The Four Horsemen of the Subconscious

I’ve quit four drugs: nicotine, alcohol, Tramadol, and kratom. I’ve also spent no small amount of time wondering what it is about me that allowed me to quit them all. For each drug, I had multiple quit attempts that failed, but I was always able to find some quitting method, or combination of methods, that worked. It’s like, after quitting smoking (the first drug in my life that I quit), I realized I had a power inside me that, if unlocked, could completely transform me—overnight. Because that’s what happened when I quit smoking: I went from a pack a day to zero and have never looked back. For alcohol, Tramadol, and kratom, it wasn’t so straightforward, but I kept trying to quit until I did.

For the past year, I’ve been obsessed with figuring out how I unlocked these quits. How, how in the world, did I manage to quit four drugs? I’m not special. I don’t have some special power. I’m just a guy. That means I have nothing inside me that you don’t have. It’s my dream to figure out how to put my process of unlocking my quits into words, like a key that unlocks the drug trap. It’s my life’s goal to do this so anyone, including you reading this right now, can tap into it. So I’ve been assiduously studying the mind, particularly the subconscious mind, to get a peek behind the curtain. What buttons did I press, what levers did I pull…what woke up my subconscious brain and made it re-examine my drug of choice? How did I make it uninterested in taking the drug? How did I make it hate the drug?

That’s what this post is about. I’ve identified four subconscious triggers, all well-documented by the scientific community, that I harnessed when quitting (hence, the Four Horsemen reference). I am going to outline what these triggers are, how they work, how they contribute to addiction, and how you can start to use them to your advantage to break your addiction.

Neuroplasticity. 

What it is: The brain has the ability physically rewire itself based on repeated experience and focus.

How it relates to addiction: repeated drug use, especially during early honeymoon periods with the drug, physically rewires the brain to crave the drug. Addiction strengthens certain neural pathways such as craving, impulsivity, reward-seeking. Over time, these patterns become default behavior.

Observational Learning.

What it is: When you watch or hear someone do something, especially someone like you, your brain fires as if you’re doing it. This occurs through the mechanism of mirror neurons in the nervous system.

How it relates to addiction: When you're surrounded by people who use, hang out in places where drug use is common, or consume media that glorifies using, your brain internalizes it. You see yourself as an archetype of a drug user; it starts to become your identity.

Cognitive Priming.

What it is: Your brain’s subconscious tendency to be influenced by whatever it was recently exposed to.

How it relates to addiction: If your thoughts, inputs, or internal conversations are fear-based, defeatist, or drug-seeking, your mindset shifts that way.

Information Cascades.

What it is: A chain reaction where people internalize and come to believe information they are repeatedly exposed to, especially if that information is considered important or valuable.

How it relates to addiction: negative recovery narratives like, “I’ll always be an addict,” “I don’t have what it takes to quit,” or “No one will ever understand what I’m going through,” are internalized the more they are repeated. Negative recovery narratives build negative associations with recovery in general, helping to keep sobriety out of reach.

I’m willing to bet, if you’re struggling with addiction, then all of these subconscious triggers are familiar. Even writing this short summary put me through intensely bad memories. But while you may be aware of all these triggers in a larger sense, listing them all at once shows just how oppressive they can be when they work together. It’s a small case study in why addiction seems so unbeatable: your brain is actively and subconsciously setting itself up to keep the drug habit alive. That being the case, what can you do?

Here’s the good news. Even though all these triggers are subconscious, you can consciously influence them to go the direction you want. You’ve identified them, and you’ve detailed their harmful impact. That’s the first step: you’ve consciously shown your subconscious mind just how bad its programming has become. This is a vital first step. This is how you start to change your mind about your drug habit.

We are going to start reprogramming these triggers. We know what they are, we know how they work. We need to start consciously, steadily change the way they fire, and thereby, how our subconscious views our drug habit. We are going to make ourselves hate our drug habit, and look forward to recovery. Let’s go over the list again.

Neuroplasticity.

