Sadly, the millions who fail, despite what they might tell you, don’t really want to get better. They don’t really want to change. They are scared shitless to be honest. They are scared to recover and be happy. Happiness is a foreign language to addicts, whereas chaos and misery are our best friends. Failure sets the bar at zero, and then we never have to worry about disappointing people. We never have to worry about becoming too successful and dealing with the risk and discomfort of loss. Truly, we are cowards.
Any addict who really wants to change, will. Any addict who really wants God and puts Him before anything will be touched.
I’m sure other alcoholics and addicts, like I did, will tell you all about wanting to change but that it’s ‘just so hard, and oh you have no idea, and boy if you were me you’d be relapsing left and right as well.’ Don’t believe him or her because it isn’t possible for a human being to be more full of shit. We have no intention of stepping outside of our comfort zones for one second, as our comfort and pleasure come first before all else, even at the expense of hurting you or anybody else. Even at the expense of wasting our lives, sucking resources from others who actually give a shit, contributing to the world, or being a responsible human being with a meaning and a purpose.
The truth is that I didn’t get better for or because of anyone or anything in my life. There are two reasons, and two reasons only. 1) I became disgusted with how much of a coward I was. 2) I didn’t want to be soul sick for the rest of my life and live in that state of torture… not to mention the risk I was taking regarding my afterlife.
At any rate, the people who recover are people who have decided they want God more than drugs and alcohol and will lay down their lives and everything they have to get it. We need to realize that God doesn’t just zap some lazy, repulsive addict who sits on his or her ass doing nothing, or who even works at it a bit but deep down inside they really don’t want to stop, nor do they truly want to be recovered. For some, happiness is just too far a bridge to cross. For others, the very idea of success is enough to unravel them. Ridiculous, I know, but true. Chaos and misery are familiar territory and keep the bar low enough such that no one expects us to be okay, ensuring that others lay off when we fail.
I write this blog for several reasons, but one of them is to help people understand what being recovered means. Even most addicts have no idea what it means because it’s a condition they have no experience with. I wish with all my heart that every addict in the world meets a recovered person who is a changed man or woman and becomes so inspired that they come to put God first before everything. Only then will he or she have a psychic change and know what it is like to be completely free inside. You must know what it is like to have total power over drugs and alcohol, over the thoughts in your head, over your emotions, over your life, over your soul. Recovered means that your drug and alcohol problem has vanished. There is no struggle. You don’t care about drugs anymore.
Yes, this is possible. You just have to give your whole self to this process. Trust God, Clean House, Help Others.
So my brain is 100% immune to relapse. Why? Because God comes first in my life. If our spiritual growth does not come first, then it doesn’t matter who we are, no addict will ever make it. This is the one and only requirement to getting and staying recovered. It’s really that simple.
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Whoa, so awesome. I ordered your book yesterday off Amazon. Can't wait to read it. Thank you for caring enough to share with us all. j
You are so entirely welcome. And I'm totally grateful to you for ordering the book. I hope you enjoy it and find it somewhat useful 🙂
As I read this, I saw my youngest son in your comments. There are times where, in the course of an honest conversation, I sense a reluctance or lack of commitment to truly do the hard, difficult, painful work. When it gets tough, he retreats. Thanks for putting it into words so clearly.
As I read this, I saw my youngest son in your comments. There are times where, in the course of an honest conversation, I sense a reluctance or lack of commitment to truly do the hard, difficult, painful work. When it gets tough, he retreats. Thanks for putting it into words so clearly.
My pleasure, David. Thank you for reading and for reaching out. You nail it when you talk about your son retreating. When the going gets too tough, we addicts get going.
What we fail to understand is that everybody suffers and still walks through it without getting high. We also fail to understand that strong or uncomfortable feelings don't have to stop us. And perhaps one of the more delusional notions we have is that life is somehow about us feeling good 24/7, and therefore we have the right to use, even if we've lost control and doing so comes at the expense of others. The flip side of this delusion is the false belief that nobody suffers quite like we do, nobody knows how we feel, and that we are somehow different from everybody else. Not true.
For some reason, addicts think it's unnatural to feel uncomfortable, even though we simply call that human life. Life is both up and down, light and dark, joy and pain, good days and bad days. Reality, it seems, is lost on us. And I believe that once we figure out that life includes suffering (and that our suffering isn't novel, that everybody suffers), we can being to understand that shitty feelings don't have to stop us. It's okay to suffer. We can grow up and have the guts to simply be human 😉