In “Get an Addict Better,” I tried to lay out some macro-incentive for addicts to recover, above and beyond the built-in incentive we have to stop hurting those who love us, especially our parents. At any rate, the post “Why Alcoholics Hurt People” is well read and has become a comment forum for many to express grievances, many of which I’m sure are justified and somewhat rational. However, let’s look at some recent comments from both an alcoholic and a codependent… and then my reply. I don’t usually reply on that post because there is really no point. Many simply come to read the comments, go off a bit and then take off, but today I felt as though I should chime in briefly for what is hopefully an appropriate interference.

 Comment:

From everything that I am reading, alcoholics don’t change they just should die. My 14 year old daughter’s father is an alcoholic. I hated him for at least 12 years, until he recently apologized to me for hurting me when she was a baby. Like a fool, I fell in head first. Since we’ve been back together, I have come to the conclusion that he is an alcoholic. When he’s drunk he’s a totally different person, he doesn’t even have the same voice…But he’s not mean, he’s loving and even cries a lot. But, when he’s not drunk he’s the meanest person, the devil. Last Friday, he loved me and just a few days later when he wasn’t drunk, he hates me and feels that I’m disgusting and the worse women he’s ever dated. When he drinks he’s dangerous and wants to drive and plays with guns. I feel stupid, hurt, ashamed, alone, abused, abandoned, unsuccessful, need I say more…

Comment:

I am a 52yr old alcoholic. 4th generation – at least 4 family, including my brother and father died because of alcoholism. I was up to a cask a day when I fell asleep with a cigarette in my mouth that fell into a hard plastic splint I was wearing for a dislocated shoulder (a fall because I was drunk). 20% 3rd and 4th degree burns. Nearly died 3 times that fateful day.. My separated wife refused to be my next of kin and in the following months, battling in intensive care unit and burns units- the only contact she made was for money to pay bills and dump my clothes on me. My 2 adult sons, who I love very much and miss do not talk to me. Living in basic accommodation with little financial security. Have chronic depression. Lonely, burns hurt- still have more treatment coming, sad. Have not drunk fr 35 days (yay). See a counsellor, doctor, psychologist, go to 2 separate alcohol support groups- one AA, the other run by professionals. Have been down this path many times. Just sharing helps. People tell me that time heals and my life will get better- when??? What makes this round any different than all of the other times?

Okay, that’s enough. A “cask” a day? Lol. Notice “4th generation” too, as if his great, great, great grandfather is somehow responsible for his alcoholism. No offense, but please, our genes do not turn us into alcoholics. Even if you are vulnerable biologically, you have to just say “F that, nothing is going to bring me down.” I come from hundreds of years of alcoholics and bipolar lunatics and do you think I blame any of them for my own actions and my own cowardice? Nope. Instead of succumbing to some tainted legacy, we should be the ones to go out and finally conquer our generational demons. And don’t tell me you can’t do it because that is nonsense. Don’t tell me about the depression. Push through it with everything you have inside you. Become an example, not a victim. Sorry to be a dick about it.

Response:
Strange that people only seem to read this post.

Of course you can change. ANYONE can change. That is the entire point of this blog and the story I wrote.

No offense, but if you are suffering 24/7, there is something wrong with your program. You are relying on doctors, shrinks, groups and things outside of yourself to get you better, but it doesn’t work that way. There are well over a hundred posts that describe the profound change both myself and many others have secured, and in fact, the very description and purpose of the blog and my story is to describe and inspire just that.

But here’s the thing: recovery and getting better is NOT a function of time, but of what actions we are taking. It has nothing to do with time passing. Sorry, but AA meetings are perhaps 1-5% of the program (please note that I have softened a bit to extend the 0-1% range all the way up to 5%). Go find someone what has actually recovered and is clearly okay (strong, content and lit up with spirit, with God) to take you through the Step process as it’s laid out in the Big Book.

That is AA and will not fail you should you truly want to change, be willing to go to any lengths, and be willing to be wrong about everything you believe and think you know.

