Do you find yourself assuring yourself that you will never allow yourself to feel so miserable again. You realize fully that last night, once again, you seem to have forgotten how lousy overdrinking makes you feel. You well know your limit, but somehow, when the number of drinks is getting close to it, you are feeling so good that it doesn’t seem to matter for the moment.
Some evidence , discussed in Willpower and Reward Myopia, shows that exercising our short-term memories might help with our frequent short-sightedness.
The researchers call the problem “delay discounting,” that is, devaluing future rewards and punishments. The research was conducted with adults addicted to stimulants. The result was an improvement of 50% in reducing this problem, simply through neurocognitive training, that is, memory exercises.