Read this.

    Everything I know about how I became recovered from drug and alcohol addiction – as well as depression, mania, fear, anxiety, boredom, angst and so forth – boils down to this:

     Nothing happens without ACTION.

     You can learn everything humanly possible about addiction and it won’t change you at all. You can discover every psychological insight about yourself and again, it won’t change anything. You can be loved by others and it won’t change anything. You can get the best treatment and all the latest and greatest cutting edge meds and it won’t change anything. You can go on methadone or suboxone and it won’t change anything. There is no knowledge, no belief, no relationship, no group, no meeting, no doctor, no shrink, no pill and no science project that can turn an active addict into a recovered addict. Only the addict himself can change, with the help of God. He or she must actually get up off of the couch and work hard. Laziness breeds cowardice and cowardice breeds addiction and failure and death. The AA slogan “Just sit down, shut up, and wait for a miracle to happen” is truly one of the most asinine, let alone lethal, of them all.

     Addicts must engage in constant right action all day, every day. This is what the medical establishment doesn’t seem to understand, despite all of the degrees and the science and what have you. The addict is a special case. He is completely addicted to his comfort and pathologically focused on himself – his feelings, his thoughts, his life, you name it. It’s not even about the drugs and alcohol, despite what the behavioral neuroscientists and geneticists will tell you. That is the truth, despite what you may believe or want to believe. It’s about the person, not the drugs. The drug addict must change who and what he is. He must change his fundamental attitude and the way he sees the world and others. He must change the way he sees and approaches suffering and human life. He must change his entire perception of pain, responsibility and personal challenges.

     If an addict does nothing, than his addiction (or rather, his obsession to use) will never go away. If an addict does nothing than nothing will he become. The addict alone will make himself into who and what he is. If he fails, it is no one’s fault but his own. If he succeeds, his success can be credited to action and God. So you must understand that self-knowledge and science projects are useless. Yes, that includes this blog. Completely and utterly useless. Words are but dormant seeds, but the more an addict does, the better he will get.

     This isn’t cerebral. The isn’t academic. Intellectuals think that you can solve every problem with academics, the same way politicians and lawyers think you can solve every problem with more government and more laws. For instance, they just passed some opiate law in Massachusetts. Useless. More laws and more academics won’t solve anything, but they are blind and will never understand something they have never experienced. They are also programmed to think inside of a box, and thus there is no hope for you there. Listen to me, drug addicts don’t use because there are drugs being made and prescribed by doctors. Addicts are addicted to self, to selfishness, and ultimately, to self-destruction. Drugs and alcohol aren’t the main show. It is what lies underneath that causes the symptom of addiction.

     So the day you see your addict DOING things… that is the day you are seeing your addict begin to recover. Without consistent action and 100% sobriety (including all mood-altering substances and yes, POT. Don’t let your half-wit teenager try to tell you that pot is not a drug), there is no such thing as recovery and change. Trust me on this. You can just tell if someone is okay or if he is still filled to the brim with bullshit. Recovered people glow whereas sick people do not. Recovered people are willing to do anything to grow and get better whereas sick people aren’t willing to do much of anything.

     Do yourself a favor and observe him or her. Are they doing productive things? Are they waking up at 5:30am before work to pray and meditate for an hour? Are they writing and reading inventory? Are they helping you? Are they trying to really listen deeply, to be present, to love you and understand how to love you better? Are they going out and helping others? Do they care about little else but growing spiritually? Bottom line, are they doing the right thing and changing internally? Are their glaring character defects subsiding – the narcissism, anger, judgment, jade, verbal abuse, frustration, depression, discontent, dissatisfaction and on and on? To note, I’m no freaking angle but I no longer ignore my conscience and therefore I no longer struggle with self-destruction.

     All you have to do is observe and listen to your gut and how you feel and you will know everything you need to know. There is but one recipe for change, and that is action – right action. Remember that recovery is NOT a function of time, despite what some knucklehead will tell the newcomer at the meeting. Time spent untreated is frightening. If time gets you better then you are not an addict or an alcoholic. There is no neutral gear for people like me. If we are not moving forward then we are moving backward and becoming sicker. Addiction is not about drugs and alcohol, it is about a person who is spiritually ill, and a spiritual illness calls for a spiritual solution. Sorry, but recovery never has been and never will be a theory.

Also see ‘Pot’ & ‘Words are Just Dormant Seeds’.

“Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.” -Neale Donald Walsch

     There is a solution… it’s just that most addicts don’t want to do any work, and there is no solution without work. Sadly, as a society, we are becoming programmed to reward and even glorify failure and dependency while demonizing hard work, success, independence and free thought/speech.

*  

      When you ply an addict with more drugs, when you validate an addict in therapy, and when you subsidize an addict with government programs (aka the money you work so hard for), you are essentially telling them that they are too weak, sick and stupid to truly get better and recover, and to make things worse, you are doing it under the guise of compassion, under the guise of science and the disease model.

     This is of course the very idiocy and lie of the nanny/welfare state – sold as compassion and self-empowerment, yet in truth it condemns, dis-empowers, disenfranchises, dis-incentivizes and enslaves. It is also theft, and generally exists to buy votes and exert greater state control. If someone came to me for a fish, I wouldn’t give him one only to see him return the next day with his hands out. I would teach him how to fish so he can feed himself and free himself from the slavery of dependency. He could then feel proud and worthy as opposed to helpless and ashamed. This kind of help is true help, and while it would sustain him, it would also restore his own dignity. 

     What you must understand is that this new “compassionate” approach only further cripples addicts and relegates them as weak, diseased failures. So while some think that this blog is harsh or negative or unproductive, you’ve got it all backwards. Honesty and service restore a man’s soul and give him real strength. What you think is strengthening and helping addicts/alcoholics is in fact doing quite the opposite. As Ayn Rand said, “you can ignore the truth, but you cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring the truth.”

     This new age thinking on addiction is really just a microcosm of an entire shift in our culture, and a dangerous one at that. As a society, we are shifting from a free, prosperous and democratic republic to more of a socialist-collectivist, 5th column monster that seeks to limit freedom, limit wealth, and convince you that the never-ending expansion of government has any purpose beyond government officials and employees retaining power at all costs and stuffing their pockets with as much of your money as humanly possible.