Do service all day long if you have to. It’s about becoming other-centered, not focusing on yourself and your feelings, which is why therapy, doctors and groups are such a joke. You really just have to stop whining and focusing on yourself and your feelings so much if you want to get better, as feelings and self have nothing to do with getting better.

     Also, the thing about alcoholics never changing and should just die, well, that is nonsense. Those who don’t change simply don’t want to, but anybody can change and many addicts should change and use any gifts they have to effect positive change in the world.

     Finally, if you are in a toxic relationship with someone and you stay in that relationship knowing it is toxic, there is something wrong with you as well as the addict. Honor yourself. To thine own self be true. No excuses.

Now, to be fair, many of us refuse to get better, have no problem being a selfish imbecile who uses others and feeds off the public trough, do not deserve you and therefore yes, would probably serve the world more in the ground. That said, a much better option is for addicts to do some work and grow up into adults so we can heal our families and serve others. But you see, this is the problem with our increasingly childish, pampered and victimized culture. It is now acceptable to whine and make demands of those who do not, those who simply get up and go to work in the morning and don’t bother anybody. We have become so insanely PC and emasculated, so to speak.

Folks, guess why some people are successful and some are drugs addicts, or worse yet, drug dealers? Are successful people just lucky and drug addicts or dealers just victims, as you’ve been hearing lately? Sorry, nope. That is nonsense. Success comes from this crazy thing we call hard work, coupled with a moral compass and a backbone.

Where have all the adults gone?

     Obviously the trick to contentment is to empty the mind, to stop expecting, to stop controlling, to just accept whatever is happening because as soon as you try to change something that you cannot change, you begin to suffer. But then you have addicts…
 

     A dad once peddled an entire package of that ‘Beyond Addiction’ fluff to me. He wasn’t the first and I’m quite sure he won’t be the last. Ironically, both of his sons were addicts with whom I had worked, and yes, with love and tact I ripped into both them quite a bit. Both eventually went up North, took Steps wholeheartedly as laid out in the Big Book, adopted the firm belief and necessity of putting their spiritual growth and their God-conscience first above all else, and yes, both are now recovered.
     To push forward and change, there has to be a dissonance, an interruption, a blast of sorts. At some point we must get frustrated, pissed off and angered, which is a perfectly natural reaction to hearing some truth about ourselves, our lives, our bullshit and the phony caricature we have become. Then, God willing, we calm down afterwards and realize, even subconsciously, that hey, that guy was right about me. I haven’t really been digging deep. I haven’t truly changed. Then and only then can we turn around with renewed strength, willingness and clarity to peel away yet another layer, to go deeper, become honest and finally begin moving forward in earnest.

     Trust me, no addict will change in therapy (although he will def show up every week if you give him free methadone). Addicts need a set of actions to take. They need to simply start working and taking right action, and then the mind follows. You cannot teach an insane person how to think right. CBT is backwards for addicts. We are so warped that we must simply begin to act right and gradually the mind becomes sane once again. I realize that many psychologists make their money on fluff and friendship, and while that may work just fine for other types, for hardcore addicts, it doesn’t work at all.

     I also realize that many think you can’t possibly effect positive change by telling the truth to addicts, but they’ve never really tried it tactfully. Look, I realize that nothing outside of the addict can change him or push him to act and I’ve written just that more times than I can count. Many though have asked me to weigh in and if you at least want a hand to play, you must set a boundary or an ultimatum and honor it by following through. Those who say they’ve tried this and failed have probably never followed through with anything.

      If the addict doesn’t get better and the relationship is toxic, what other choices do you have? Continuing on is only a way to dishonor yourself while simultaneously doing a disservice to the addict by allowing him or her to continue being showered with privileges such as your love, friendship, time, money, energy, etc. So don’t put up with any shit and don’t try something unless you’re actually going to do it and see it through until the end. Many do not follow through with anything, especially addicts and codependents. Either way, the truth is I’ve never really cared to give specific, personal advice. What I do is to simply share my experience, what has worked and what has failed. The very description of the blog reads in part, “This blog is not intended to be case specific advice. We must all find our own answers.” I’m always telling people not to listen to me but to think and act for themselves.