The brain physically rewires itself based on repeated experience and focus. This is a phenomenal evolutionary advantage. Even though it got you stuck in an addiction, it is exactly what can get you out. Essentially, you just gotta start hacking it. On purpose. Use daily repetition of new, empowering behaviors to build new circuits. Structure your days. Replace rituals tied to using. Say new beliefs out loud. Track wins. The more you reinforce new behaviors, the more automatic they become. If you need help finding a place to start, check out my blog on a finding personal project to help you directly harness the power of neuroplasticity.

The more you do things independent of the drug…the more you will do things independently of drug use. The more behaviors you engage in that don’t involve using, the more your brain will form new neural pathways to support these drug-free behaviors. The addiction pathway that encouraged you to use will still be there (habitual neural pathways never disappear, they are literally hardwired, physical pathways), but forming new, drug-free pathways gives you a mental offramp, or better yet, a new set of behaviors that supersede the addiction pathway.

Observational Learning.

This one is crucial. It’s almost impossible to think or act your way out of addiction, but with the help of people who have, you can stuff your life with things that cause your mirror neurons to see yourself not in the archetype of addiction, but of sobriety. I want you to stuff your free time with recovery and sobriety-focused content. Seriously. Binge media, whether social media, YouTube clips, audiobooks, podcast interviews, anything that connects you to people who are thriving in sobriety. This is so important. You don’t even have to get clean to start. You can do it when putting on your socks, cooking dinner, or sitting in traffic.

Binge this stuff. The more you do, the more you start to see yourself in the narratives these people are telling. The more you see yourself in their shoes. The more you see yourself as someone who can be, and will benefit from being, sober. I’ve written a blog about four audiobooks that helped me quit if you’re looking for a place to start!

Cognitive Priming.

This goes hand in hand with Observational Learning. When I was addicted to a drug, my inner monologue was one of self-shame, depression, and that any day would include an inevitable mental fight against using—which I’d inevitably lose. That, above everything, is what kept me trapped in my addiction. I had to find ways to stack my day to get out of this self-defeated train of thought. One of the best ways I found to do this is to join a community of people going through what you’re going through. I wrote a whole blog on the importance of community, and I consider it the shortest shortcut to creating cognitive priming that sets you up for success.

You probably can’t fix your inner addict narrative on your own, so let others do it for you. Join an online community, or go to meetings, and let others lift you up. Actively seeking encouragement and motivation, then give the same back to people who need it. A community can become your wellspring for positive self-talk. As soon as someone tells you that you can quit, you start to tell yourself you can quit. When a community lifts you up to support your dream of quitting, you start to consider yourself as someone worth lifting up. The negative addiction narrative in your head gets confronted with a polar opposite perspective. The more you engage the community, the more the positive perspective gets internalized.

Information Cascades.

I tell Quit Kit clients to get curious about recovery, its benefits, and the incredible life possible for them without the drug. I want you to study recovery. Learn about what your drug is doing to you. Get curious. Shine a light on your actions, your habit, and the impact your drug use is having on your health, wealth, and relationships. Then, get fascinated by it. Go from one book, one post, one article, to another, filling your mind with the benefits of getting clean. This cascade of information, sobriety-forward and anti-addiction, is like tapping directly into your subconscious and forcing it to pay attention.

We’ve already done this in this blog post. When I listed out the impact of these subconscious triggers earlier, and all the negative impacts they are currently having, I was consciously forcing your (and my) subconscious to wake up and re-examine drug use. Like I said, even listing them brought back a slew of bad memories. The result? I felt incredible gratitude for my sobriety. This is the benefit of harnessing information cascades.

Again, the good news about understanding these four triggers is that you can consciously take advantage of them. You can start making them work for you, instead of against you. This is how you consciously change your subconscious mind. Start harnessing these four horsemen of the subconscious so they work for you. Cowboy up. Be proactive. Little by little, or even a lot by a lot(!), you will see results. This is your cheat code for re-writing your addicted brain. Physically, permanently, re-wiring it. You already have everything you need to get started. You just need to start.

As always, I’m wishing you nothing but the best, and I’m rooting for you more than you know.

Much love,

Matt von Boecklin

Founder / Quit Kit