Comment:
There is so much truth here. I hear people at my meetings excusing their adult children’s behavior because they have a disease. For example someone said to a newcomer that their addict will steal from them etc., but that he knew his child only did that because of his disease. Okay, I’ve been stolen from and I didn’t take that position, I was OUTRAGED about it, I’m sorry there is still a CHOICE not to do the wrong thing. My son once shared with me that he was taking a drug friend to a pawn shop as his friend wanted to hock some jewelry he stole from his parents. My son told me he knew the jewelry looked really expensive and he said to the kid are you really sure you want to do this, that looks really valuable. Okay, so if they had no conscious, that thought would never even had occurred to my son. I agree that the pendelum has swung way to far in the direction of the addicts not taking any responibility for their actions. I’m all for supporting my son in his efforts towards sobriety but I refuse to excuse some of the things he has done because “his disease made him do it.”
Response:
There is no distinction between the individual and the so-called “disease.” We are not separate from any particular part of ourselves. We own every feeling, thought and action be it healthy, pleasant, productive and moral or be it unhealthy, unpleasant, unproductive and immoral. As well, we own every speck of our malady of addiction. This is a simple fact, and it makes all the more sense when you consider that we are 100% responsible for turning ourselves into drug addicts.
Nobody is born an alcoholic or drug addict. Nobody wakes up one day and suddenly they are a walking junkbox. Each and every one of us consciously chooses to pick up and continue using until we have broken our bodies, our willpower and our conscience. Becoming an addict is simple. It is the result of a succession of selfish choices. Addiction is achieved through selfish action and eradicated through unselfish action. There is no “disease of addiction.” There is no evil entity flying through the air and infecting our children. There is no, “His disease made him do it.” And there is no getting around any of that.
Everything he did, he did. How ridiculous that there exists a necessity to explain this, but today in America we have progressive mobs of faux intellectual tyrants shoving all kinds of bullshit down your throat and demanding you think the way they do. Should you question any of their idiotic theories out of pure logic, reason and common sense, you are to be attacked, smeared, rejected and silenced. Don’t be. You know the truth in your heart. You know the truth because you have seen it with your own eyes. You know it because it is your experience.
Just remember that addicts are responsible for everything we do, including becoming addicts, so there is no, “I am an addict because of this or that or anything.” There is only, “I am an addict because I made myself an addict.”
“But nobody knows how I feel… wannnnnnnnnhnhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
No we don’t, and guess what, nobody cares… so stop talking, get over yourself, grow up, get better, get a job and start sprinting in the exact opposite direction you have been going mentally, physically and spiritually and don’t stop. Ever.