     I realize that therapists, counselors and teachers etc. criticize me often, but that is because they are hopeless in helping addicts. They can’t do it. They don’t even understand it, so we can’t blame them. They’re just not capable, especially since understanding the nature of addiction lies outside the scope of the establishment brainwashing they have suffered during college and/or graduate school. Most people are blind to the fact that universities and professors are hired and used as puppets to promote the status quo, to pump ideas and theories that serve the elite while slowly ruining the people and the country (such as Keynesian/Marxist economics and so forth). The last thing you want to do is create problems where none exist, whether individual or societal. Besides, regardless of how hard you try, you cannot alter the business cycle, let alone the course of nature and the very cycles that define us and all of existence. Just the notion itself is ridiculous, and intervention can fast become tyrannical, as we are seeing.

     Moreover, there has always been an active effort to silence opposing views and destroy the reputation of real academics who try to publish real research and truth. Knowledge, science and academics are not the problem. The problem is co-opted academics and loony tune professors. 20 or 30 years from now, most of the status quo bullshit everybody believes will be well disproved and the government will find new theories to fund and peddle in order to ply the public to accept their well disguised but self-serving, globalist agenda. Hegelian Dialectic – problem, reaction, solution. Very clever. See “Sharyl Attkisson’s Ted Talk” on ‘astroturf’ and media manipulation. For instance, The Cloud Mystery is fascinating, but you can see what real scientists have to deal.

     Now, sure this is a tangent and you’ll have to forgive me, but the truth is that the people are considered scum to the elite, despite what you hear at the podium, especially under the current regime. The people are dirty, unwashed animals who know nothing and need to be told what is best for them. What breathtaking arrogance. The people are but tax slaves for the government to milk on a daily basis until they have finally bled out and become enraged, at which point the moonbat academics give them some fictional ‘social injustice’ to rant and rave about to divert attention away from what’s really going on – economic decline and government expansion/overreach. When you finally wake up and remove the veil of propaganda, it is really quite an event.

     But trust me dear pot-smoking, highly offended, gender fluid college students, the solution is not to bankrupt every citizen and the entire country (while simultaneously demanding they conform to your every view) especially when our Debt to GDP ratio is 105% and unfunded liabilities exceed $200,000,000,000,000 (insane). PLEASE have a look at the US Debt Clock and tell me if those numbers make any sense. This is very immature and short-term thinking. It is very irresponsible. When you drive capital away and reduce wealth, you crush the economy (not to mention human spirit) and depress GDP. It is deflationary. How does that help? I don’t get it.

     It is actually immoral to tax people. And the estate tax is not just immoral, it is outright theft. As well, when you promote the doctrine of envy and dependence and make everyone the same, you crush individual thought, speech, ambition, originality, independence and incentive to push oneself, take risks, strive and fight for success. Those who live in the real world understand that. See Why Capitalism is Great.

     We should ask ourselves, is that what we really want to do? Do we really want to relegate everybody to the ash heap of mediocrity and hand all of the power the government? I don’t understand, how is that a solution as opposed to a direct affront to humanity and freedom?

     PS Smoking pot ruins your brain, contrary to popular belief… that is, if you have a brain to begin with.

     PPS Just saw this mini-review of “Confessions of Congressman X” on Martin Armstrong’s blog, which I strongly recommend (the blog that is). People should also watch the new documentary on Clinton Cash, which gives a glimpse of how corrupt they are to the bone, let alone morally bankrupt. Unfortunately, the movie is but a few drops in the bucket compared to the extent of criminal activity, but hey, it’s a start. Also see Chris Hedges in “Brace Yourself! The American Empire is Over” &  “A Career Criminal”.

