Trying to force your will on an addict or chase an addict around is an entirely fruitless endeavor…

     Nobody can change an addict or fix his or her broken mind. Most addicts need some sort of conversion, spiritual experience, or divine intervention to recover fully and for good. Beyond that, only we ourselves can act with courage day after day, taking rigorous, consistent action until we are changed people.

     And yes, we can change. Yes, our brains can change as well. We cannot hide behind the disease model to rationalize wreaking havoc, to avoid accountability, to justify being coddled and spoon-fed comfort meds, all of which keeps us weak and perpetuates our addiction and our mental frailties.

     I’ve said many times that the disease model as presently constructed is basically delusional. The truth is that your brain chemistry changes all day long. Eating changes your brain. So does meditation, prayer, exercise, sex, breathing, you name it. Addicts cannot stay sober because their minds are fucked. Fix your broken mind and stay sober forever. The problem is not physical, it is mental.

     I cured myself from depression by meditating twice a day for a year. I cured myself from addiction by inducing a spiritual experience via the actions of the Steps and then working my ass off year after year after year. Hard work isn’t marketable, however, so treatment centers will continue to send your kids home totally fucked and let you know that relapse is part of recovery, so make sure to save some money for when they relapse and you need to send ’em back for another inflation-adjusted tune up 😉

     We fix our minds through action, which over time changes our attitude towards self, others and life itself. But no one can act for us or hold our hands. This is what current thinking on addiction is trying to profess, but it is wrong. No one can, nor should they try to think, speak, feel, or act for us. If you let other people or some pill make decisions for you, you will fail each and every time.

     Let’s be clear on this though. It is only we who fail ourselves. If you blame somebody else, or some pharmaceutical company, or the system, or lack of funding, well, sorry but that is just clueless. Addicts are brightly glowing idiots who are devoid of any rational or coherent thoughts. If you have a brain that is as incompetent and as backwards as the contents of the US congress (both sides) and the white house, does anyone really think therapy sessions and psychotropics are going to teach us how to think properly, let alone act properly?

     Nope!

     Even if you wind up zombified on Methadone for a few years, you are just a coiled spring, waiting to explode. I’ve been beating a dead horse and now finally people are starting to get it and understand that the new-age scientific approach to addiction is just nonsense and keeps us sick. Only by repairing ourselves morally and working hard day after day for years and years do we addicts have any real chance of success.

     It is an internal rearrangement that needs to occur. Once you change, you are done with addiction. You just go on living life and make sure to maintain your spiritual fitness, so to speak.

     Of course, we addicts/alcoholics will be needing a practical solution, and this is what the rigorous and lifelong program of spiritual action of the Twelve Steps give us. Today, very few understand the original Step process and the mystical power behind it. Today people, usually pompous intellectuals, bash the Steps just as they bash anybody who is responsible, works hard, saves money, has faith or trusts God. It’s sad that so many medical elitists fail to even understand the fundamental principle of powerlessness, which is but a temporary state, not one where we rest permanently. These are the first few lines from my new book, Anybody Can Take Steps:

     “Many people today falsely believe the notion of powerlessness to imply permanent defeat, but defeat is by no means where the Twelve Steps intend us to stay. In fact, the very purpose of understanding what we are powerless over is to regain power.”

     Needless to say, addicts must first achieve total physical sobriety, meaning that you don’t stay jammed out of your skull on Methadone, Suboxone, Seroquel, Clonidine, etc. You really have to get over all of that shit before anything real or lasting can be accomplished. Then we must become educated on the malady, which is generally non-existent in mainstream addiction treatment. Following that, we must write a thorough moral inventory of our entire lives, make every single one of our amends, be of service to other addicts and alcoholics, and do our best to be decent people in the world, especially to family, friends and colleagues.

     Don’t worry, I’m not a complete asshole megalomaniac with some hero complex, preaching away on my soap box. I fail at this stuff all the time. But that’s the deal, on paper anyway. Also, just to note, the tone of the new book is inclusive and universal. The potty mouth and aggression is really just what my blog has devolved into for some reason. Sorry, can’t help it… although people seem to find it useful.

     P.S. Apparently the Charleston shooter was on Suboxone – oh wait, sorry, my bad… that’s a miracle drug, right? Lol. As well, someone just sent me an article about how the APA quacks are now attempting to declassify pedophilia as a mental disorder and suggest that it is simply an ‘orientation’ and how pedophiles have rights too, blah, blah, blah. So this is what the industry of psychiatry has done to us: turned depressed kids into mass shooters, validated pedophilia as an ‘orientation’, and justified drug addiction as an organic need for opiates to satisfy our bio-chemistry, and thus opiate-seeking behavior is perfectly natural. Here, let me give you a script for opiates to treat your opiate addiction. What a bunch of clowns.