(to go) cold turkey
idiom

- the immediate, complete withdrawal from something on which one has become dependent, such as an addictive drug

(The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition)

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WORD ORIGIN

COLD TURKEY (typically expressed in the phrase "GO COLD TURKEY"), is early 20th century slang, and refers to the goose pimples that a person can experience as a side effect of abruptly quitting a drug addiction. Goose pimples (Gänsehaut) closely resemble the skin of a COLD TURKEY.

Although first used to describe the symptoms of drug withdrawal, today it's often heard in the context of suddenly giving up smoking, literally from one minute to the next. The phrase meanwhile can be applied to any situation in which something that someone is accustomed to having or using is suddenly no longer available.

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TALKING POINT

The addiction of our age is characterized by constant smartphone checking.

COLD TURKEY is the name of a handy app for such occasions as it works like a Do Not Disturb feature. All one needs to do is set the time until you don’t want any disturbance and simply activate it. The smartphone becomes completely useless for that particular time period. Try as much as you want but you won’t be able to use the smartphone till the time is lapsed or you deactivate the app.

Interestingly COLD TURKEY works only for up to an hour at a time, after which you have to set the time limit again. Like carmakers who cap the maximum speed of vehicles, are COLD TURKEY engineers worried about the human consequences of extended smartphone deprivation?

Hey, why don't we just switch our smartphones off, or ask friends to just hide our device?

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SYNONYMS

(noun)
abrupt withdrawal, crash, detox, detoxification,

(phrase)
to go on the wagon, to experience sudden withdrawal, to take the cure

(Roget's New Millennium™ Thesaurus)

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PRACTICE OWAD TODAY
say something like:

"Since the company instituted a complete smoking ban. I've decided to go COLD TURKEY."