     The worst propaganda is that which convinces you that freedom and prosperity are evil while control, impoverishment, unemployment, debt and more government are good. If you think about it, it’s very clever. Rally everyone around a host of supposedly “righteous” causes when in reality what you are doing is screwing the living shit out of them. Sadly, the masses are often blind and gullible sheep that will do anything and believe anything. Most people will let you shear them on a daily basis and even thank you for it in the name of some fraudulent cause. Problem, Reaction, Solution. Works every time. 

     At any rate, the common thinking out there is that addicts and alcoholics are doomed. The best anyone can hope for is to get us off of our drug of choice and desperately substitute it with methadone, suboxone, vivitrol, naltrexone, seroquel, and perhaps some basket of psychotropics… and let’s give them a bag of weed, too, because that’s not really a drug and it’s, like, the healing of the nations bro. Let’s also do some therapy and role play so we can whine about mommy and daddy and fabricate some reasons (otherwise know as excuses), and then follow it all up with some quack science just to make sure we can abscond ourselves from any and all responsibility whatsoever. The idea is to blame anything but ourselves.

     You see, when we as addicts do this, and when the status quo now promotes the notion that our destructive behavior, personal failure and “incomprehensible demoralization” is nothing more than an involuntary symptom of a blameless disease, then yes, we are doomed. When you tell addicts and alcoholics that it’s not their fault, when you put your arms around them and validate their present construction of self, when you appease them with more mind-numbing drugs after telling them they are basically too weak to truly recover, you are indeed dooming them.

     Even though it is sold and made to sound in the exact opposite way, the current thinking on addiction doesn’t give addicts and alcoholics any credit, nor does it assume we can ever develop or reclaim our character or personal strength. Bullshit. Each and every one of us can recover completely and never think about drugs and alcohol ever again, but we have now brainwashed mainstream addiction & recovery from understanding the true nature of addiction and we have ripped the spiritual teeth right out of recovery.

     So yes, we are doomed, but that is because the establishment has managed to convince us that we are incapable and somehow justified in using, drinking, lying, stealing and living lives based on pathological self-absorption and the compulsion to seek comfort and dopamine 24/7. The addiction activist types fall for it and scream about this nonsense on their blogs. There is no constitutional and organic need for opiates, nor any brain disease that causes us to become addicts. Addiction is but a temporary state of ‘acquired’ powerlessness until the addict finds some guts and faces life. Sure we may respond differently to drugs and alcohol than a sane person, but that is irrelevant if we simply do the work and regain our willpower.

     And by the way, becoming physically dependent on something isn’t novel to addicts and alcoholics. Anybody in the world can become physically dependent on a substance.

Comment:

     Yes, I have found as a spouse of an addict that self-care is absolutely crucial to survival. You are so right that is is not selfish, but actually necessary to be able to have something to give to others.

      Out of curiosity, do you think that pot has a similar effect on the emotions as alcohol, or are the two different?

Response:

     Yes, Charlotte, 1000%. They are somewhat different chemically but act on the same dopaminergic “reward” system of the brain. I get this alot, that smoking pot is all good dude. I get it even from parents and spouses, who want to convince themselves that their child or spouse is okay because they’re just smoking pot now and it’s not addictive. They say even doctors have told them it’s totally  fine to puff down yo. Such wisdom and duty to the Hippocratic oath.

     First of all, the meme above is somewhat inaccurate because if you’re smoking pot, you’re already in relapse, as pot is, of course, a drug, i.e. a mood/mind-altering substance, and the allergy an alcoholic/addict has to mood-altering substances crosses all lines. And yes, it is addictive. I previously quoted in “Pot” regarding the action of THC, “Via CB1 activation, THC indirectly increases dopamine release and produces psychotropic effects. Cannabidial also acts as an allosteric modulator of the mu and delta opioid receptors.”

     Physical addiction is characterized by the presence of craving and withdrawal, both of which are present in spades with any regular pot smoker, and especially in the fully blown addict. Remove the pot and you are removing excessive and superficial dopamine (as with alcohol), dopamine that floods the reward system of the brain once these mu and delta opioid receptors are activated. This is precisely what happens when any other drug similarly acts on opioid receptors specifically responsible for euphoric effects on our CNS and the “muting” of pain, no pun intended.

     Any superficially added dopamine when removed will cause various withdrawal effects, some physical, some psychological/emotional. First, the pothead will crave more, which is a physical event. Second, the pothead will suffer from a myriad of emotional effects – anger, depression, boredom, anxiousness, restlessness, discontent, dissatisfaction. Some will even suffer rage and become verbally abusive.

     Pot UNQUESTIONABLY mutes the natural surfacing and progression of feelings and thoughts, and since it also has psychotropic effects, it can and will wreak all sorts of biochemical havoc, effecting serotonin levels etc… even despite deranged, Orwellian media outlets such as CNN ignorantly promoting pot use to your children, let alone promoting all other manner of deviance including recent pieces promoting the benefits of “cuckolding” and defending pedophilia as a sexual orientation, which is by all accounts satanic. Truly disgusting.

     I only mention this because I’ve actually been called a racist and a bigot for arguing against pot use and for suggesting God and moral action as the solution for addiction. I guess tolerance only applies if you agree with the one preaching tolerance. Am I an evil, racist bigot? I’ve spent every waking moment since I recovered just trying to do the right thing, help my family and other addicts and their families. I don’t give a shit what color anybody is. All I care about is what kind of person you are and what you do. I care about character, not appearance. Perhaps it is those who only see skin color and scream racism at every turn who are the true racists.

     Sorry, but when you call anyone who simply disagrees with you on a policy matter a fascist or a racist, you really should be looking in the mirror when referring to mental illness. When Dr. Seuss, the national anthem and my 3-year old daughter’s Elsa halloween costume are now racist, you really have to question the sanity of these social justice warriors, who have become perhaps one the most entitled, uniformed, ignorant, self-loathing, isolated and just plain clueless groups I have ever observed. Also, calling anyone who disagrees with you about anything a facist is, um, sort of what fascists do. That said, because I believe in and cherish freedom, I believe they can spout anything they want. It’s unfortunate, however, that their belief is that free speech only applies to them.