     PPPS By the way, few are aware because (as usual) it was jammed down our throats (no pun intended) like a thief in the night, but the “bathroom bill” was just passed here in Massachusetts (for like .03% of the population). Wait, so I can wake up tomorrow, choose to identify as a woman, walk into the ladies’ room or the girls’ showers and whip my junk out? Huh? Does that apply to grown men working at public middle schools as well? So there is no biological requirement for the law? So my little girl should just “get used to seeing male genitalia”, as a recent NC Observer editorial suggests? Sorry, that’s no gonna happen. When did it suddenly become offensive or discriminatory to use the designated male bathrooms and showers if, um, you were born with a penis? Sorry, but you haven’t been traumatized by having to use a bathroom designated for your own biological sex. It is entirely your prerogative if you want to choose to identify as a woman or a man or an elephant for that matter, but being comfortable all of the time is not a basic human right. There are many things that make me uncomfortable but I don’t get, nor do I want to demand a law for them all. Why? Because that would violate the basic human rights of others. AG Lynch likened men and women’s bathrooms to Jim Crow laws… are you kidding me? Are we losing it?

     Contrary to popular belief, gender is not just a social construct and using pronouns is not a form of bigotry. I once had a nutcase professor who (somewhat angrily ((go figure)) taught us that the only difference between men and women was “some pop in and some pop out.” Lol. Needless to say, she didn’t have children, let alone any clue what she was talking about. Why is it that people without children (and who don’t work) are seemingly clueless about all sorts of things? Anyway, I just don’t get it. How is this law (in its current form) not at best an affront to personal privacy and free speech and at worst an effort to unravel the very fabric of society? What about women’s rights? No offense (pun intended), but if some dude follows my little girl into the bathroom, we’re gonna have a little problem.

  
Comment:

      This is a theological question! From reading your blog I sense you are a Christian?

      Well, most of my personal theology comes from what I learned in the the 12 Steps. I consider myself a Christian and so I have in the past few years taken to attending bible studies at both very liberal but also conservative churches. Trying to cover all bases in my research.

      So here’s where I get tripped up. I keep running into the concept of predestination, or also referred to as Election. That it is to say that by grace alone that we are saved. Only some are chosen and actions seems to have little merit. However, from my 12 step readings I could never accept that view. Faith in action is all important!

     Where do you stand on this? Have you found a church where you feel that your 12 Step knowledge fits in with their teachings?

Response:

      Phenomenal question. You must be a teacher or professor, or if not, would make an excellent one. Wait, what is a liberal church? Is that an oxymoron? (kidding, kidding…) Yes, I am a Christian, though perhaps not a very good one. I consider myself to be seriously flawed, but I do try, and more importantly, I want to be a better man than I am. One of my favorite prayers is, “God, make me a better man today.”

      First of all, try to not to worry about it too much. Obviously we must work hard and act along with the power of God, as we certainly feel the effects of what we do and don’t do. So action and grace are certainly connected, that is, one may induce the other, or perhaps both were meant to be as they seem to act symbiotically in most cases. But let’s have a discussion nonetheless, especially since it gives me something to write about ;)

     The way I see it is that the two are not necessarily in conflict. That is, we are saved by both action and grace. I’d like to believe that those who are restored to sanity and find God have been both chosen AND have secured grace through action or works. I guess I should defer to my own experience, as that is all I know. Certainly I was touched one night and restored to sanity. I found God and became committed to God because I felt His presence and mind-blowing, limitless Power. So I was perhaps chosen to have this experience, but also may have helped to induce this event by way of the action I took.

      But perhaps me finally taking action was blueprinted as well. Perhaps nothing could have changed what has happened in my life. I mean, whatever is happening is on some level meant to happen simply by virtue of it happening. And then even the action I took was most certainly powered by God. So the credit goes to God for not only powering me but for also reaching out to briefly touch me, thereby instantly fixing my broken mind. At the same time, it seems there is little doubt, whether blueprinted or not, that I also recovered as a result of hard work and a sincere desire to find God and change.

