinence. Oh man, the negative effects!!! I don’t even want to go into it. I quit… yesterday. It won’t be easy to stop myself. I need to remind myself how bad this is for me.

Today I realized – once again – how opening a newspaper is like jumping into a bath of pain. The article that hurt me the most today was about a woman who left a young girl to die outside in the sun. I didn’t click on it, but opening the newspaper made it inevitable for me to see the title. It rattles me to my core. And for what? I can’t do anything about it. It makes mee angry. It fills me with vengeful feelings. It’s poison. It will flavor the rest of my day… NO MORE. I forbid myself from opening newspapers. Will be very hard. It’s the first thing I do in the morning. Is it any wonder am depressed? I check about ten different newspapers every day. Exposing myself to random information that was selected for me in order to sell advertising. Going along with this is just DUMB and in my case a form of self-harm.

Am sure this list will keep getting longer.