     I suspect that behind this smug superiority complex is profound self-hatred. Moreover, this sort of derangement and irrational, despotic hatred and attack on free thought, free speech or anyone who disagrees is disturbingly similar to the demeanor of a drug addict, including potheads. The lens through which an addicted pothead perceives self, others and world is quite warped, to say the least.

     So someone please shoot me in the head if I blow 200K for either of my children to attend college, suck on a bong for four years, acquire zero skill sets, major in sociology or gender studies and come home unrecognizable, psychotic and suicidal claiming that I am an evil, fascist, cisgendered, capitalist bigot, lol… before demanding cash, of course, a new iphone and a free apartment… blood money aside.

     By the way, it has historically been the left that becomes violent, and it has been leftist ideologies that have sanctioned the wholesale execution of anyone who disagrees or dares to dissent. You can see how leftist groups are again becoming violent, blocking conservative speakers on college campuses and firing professors who even dare challenge the PC lunacy, which is the precise opposite of intellectual curiosity, as universities more resemble modern-day gulags rather than bastions of free thought and scientific inquiry. At the same time, students have just been offered free counseling at UCONN to soothe them of the overwhelming stress, discomfort and violent abuse they’ve suffered at the mere “thought” that Ben Shapiro might give a talk on campus. LMFAO.

     The truth is that the authoritarian tyranny lies within, yet is falsely projected outward. The hatred, intolerance, racism, prejudice and bigotry lie within. The true bully lies within. You are now branded an evil bigot and can even be charged and arrested in some regions just for using biological pronouns. If this isn’t insane, I really don’t know what is. 

     If you want to see a person lose one, if not all, of the following – their sanity, their will, their ambition, their maturity, their wisdom, their common sense, their logic, their reason, their work ethic, their moral compass, their emotional and mental stability, their self-respect, even their personal hygiene – just observe a pothead or a progressive ideologue. I know from experience because I was also a deranged liberal many years ago when I was an active drug addict and spiritually sick. The two go hand in hand. When presented with any truth, fact, statistic or challenge that contradicts his or her worldview, they seem incapable of thinking straight or engaging rationally, if not becoming completely unraveled and enraged, with the sole defense of just calling you a moron, low-life, racist, bigot, inbred hick, blah, blah, blah. Even when presented with social, economic, historical or scientific truth (real science that is, not science that is state-sponsored for bias, political agenda, control and taxation), there is sort of an immediate misfiring of neurons and apoplexy ensues.

     Needless to say, the moral outrage you see everywhere today is clearly feigned and drenched in hypocrisy, while the intellectualism and “classroom wisdom” is as empty and meaningless as the collective aggregate of accomplishments. And I presume the narcissistic vitriol towards those who work hard to achieve success and economic freedom is simply an outward denial and diversion of an inner refusal to grow up and assume the responsibility and accountability of a principled, God-fearing, sober adult. I really don’t understand this war on family, freedom and God, other than a continuation of a grand holy war between good and evil that has ensued since the beginning of human history.

     But we know better. We know that this is simply a propaganda campaign meant to divide and control. We know the progressive elite and their media puppets have been trying to incite some kind of civil war or race war, and while most of us aren’t falling for this bullshit, many gullible young people are. We also know this agenda to divide and conquer was initiated by the former regime, an admitted socialist who despises America and all that America stands for. We also know that their entire premise contradicts itself by constantly dividing people into groups and assigning value judgments based on the fiction of race. Race itself is but a social term, as all biological notions of race are false. We should be referring to racial differences as ethnic differences, which are solely based on variables such as physical geography, climate, isolation etc. There is only one human race, so for those who preach equality to see everything through some concocted social/racial lens is asinine and it is identity politics at its worst.

     Please take the time to look at the utter depravity of socialist/communist countries today such as Venezuela or North Korea- the poverty, the corruption, the abuse, the oppression – and you have to wonder why in God’s name would these braindead professors be indoctrinating students to embrace such horrible, abusive, destructive, disgusting ideologies? They will rip the human spirit, will, independence, ingenuity, creativity and dignity out of the people faster than you could think ever possible. They tear apart the very fabric of a society, replacing freedom, hard work and success with envy, dependence, division, fear and state control. 

    So the agenda for the elite is not social justice. They couldn’t care less about the people. In fact, many of them hate the people – we the great unwashed deplorables. Social justice, like global warming or climate change (not polluted air and water, which nobody wants), are just political terms meant to manipulate and incite clueless mellenials and ignorant, self-righteous progressives into accepting globalism, massive government power and theft via taxation. The agenda is to incite domestic war and bring America to its knees in order to maintain the power of the status quo on both faux political sides. Problem, reaction, solution. Works every time.

     The establishment doesn’t care about anything. They want votes. They want external power, which is perhaps the greatest drug of all. They want to become career politicians and get rich without having perform a single day of honest work. Many of them have never worked, just like many of these loony tune professors, students and SJWs have never worked, served or had children. They are blinded by the delusional bubble of intellectualism, which ironically can reduce wisdom and true knowledge. They have no understanding of the real world because they have no real world experience. They are terrified. They hate freedom and thus project their own personal failure onto others.

     What I don’t understand is the clear as day hypocrisy. How is anyone to believe that these people on the left actually care about children and people? And if they want to win elections, perhaps they should stop murdering their unborn future voter base. Yup, said it. If you don’t like it then start your own blog about how killing your children out of inconvenience is just so awesome.

     So does pot have similar emotional effects as alcohol? I would say yes. Let the anonymous keyboard thugs and bullies have at it… I couldn’t care less ;-)

Comment:

     I learned about the higher power many years ago in AA when it still had an emphasis on that. Now, at some meetings, I find books and literature have been re-written to remove “monotheistic” references to God because it offends people. I wonder if this is why there is such a high rate of addictions now. If you take God out of the program, and substitute it with your own trendy politics you offer nothing to the sick, suffering, and dyeing. I’m sorry to see this state of affairs. I’m grieved by it.