    James 2:14-26 said, “Faith without works is dead.” So do we not expand or even establish our connection to God proportional to our works? But then what about grace? I reconcile the two by assuming they are both part of the same fate, that both the action and the election, if you will, are inseparable – that the action itself is the election, that I had no choice and would have acted no matter what in order to find God, establish the relationship, and induce the miracle that occurred that night. Do you see? Perhaps me choosing to finally act was no choice at all but rather simply God intervening in my life. Therefore, both my action and being restored were fated all along.

      Sure that may piss some people off, but it’s probably true. Sorry, but those who recover are meant to recover, especially since they are recovering! They are chosen, in a sense, to do this work and find God. Now, sadly, some may work hard for grace and fail (although I find that hard to believe if the work and the desire are sincere). I can’t see into one’s heart, but I do know many who seemingly took steps earnestly and never “got it,” if you will. Conversely, I know others who seemingly half-assed it and were touched profoundly and now have rock-solid faith, help tons of people and will never use again.

      This is where we must to defer to God and a much higher intelligence, one that may far exceed the limits of our understanding. Perhaps those who do not recover were not meant to recover in this life but perhaps in the next, or on some other spiritual level after death. Who knows. I certainly don’t. Perhaps they were not meant to recover in part to teach some lesson to yet others. I feel as though control is an illusion, though we’d all like to think it is real, that we can actually control things, especially things that lie outside of ourselves, even natural cycles and what have you, cycles that govern the universe and our entire existence. Ridiculous.

      So when push comes to shove, Grace (i.e. the power of God) supercedes action or merit. God is (obviously) (much) more powerful and will choose some and perhaps deny others. I can’t fathom this or presume to know the workings or the power or the intellect of something so beyond human faculty. So while action no doubt helps your chances and may induce a miracle, it is God and God alone who gives grace – who restores, who saves.

      To see the truth, I think it’s important to sort of climb a figurative mountain and look down on everything from a larger view in order to gain true perspective. And I believe that when we step back and look from a larger view, we will probably see that whether we are chosen or not was all part of our blueprint. It is very hard, if not altogether impossible, to force our will regarding the longer-term. On some level, there seems little possibility in changing our ultimate fate. So even though I was a total shithead junkie, it was my fate to be restored and find God and nothing could have prevented the Universe from somehow conspiring to make that happen. Does this make sense?

      People will say, “No Charlie, you had a lot to do with it and you got yourself better! Why don’t you give credit where credit is due?” In fact, I used to speak at regional parent’s groups and many of the parents would say just that. They wanted to believe that I got myself better because it seems more likely for their own child than a miracle occurring. I would tell them that hard work and miracles are kind of two sides of the same coin. I mean, it’s hard to witness a miracle when you’re sitting on your ass, jammed out of your skull on methadone… no? So I would reply to them, “Sorry, no, I didn’t get myself better. It was God and God alone. Sure I did some work but the credit goes in full to God for actually changing me and restoring me to sanity.”

      One way or the other, God conspired to alter my life such that I received grace. I probably had no choice in the matter, and furthermore, to think we are all-powerful and to take credit for everything we do (for recovering, for our blessings) is arrogant and is just the sort of delusional, narcissistic frame of mind that gets us into trouble to begin with. Does this make sense? The point is that no matter what happens, our ultimate predestined fate will most likely occur no matter what, and though our actions may lead up to it, they are not ultimately responsible for the actual grace itself.

      Nothing is random. Grace will happen if grace is going to happen, whether I take action or not. BUT, I also assume that grace will not occur, or is predetermined NOT to occur to those who refuse to do the work and take right action. Selfishness and sin pushes us further from God, not closer, so it would be hard to fathom someone being restored or chosen who is a pathological monster.

      P.S. The James 2:14-26 passage raises another important issue, which is that belief really doesn’t matter. We can believe whatever the heck we want to believe and I don’t think it secures us anything, nor does it make us who we are. If we believe something but have no love and no moral decency, our belief is obviously empty and therefore meaningless. Belief only becomes something real when it is paralleled with harmonious action, action based on principles which define or characterize that belief.

