Why do we assume that addicts can’t change? Why do we consider them to be so fragile as to require the matrix-like illusory comfort of methadone and anti-depressants? I was as bad as they get and now bear little resemblance to my former self. If we have the right formula, anybody can change. And what is that formula? Simple. Right action, and lots of it.    

     Earlier tonight, my wife and I were discussing how our new baby would effect our two and a half year-old boy emotionally. My wife was concerned about his tender little heart, and then it hit me that this is actually quite good and healthy for him. It gives him the opportunity to process change, something he will be confronted with all throughout life. Trying to protect him by keeping everything the same and keeping everything sterile is just not reality. 

     Not all suffering is bad. That’s what life is about. Adding a new baby to our family will give our son the opportunity to process a big life change at a young age, which is good for him as he will soon have to grow up and face all sorts of changes and challenges. Enduring and processing change is what reduces our fear and doubt. It solidifies the foundation from which we approach and deal with life. It makes us into the men and women we become.

     Avoiding changes and challenges is what cripples us. We gradually lose our vital energy by avoiding life and become powerless over our feelings, thoughts and emotions. We end up lacking personal strength and fortitude. Our frame of mind and approach to life can become rather distorted and we may fail to see the purpose and the benefit to throwing ourselves into it, taking risks and challenging ourselves. We begin to think that whatever is easiest and provides us with maximum comfort is the best way, and we become blind to the value of the fullness of life’s cycles. We become but a fraction of a human being and thus experience but a fraction of human life. 

    And what is the above a perfect recipe for? 

     Yup, you got it, drug addiction. So if you want to avoid addiction, you might want to try jumping into life and be willing to take it all – up and down, left and right, light and dark, pain and joy, comfort and discomfort, love and heartache, happiness and grief, strength and weakness, confidence and humility, etc. etc. – you get the picture. And the same is true if you want to recover from addiction – we must hurl ourselves into life. Living life, facing reality, doing things, taking action, being willing to take the bad with the good and living by spiritual/moral principles is the recipe for recovery…

     … while pity-pot therapy sessions all junked up on seroquel, suboxone, methadone, antabuse, vivitrol, xanax, ritalin, adderall, prosac, latuda, zoloft, zyprexa, depakote, etc. etc. is a recipe for disaster, if you’re a drug addict. Trust me, this is NOT how you recover from addiction. That is how you remain crippled and paralyzed, miserable and depressed, weak and self-conscious, foggy and uncreative. That is how you kill drive and confidence and ambition.

     Why has it become status quo these days to kowtow to drug addicts, coddle them and put them at the greatest ease possible by subsidizing more methadone wafers and suboxone scripts? Does anybody care about actually getting these people better?

     It’s really quite cruel and destructive to hold an addict’s hand and keep them medicated. All you are doing is crippling them and keeping them dependent. It’s like welfare for drug addicts. What a horrible, stupid approach. Dependency, especially when it continues into recovery, is not good for human dignity, ability, confidence, strength, innovation and perseverance. Quite the opposite actually.

     The methadone/suboxone et al pumpers need to climb out of their cave of scientific ignorance and narrow-mindedness. We have a spiritual problem, not a drug or alcohol problem. Act right and you will become free. The degree to which we change is directly proportional to the action we take. Recovery is not a function of time or clinical application. It is a function of what actions we take and at what frequency we take them.

     And yes, this is even true for those of us who are simply addicted or alcoholic and really have no previous damage. People think there is ALWAYS some trauma or mental illness that precedes addiction, but that is wrong. That is your typical bullshit propaganda and failure to think outside of the box of the modern day hoax and scam that is psychology and psychiatry. Some of us simply began to drink or take a prescription with some regularity and then whoops, what do you know, we became addicted. No trauma. No mental illness. No bad mommy or daddy. No deep-seated psychic scars from our past life as an accused witch who was stoned for a few weeks and then hung in Salem, Massachusetts. Sorry.

God, please rip us from our caves of human ignorance and narrow-thinking…