  

Response:

     Welcome to the progressive utopia of “everything is offensive” and “everyone is a victim,” except those who disagree, of course. They can go to hell. It’s okay to offend and victimize them. Welcome to the childish, deranged, idiotic world where words have now become acts of violence and college snowflakes are actually taught that “micro-aggressions” exist and they should not say anything to anybody lest someone might be offended. Welcome to the world where it is only okay to think ONE WAY, their way, and if you don’t, you are a fascist bigot. Welcome to the world where an NYU professor critical of political correctness was just removed and charged as mentally ill and satanic by the dean and a campus “inclusion” group that promotes tolerance for not thinking the right way, for the “structure” of his thinking. Oh the irony. Tolerance? Progressives are perhaps the most intolerant people in the entire world. Beware the denial of moral absolutes and God in place of moral relativity and other degenerate ideologies.

     We live in a twilight zone where if one person is offended by anything, their personal comfort or “rights” trump those of millions. The supposed comfort of one trumps that of millions who may be uncomfortable, let alone violated, with the change. Under such an absurd and insane standard, the implication is that anybody who finds ANYTHING offensive now has the precedent and the right to have it removed. Sorry but these social justice warriors are complete lunatics, incessantly whining and complaining and imagining things that don’t exist. They are miserable and hate everything. They live to find a problem with everything, cry about their feelings and confuse them with facts. I mean, do these people ever work? Even here in New England, Tom Brady was just scoured by the liberal media for kissing his son on the lips. My God, they are so conflicted, defending actual abuse and deviance while ripping Brady apart, simply because he doesn’t subscribe to their ridiculous ideology. Accusations of inappropriate sexual conduct with Tom Brady’s child can only come from a sick mind that is itself capable of fantasizing and abusing children sexually. And did you hear? Now Yoga is apparently racist, too. If they want people to listen, perhaps they should stop embodying and epitomizing the very things they say they hate.  

     The removal of God from AA parallels the secular, cultural Marxism we have seen infecting and poisoning our society. Progressives are hell bent on removing God and all references to God from everything. Our children are being punished for praying or reading the Bible in school and are instead being taught about sex acts, gender fluidity, how farting and grilling burgers is causing Armageddon and how privileged they may or may not be. God has been removed from schools, colleges, businesses, search engines and any other institution you can think of. Good, kind, honest hard-working people who love God and Christ are being smeared and attacked at all angles. They are branded evil as actual evil is defended and promoted. Monuments of the Ten Commandment et al are being destroyed. Popular culture is now rife with all manner of Godlessness. Our culture and our children are being infected by a hatred for God and a love for selfishness, confusion and chaos. The ideas of family, marriage and having children are being attacked, let alone free speech, free thought and free markets. I recently read a story about how some children are now being given puberty blockers by insane parents seeking to change their gender identity – a form of child abuse to say the least.

 

     When putting a Christmas tree on a coffee cup is offensive, yet you are a bigot if you are justifiably critical of Islamic terrorism, we have a problem. But the crowd who is oh so offended and appalled and emotionally hurt by Christmas trees are the supposed party of women and gay rights yet go to the ends of the Earth to defend a doctrine that has a frighteningly deplorable record of the treatment of homosexuals and women, including the supposed “moderate” practice of female genital mutilation and other forms of physical abuse. They are obsessed with branding anyone who doesn’t think exactly the way they do, anyone who is conservative, libertarian or loves freedom as a racist, as if that has anything to do with personal prejudice whatsoever. They are always asserting that any policy that runs contrary to their own must be evil and will kill children etc. yet are proud to promote and defend the killing of their unborn children. They defend Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, who was not only a true racist but delivered quotes that could come from the mouth of Satan himself…

1. “But for my view, I believe that there should be no more babies.”
— Interview with John Parsons, 1947

21. “Birth control itself, often denounced as a violation of natural law, is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives… If we are to make racial progress, this development of womanhood must precede motherhood in every individual woman.” — “Woman and the New Race,” 1920

     So it comes as no surprise that God is being removed from AA and that recovery rates are plunging. If you remove the spiritual teeth of the program, you are going to remove recovery as well. Yes, it is a truly sad and tragic state of affairs. Beautifully put. Thank you.

Comment:

     Had an interesting conversation with a good friend a while back. One of things we discussed was the effect of alcohol in a general sense, addict or not, and beyond the physical.

     Alcohol, like drugs, can have a surprisingly profound effect on an individual, though it may appear subtle to the outsider. For one, it mutes the natural surfacing of deeper thoughts and feelings, but this emotional energy must be channeled somewhere, which is why alcohol use begins to amplify our emotions in both directions. Alcohol use can eventually cause greater extremes in our emotions, whether up or down, so an otherwise balanced person may begin to experience stronger feelings, thoughts or energies in both directions – mania on one extreme and depression on the other, let alone indifference and apathy.

     Alcohol destroys our ability to filter thoughts and feelings through our consciousness. Our awareness becomes cloudy and begins to contort the way we assess our actions, thoughts, feelings and life events. Things that may be detrimental to self or others become unclear. The way we rationalize and reason our own behavior and that of others can become markedly different from a person who is entirely drug or alcohol free.

     We also discussed internal dialogue. Even though many of us are not alcoholics or addicts, when we begin to question or assess what we are doing, how it is effecting us, and how much or how frequently we are drinking, we are assessing the use of a substance that we probably shouldn’t be using. While it is obviously a healthy and sane ability to assess our drinking and its effects, the mere presence of an internal dialogue is a message in and of itself.

     We discussed the fact that when we are engaged in things which do not aid in our personal or spiritual growth, there will be a real effect. Sure the effect may not be directly related to having a few drinks at a party, but it does tend to be proportional to the weight of our initial actions or behaviors. Cause and effect, while a universal law in the physical realm, can cross lines. Any cause can lead to an effect that may occur in the emotional or spiritual realm. Physical actions may also cause an effect in the physical realm but one that is unrelated to our behavior directly. We often refer to this as bad luck, but is it bad luck or are our actions or budding habits coming back to haunt us?

