noodle

If you take the spots off the leopard, you end up with either a black panther or a lion, depending on your view of what color the spots are and the underlying skin/fur. That being siad, both can be just as powerful.

I have an addictive personality and a serious issue with pack-rat-itis. So I was Noodle the Smoker and Noodle the Compulsively UnOrgainzed Hoarder for a long time. It's taken a conscious effort to stop the pack-ratting and I lapse into it a lot but the mandatory times for thinning the possessions are becoming less frequent. It's definitely a process. But I'm light years ahead of where I was. Seriously, I know it sounds like a less serious example than Susie the Slut, but mine was almost pathalogical for awhile.

I think that with serious willpower and a conscious, daily effort the "spots" can fade to the naked eye, but that tendency will always be there. After awhile, the behavior change can be effortless on a daily basis for some things (e.g. smoking for me) but certain triggers will always cause a recurrence of an urge or negative behavior unless something so incredibly traumatic or distasteful happens to turn someone off from it forever (e.g. Susie gets raped).

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