How to escape an addiction?

Throughout our lives, everyone of us becomes addicted for some time to one thing or the other, be it drugs, cigarettes, TV series, chocolate, actions, or people. So had I until recently a long time addiction, which intensified in the last few days.
When asking my friends for solutions to get over it, I was given similar suggestions. All were rational responses to this addiction.

However, besides my rational restrain I needed an emotional one, which I couldn't exactly define what it could be. The good news is that now I know it. The bad news is that I had preferred to find it out without having to personally experience it. I realize that this all might be too abstract for you to understand, so I'll try to clarify it without getting into details.

It's well known that the best learning method is the "do it yourself" and experience the consequences of your actions. The same applies to addictions. Although I knew from others' experiences what the solution to my addiction is, I wasn't willing to accept to implement it long-term. So, I decided to learn from experience: I gave in my addiction and I "got burned" so to say. In other words, the outcome was so negative that it affected me both physically and mostly psychically.

Now, whenever I am on the brink of giving in this specific addiction I will remember the feeling I experienced when I embraced my addiction.
To conclude, it seems that experience is the best way of learning. Even though it may be true that "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", let's adopt what others have learnt from their experience and not insist on experience everything ourselves as it can be much too painful.