     The bottom line is that what we do, say and think MATTERS. Anything we do that is healthy and productive for self and others will have a positive affect, while anything we do that is harmful or doesn’t serve us or others will have some sort of negative effect.

     Lastly, we briefly discussed the fact that many of us, addict or not, have some external reason or purpose which drives us to maintain consistency as a responsible adult. Children and careers are often two of the primary reasons. However, if we continue to do the right thing for an external reason, even our children, but not for ourselves, we will eventually suffer. I’ve recently discovered that I must embrace and apply this truth. Positive, healthy nourishment of self is important. This is something I usually scoff at and cast aside believing I must work myself to the bone. The idea of self-nourishment has in the past produced guilt, even a sense of disgust. At the same time, it is advice that I regularly offer to spouses/parents of addicts. I suppose the process of getting better should include some type of living amends to oneself, so long as it serves us, and admittedly, I’ve had difficulty determining whether various forms of self-nourishment are serving me or not, as well as others.

     More to the point, we can continue to be responsible parents or employees yet fail to take care of ourselves. I sometimes find myself at home being Mr. Dad – playing, cooking, emoting happiness, calm and stability for my children yet I am unhappy inside. This isn’t because I don’t love my children with all of my heart. It is because I have been neglecting myself.

     To enjoy the fullness of life, whether at home or at work, I should keep my spiritual, emotional and physical health as the top priority. This is not selfish, because if we fail to put our health first, we will eventually begin to suffer and fall apart. Nobody wins. Ultimately, nothing external can keep us healthy, stable, sane, content and at peace within. We must take care of ourselves and our relationship with God first, and then all other efforts will naturally benefit. Our efforts will become wholehearted, as we won’t have to force or feign responsibility, joy, strength and consistency.

     Trust me, I violate this constantly, and everyday God reminds me that I must take care of myself not for anything external, but so I can be “okay” primarily. Sure I take care of self for my family and for my business, but it must also be for self, so that I can live my life with joy, or at least with some peace and contentment.

     So with that said, I’m gonna go make a flatbread pizza, smother it with crushed red pepper and pour a large ginger ale. Is that the idea? Perhaps not. Well, how about I go write some inventory (much needed) and then meditate (or sweep) until my mind slows down and the peace begins to flow in. Maybe a long, hot shower as well – def one of my favorite things. Then I can start neglecting myself once again tomorrow morning ;)

     I once loved drugs and alcohol with all my heart. The idea that we addicts somehow don’t want to be addicts and never wanted to be enslaved by some drug is a myth. Sure, perhaps deep down somewhere we want to truly be free but have instead chosen the easy “solution” and false freedom of drugs because we are cowards… but you have to understand that addicts love drugs like a soul mate (and btw “soul mates” don’t exist except in absurd Hollywood movies). That’s why we’re addicts.

     We’re not addicts because whoops, we woke up one day and became addicts, or whoops, we wimped out and took a Vicodin for some minor procedure and now we can’t stop. We don’t want to stop. We loved taking the Vicodin. We love anything and everything that gets us high, changes the way we feel, triggers the release of dopamine in our reward system and saturates our CNS with pleasure, thus preserving our comfort zone. Short of shedding the mortal coil and floating off into lala land, free from the predicament of existing in a human body, drugs and alcohol (like power) serve as the great deception and false solution of both internal and external freedom and peace. We believe the drugs are washing us with some holy elixir, though nothing could be further from the truth.
 
     And this is why there are so many false solutions for the slavery of drugs and alcohol. This is also why there are so many theories of addiction – the most recent and by far most destructive being the idea that addiction is a permanent disease that the poor addict didn’t give to themselves via a series of selfish actions (remember that the process of losing choice is a choice). Even AA has been infected by this nonsense, but to be sure, the Big Book refers to addiction and alcoholism as an illness or “malady,” further stating that our main problem centers in the mind, not the body.

     I personally tried just about everything one can try – from the excuses/reasons invented in talk therapy to mind-numbing psychotropics to substitution drugs like methadone and suboxone that kept me chained and almost killed me as swiftly as heroin (this sort of physical/spiritual poison can be likened to the devil, for sure). I tried wilderness trips, rock-climbing, art, music and acting. I tried self-help nonsense and listening to a slew of Godless new-age heretics. I tried visualization, crystals, polarity, acupuncture, acupressure. I tried some ridiculous homeopathy to patch holes in my aura and a St. John’s Wart tincture for my depression. I tried driving across the country, having relationships, socializing more, socializing less, and on and on and on… but the thing is…

     I loved drugs the entire time, and it doesn’t take a prodigy to deduce that is not gonna work. So why have I now finally stopped loving drugs as much as a narcissist loves self?

     Because I love God now.  Loving God more than drugs is probably the only solution for any long-term, hopeless addict or alcoholic. Why? Because loving God more than drugs is the only thing powerful enough to replace my addiction. While worldly remedies have little or no power to alter the entire course of our lives, the power of God is limitless. It can restore a man to sanity in an instant. It can drive a man each and every day to wake up and give his life over to Him, to guide and steer him throughout the day, the change his heart to begin to love what is right and clean more than what is wrong and filthy, to change the make-up of a man, his character and his entire attitude and belief about life and what life is about.

     What people must also understand is that our primary poison is not drugs and alcohol, it is our selfishness. If we do not become willing to replace our selfishness with a desire to instead be closer to God, we cannot and will not recover. Most addicts only want to get sober if it feels good, but in order to get better, we must rise above our pathological preoccupation to the more banal and primitive pleasures of the flesh, the senses and the nervous system.

     So beware of carrying the preoccupation with comfort into recovery. Beware of carrying the deep-seated narcissism into recovery. Beware of continuing to hold the outside world responsible for how we feel and for what happens in our lives. This is why grown children etc whine, rant, become enraged, violent, filled with hatred, protest in the streets, declare anyone who disagrees with them evil, and want exams cancelled due to the stress “caused” by elections etc (lmfao) – all because of their feelings (not facts) – feelings of course that are born and caused within. It’s not the world that is their problem. It is themselves – their self-hatred, their entitlement, their immaturity, their ignorance, their indoctrination and deranged ideology, their whining and complaining, their self-caused depression, their mental illness and their spiritual destitution. Sorry, but it’s true. It’s all projection. The hatred, the accusations, the intolerance, the ignorance – it is all owned and perpetrated by the accuser him or herself. Those who scream for tolerance are perhaps the most intolerant of them all, as it only applies to those who agree with them about everything, even if they are dead wrong. You see often see this in narcissists and the insane. I’m right about everything (even if I don’t really know what the hell I’m talking about) and if you disagree, you must be evil, you must be stopped, you must be attacked, you perhaps even must be killed. Gee, such tolerance and love.

     The solution of spiritual action and putting God first does not guarantee we will never suffer. It’s not supposed to. What it guarantees is that that drugs and alcohol won’t ever be a problem again. Why? Because it restores our conscience and keeps our selfishness in check, thereby keeping us close to the Lord. If our conscience burns inside, we will refuse to use because we now care too much about the consequences of our actions – of wrong action. We cannot have success by carrying our selfishness into sobriety and continuing to demand the preservation of our comfort zone 24/7. But if we submit to the will of God and trust He won’t bring us anything that we cannot handle and endure, we can and will remain free until we draw our last breath.

     And trust me, despite all the constant whining and utter nonsense you hear today, we humans can endure a great deal.

Comment:

     “Thank you for your wonderful words. I appreciate your continued success.
My spouse has quit drinking , had a slip up during his sobriety. He quit by non traditional methods . My question. Do addicts say things like, “you won’t like what you get if I quit “? Why do they say this?”

 Response: 

     The addicted spouse will say this sort of thing for perhaps a number of reasons, but first and foremost because he/she (sorry for my evil “cisgendered” pronoun bigotry) doesn’t want to change. Many addicts, like many people in general, do not want to change. One reason for this is they may have had no exposure to a solution that is alive, well and glowing in another former addict. Where there is no spiritual solution, there is perhaps little hope and thus little desire to change. Addicts are selfish creatures, and as comfort-addicted children, most will want some assurance that should they embark on the process of recovery, they will at least feel better, forget about the notion of actually working to find God and eliminate their drug problem.

     It is also a manipulative thing to say. “Look what you made me do, you monster! So when I devolve into a depressed, angry, selfish, miserable animal, you’ll only have yourself to blame! Wanh… you want me to recover and step outside my comfortable, self-centered, safe space…? No way!“ Similar to the progressive mellenial or social academic of today who lacks wisdom and has no bearing on reality, common sense or hard work, they blame everything and everybody but themselves for anything uncomfortable that may happen to them, such as life on earth, or adulthood. They are dependent on the world around them to placate them, attend to their feelings (feelings are not facts, btw), pay for their stuff, house them, clothe them, educate them, support them, think, feel and act the way they do. Anyone who disagrees is considered an abhorrent bigot and must be blamed for every ill, whether personal or worldly.

     These are also words of cowardice (not that I’m an exception) – the mindset or attitude of a person who is not willing to work towards freeing themselves from the chains that bind them, to fight for personal change and success, to embrace self-honesty and awareness, and to grow up into a responsible and accountable adult. I feel for you, as the general attitude reflects a man who has little or no desire to own up to his life and his circumstances, both internal and external. He is already piling up excuses for his failure – “Well, no wonder I relapsed, I told you this would happen! Nobody could possibly be expected not to drink or use drug like an absolute freaking pig feeling the way I told you I would! Your fault! Not mine!” 

     Our drinking and drug use is nobody’s fault but our own. We alone are responsible for what we do and who we become. Similarly, our recovery is also our sole responsibility. Nobody can get us better except ourselves. Nobody is responsible for our recovery. We alone become addicts and we alone recover… with the help of God.

 

     So until the day comes when we stop with all the whining and complaining, there will be no recovery, let alone inner peace, honesty, accountability, joy, success and adulthood. I would say, “be a man,” but today “to be a man” is some sort of abomination (except when you need someone to build your deck, renovate your kitchen or fix your toilet, right? Then driving my truck is okay… or still not okay? lol) My Lord has our deranged, self-loathing, PC, Marxist culture become so derelict, so degenerate, so deviant, so Godless, so morally relative and devoid of reality… I would expect few to embark on true recovery with the now myriad of bullshit excuses out there today.

     Addiction is a rather simply malady to defeat. Once we begin loving God more than drugs, and once we become willing to do anything it takes to maintain that relationship, our problem is solved. That is all we must do. Act relentlessly to stay close to your Creator. I’m also convinced that it is not simply inner work such as prayer, meditation and written inventory, which are certainly crucial. But the real silver bullet is service. Serve and help others. Be useful. Act other-centeredly, which is simply the precise opposite of the way we act as addicts. If the cause is selfish action, the solution is and must be selfless action. What ever happened to logic, reason, common sense and work?

     There is not a single soul on the planet who needs some ridiculous substitution drug or designer psychotropic to recover. How is it possible that we pathological liars have convinced the public in general and even the medical community that addiction is some terminal, lifelong, blameless disease? We addicts who do not recover simply do not want to recover. Let’s face it. We love being high and drunk – all the time. Do not be fooled by the addict.

     Thus, we must begin to love something more, something as powerful as the drug itself. Those of us who do not recover are simply not willing to roll up our sleeves and engage in some rigorous work. We are wimps. This idea that addicts want to stop but cannot is nonsense. Any active addict and even many who fondle sobriety do not want to stop. We don’t want to stop, until we do. And once we do, and with a real, fundamental, spiritual solution laid at our feet, anything is possible.

     Finally, if it is true that addicts cannot stop and need to be plied with substitution drugs and rewired with psychotropics less there is no hope… then how am I recovered? People can change and rewire themselves. We can do this through right, moral action. We can do this through the power of God. Anything else is just an excuse. For me, until I rid myself of the excuses, until I stopped pretending to be a victim, until grew up and got to work, there was no genuine recovery.

Comment from Addicts Who Don’t Get Better Don’t Really Want to Change:

“Hi Charlie, I just wanted to say thank you. I just finished reading your book and you gave me freedom. I’m the mother of a alcoholic who has not learned. 4 times he has drank his way to the hospital with doctors saying he should not have lived and countless times he has thrown his life away only to be rewarded by my mother, his grandmother who gives him whatever he feels he needs at the momemt. I on the other hand have fought both enablers for 13 years and felt I was alone in my disgust with addicts and alcoholics till I read your book. So thank you for giving me my life back, back from not feeling bad to enjoy my life, my sunsets and my achievements and not to feel guilty that my son doesn’t want to do the same. I pray for him every day and that is the best thing I can do. But he needs to do the work, not me. Thank you”

Response:

You’re so welcome, but the truth is I did little, if anything at all. God provided the freedom you feel, as the process or act of letting go is an actual internal event, one that I believe is given to us by God for those who earnestly want to let go, change, or be free. But thank you for the words, and God bless you. 

Comment from Pissing Active Addicts Off Tells Me I’m Doing Something Right:

“charlie…you are the absolute best! I am 3 weeks into recovering from my 8 year relationship with a severe alcoholic. Finally had him removed from the house after his 4th relapse. 3 weeks ago he came home very intoxicated while I had a 73 year old handyman replacing my furnace thermostat…my partner beat the heck out of the guy because he said we were having an affair…delusional alcholic jealousy. It was the last straw. I really love how you can verbalize the torment the enabler goes through and guidance on how to stop enabling. I just ordered your book. Thanks for this site.” Gaylinn

Response:

Gaylinn, totally my pleasure. I can only verbalize it as it is my experience, as both an addict and with enabling and codependency. Addiction, like so many other self-induced, selfish maladies, is a byproduct of narcissism, hence you see narcissistic behaviors so amplified, such as paranoia, grandiosity, immaturity, distorted thinking and memories, deranged and unfounded suspicion and accusation, the total lack of responsibility, accountability, honesty, remorse, etc, etc.

Comment from Effects of Alcohol & Self-Neglect on the Non-Addict:

“Charlie, a great post concerning the need for balance in life. Self-care does not have to be selfishness and I know that intellectually, but it is hard as hell to incorporate the distinction into my daily life. The disciplines of 10 11 and 12 certainly help a lot here. I love your Insight about being a good parent or good employee and yet being irresponsible to myself. Happens all the time. It seems that life, like a 12-step program, is full of paradoxes.”

Response: 

Believe me, just because I know this doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with this each and every day. Achieving this sort of balance is most certainly a lifelong endeavor, one that I pray we all find. Well said re the paradox of life. Thank you. 

Comment from Why Alcoholics Hurt People:

“Your blog is literally saving me and my mom. My sister is an alcoholic. She has been for 15 yrs. finally her husband and kids thru her out and sent her to us and we have tried to help her but she refuses. Your blogs are a lifesaver and mean so much. Thank you for posting these.” 

Response: 

“You’re welcome, and I regret not being able to write here more often. Life evolves, and I have thrown myself into other work this year in an effort to provide more substantially for my family. I’m about to start another large construction project in the next few weeks, but do plan to keep writing as time permits. I also want to start a new blog about our cultural/spiritual/economic decline and the strategic dumbing-down of the population via academia, mass media, cultural marxism, etc.”

Comment from Real World Experience Is Everything:

“Wow is all I can say Charlie. I am the mother of an addict and read your blog a lot. Sometimes your blunt writing is hard to hear but for the most part I reflect back on the 5 plus years I have been dealing with my son and realize you are correct. Thanks for your insights and keep writing!”

Response:

“Bless you, Christine. I wish I had more time and inspiration to write. There have been many things (comments, articles, news reports, interviews) I’ve seen this year that deserve a post, and I would like to address them at some point, or rather, address the BS they are soaked in ;-)” 

Comment from Real World Experience Is Everything:

“Amen Sir Charles, you speak truth. 100%truth. And as a recovered addict no longer running from the truth I do testify. For the uninitiated and victim families the b.s. can be deceiving especially when it is sanctioned by the establishment medical and pharmaceutical industry complex. The addicts however know the truth but being the cowards they are will jump on the gravy train. Hopefully with full disability as well. Addicts are leeches. I was offered suboxone “treatment”haha when I was most vulnerable after detox. I almost succumbed, however God was with me. Everything you say is a true and honest assessment. I would say brutally true, but there is nothing brutal about it. “Tough love” is only tough to those being enabled. Let’s talk tough and lock addicts in a dungeon for six months and a nice round of cold turkey, instead of coddling them with more drugs. Are you kidding me? Treatment? Like the clean syringe programs. Sanity? (Not to this Ex with hep C))There is as you know one true reality. One true solution. It is moral and spiritual indeed as you always say. There is nothing I can add really to your thoroughness on this subject. I just want to voice my support for your dedication, hard work, and service to humanity. I was fortunate to have someone that cared about me pass “the privileged addict” on to me as I began my recovery journey. Addicts demand ‘tough love’ it’s their only realistic hope and chance to come clean and live a beautiful life on this beautiful earth. Thank you Charlie. I have benefitted greatly from your honest voice in the wilderness. God bless you and your family.Thank you God”

Response: 

Amen, Donald. God bless you, sir. 

Comment from Real World Experience Is Everything: 

Charlie, thanks for your perspective with your writings. Reading your blunt but honest perspective has helped me (over time) open my eyes to see the “privelged addict” aspect of addiction. It’s a harsh reality but for me, so important to recognize, part of learning to not enable. With this writing in particular, about a very serious subject, I found myself laughing out loud at some of your sarcastically written statements. You make some really good points and as the parent of an an addict who has not yet seen the light and the wife of an alcoholic who got real and got sober eight years ago, I think it’s really important to not make excuses.

Jenna Mahoney

Response:

My pleasure. The accepted practice of suboxone (and a myriad of other substitution drugs) is baffling to you because you have common sense and innate or intuitive wisdom. All I can say is we can liken this to Socrates’s Allegory of the Cave – that we sort of live in the dark until we step out and become enlightened. Once the delusion, or the sort of comprehensive brainwashing we may have received shatters, we simply begin to see the truth about everything, and the difference between what is right and wrong becomes glaring and acute. More importantly, there is no more moral relativity – the deranged and degenerate philosophy of the modern-day progressive.

Comment from Some Truths about Addiction:

You have helped me so much! I wish you would keep writing! 

Response:

You are so welcome, Stephanie. I will try to keep writing regularly at some point. I promise. 

Comment from Real World Experience Is Everything:

“Even if what “Unknown” says is true about addiction being genetic, it doesn’t relieve them of the responsibility to get sober. If my parents were diabetic, I would make sure I limited my weight and sugar intake. How one becomes an addict is less important than what one does once they are. And you, by far, have the best advice on the internet on how to overcome addiction, and how to deal with it as a family member. It’s just that many people won’t do the hard work, and don’t want to hear it.”

Response:

SPOT ON, Doreen! Finally, someone who gets it. Well, many of you get it. Of course, many of you are parents and spouses, which is why it is much easier for you to observe addiction objectively and see the truth. And just to add to the genetic theory, no alcoholic or drug addict wakes up one day and suddenly they are some fully blown junkbox. So we are also responsible for the effort we put into becoming addicts. Remember, the process of losing choice is itself a choice – and a very selfish and destructive one at that. 

Comment from Taking Credit:

“How sobering! Thank you, Charlie.

Mila V.
  
Response:  

Amen, Mila. In early recovery, I remember taking spiritual actions for the same narcissistic reason I used drugs and alcohol – to essentially FEEL better. Why not simply take action and do God’s will to stay sane… or just because it is the right thing to do? Why not take actions that get me better simply to be more useful to God and Others? If we do not shed our pride, if we carry our narcissism into recovery, we are toast. I had to stop seeing the world around me as acting upon me, but rather see myself as accountable and responsible for my reality. I came to believe that the negative things were purely the result of my own self-will, while all of the good things, all of the blessings, and all of the good things I did or accomplished were God, were from God and were powered by God.

 Comment from Depression, Real but Impermanent:  

“Charlie, I also found that my 40 yrs long intractable depression lifted along with the obsession to use and a devastating cognitive deterioration was repaired after I took the first nine steps in one day and by that day’s evening and ever since now diligently and devotedly do my daily 10-11-12. SOB, Everything is Real now. Awesome.

Mila V.

Response: 

Wow, that is awesome, Mila. I suspect God must have simply touched you very early on (as God will touch anyone who sincerely wants to change), as it took me weeks to write a complete and comprehensive 4th Step inventory. That is amazing. But yes, I do believe depression can be lifted in the same manner as the obsession to drink and use drugs can. More specifically, it was the actions of the Steps that lifted both my obsession and my depression, almost instantly. And even when I suffered, it was different. I wasn’t a coward anymore. I could walk through feelings of discomfort as I now understood that this is simply what life is – we suffer sometimes, but we need to continue with grace to do the right thing. That was over 12 years ago, and since that day, I came to naturally and passionately repel drugs, alcohol, or really anything that pushes me away from God. Granted, I am still a damaged, broken sinner. I make mistakes constantly. I’ve no doubt that I’m still riddled with a slew of character defects. But I know that God MUST come first in the life of an addict, and as well in those who are depressed. I believe that depression does not cause addiction, as one’s feelings (or anything for that matter) do not actually make us drink or use. However, addiction certainly leads to depression, and is thus lifted as a byproduct of my addiction, or rather, my spiritual malady. Both are spiritual maladies, and as such, call for a spiritual solution, in my view.

Comment from Drug Induced Mania:
  
“Good to see you writing about allocentric attention, Charlie. It is a teachable skill, to use the allocentric pathway of processing information in our brain (God Consciousness, God’s view of things). Dr. Austen talks about it in his lecture (and multiple books on meditation and the brain).

mila

Response:

Amen, Mila. Doctors, more specifically faux doctors such as psychiatrists, have been mind-boggled at the suggestion that someone who is chemically imbalanced can alter their chemistry through simple, selfless acts of meditation, prayer, service, etc. That is precisely what happened to me, although I’ll admit I’ve been slacking lately and challenged with some domestic issues. Of course, now the industry that once belittled such a notion has an entire wing at MGH, as science, which is by no means and by definition ever “settled”, has proven by observing brain changes during and post mindful actions such as prayer and meditation.

Comment from God, Please Come Into This Room:

“I have just recently found your blog thank you for it I have been reading one everyday since I found it. I just read this and it touches me it was exactly what I needed this morning I have been all in my emotions today with some things that has occur in my relationship and it’s hard right now not to have emotional days alot of what has happened has been of my own doings out of old addict behaviors trying to creep back in like self will and control have had to stop and talk to God alot appt this morning I can’t afford to ever go back to who I once was thanks again”

Response:

Thank you. When my head gets in the way, I pray hard. And when in dire straights, go help someone or be of service in some way. Get busy. If you pray, “God, please help me to be of service today” or “God, please bring me someone to help,” I guarantee you people will come of the woodwork with haste.

Comment from Trust Me, The Root of Our Problem Is Selfishness: 

“Hi Charlie your story is truly inspiring. Do you ever travel around and share your story? We have several transitional rehabilitation homes in Parkersburg west Virginia where the drug epidemic has got so far out of control. If your ever in this area I would love you to lead at one of our NA meetings.”

Response:

Thank you, Tonya. Believe me, I’d love to, as I’m quite sure it would help me more than anyone in the room. I used to speak regionally, but recently have been too busy with work and raising my two young children. However, if and when I can once again, I will.  

Comments from AA Lunatic: “You Don’t Know You Won’t Shoot Dope Tomorrow!”:

     To my readers… I am still here, I am still with you in and I am still praying. I needed a break from this but I am here and I promise I will continue writing more as I become willing and re-inspired. God bless you all.

     Let’s pray hard tonight for the families, friends, injured and murdered souls of Las Vegas. May God embrace them, comfort them, and keep them.