      I thought I was a spiritual person when I got to rehab and then a recovered staffer looked at me at said, “I would question that.” Lol. At first it annoyed me but then the lightbulb went off. Um, yeah, you cannot be a spiritual person and simultaneously a self-absorbed junkhead with a worried sick, heart-broken mom unable to sleep at night and a wife back home in a fetal position crying while the phone rings and rings with debt collectors and angry dealers on the other line.

      So there are many who believe but whom God is entirely absent in their lives and in their minds and hearts. Belief doesn’t really matter compared to what we do. And those who don’t believe but who take right, moral action will surely come to know God, sooner or later ;-) So anyway, I think that’s what I believe… for now anyway. What does your gut and your experience tell you?

Comment from “Why the Steps Work”:

      “It’s been 9 years of methadone and then suboxone treatment for my daughter. You might think that would make her somewhat functional, so why is it that she is in the same place she was when she used heroin…absolute dysfunction?”

      Finally, someone who gets it. Any addict on methadone or suboxone has accomplished zero from point A to point B. Trust me, there are no grey areas. If the addict is still using, he or she is still 100% chained to addiction, enslaved by the mental obsession and committed to the addict mind and heart. How is it not obvious that when you give an addict methadone or suboxone, you perpetuate everything that makes an addict, an addict?

     First and foremost, you keep him or her addicted to his or her drug of choice (hunh?) thus keeping his physical allergy, his lack of mental power, and his spiritual deterioration alive and well. The withdrawal alone, should he finally decide to become an adult and find the strength to actually recover, will continuously pull him back in, and of course, back to heroin. Ridiculous. There is no such thing as harm reduction. Methadone is poison.

      More importantly, by validating synthetic opiates as a perfectly acceptable treatment option, you have now accepted and rationalized his addiction to perpetual comfort. You have therefore justified his preoccupation with pleasuring himself. What sort of message does that send?

      Let me tell you what message it sends.

      For one, you are telling the addict that it is perfectly acceptable to use drugs, which it is not. You are also telling him that is is perfectly acceptable to remain crippled by his or her addiction, which it is not. It is not acceptable to remain “absolutely dysfunctional” and saturated by mood-altering substances. You are essentially telling the addict that it is okay to remain a coddled child, to remain exempt from the reality of human life and adult responsibility. You are telling the addict that he or she need not worry about growing up, walking through fear, developing strength of character, finding a purpose and contributing to the world and to his fellow man and to his fellow addicts who still suffer.

      Finally, and perhaps most important, you are basically saying that the addict is damaged goods and screwed for life. You are saying (allowing) that the addict is simply not capable of recovering – recovering without synthetic heroin, that is. Patting the addict on the back and giving him a bottle of methadone implants a sense of failure and weakness into the mind of an addict. What I find particularly disturbing is this is done under the guise of love, kindness, science and “meeting the addict where they are.” But that is a lie. It is not loving or helpful at all to plant in them such a degenerate message, the message that it is okay to give up, to self-medicate and to become yet another subsidized victim. Trust me, that doesn’t help anyone. It cripples them.

      I realize this strategy has been cleverly scripted and marketed to sound compassionate, but it is quite the opposite of compassion. It is also made to sound like the moral and loving thing to do, but the truth is it is immoral and unloving. Sorry.

      If you want to help an addict, teach him how to enlarge his spiritual life. Teach him of the moral realities of adult life and the responsibility he or she has to engage in rigorous action each and every day for the sake of himself, his family, the larger world, and most of all, for God. Teach him how to remain centered, teach him how to pray, teach him how to get an f’ing job. Teach him how to call his mom everyday and tell her that he loves her and that he is okay.

      If an addict wants to change, he can. God will power anyone who wants to get better.

      PS The rationale I always hear is that sucking on methadone is supplemented with therapy (so it’s all good – not), but what exactly is anyone going to accomplish on while jammed out of one’s skull trying to peel the half-chewed, now crusted Twizzler (that fell out of your mouth when you nodded off) off of your t-shirt? This is also assuming that therapy does anything for an addict, when in fact it does absolutely nothing.

      PPS Good Ayn Rand quote (Author of “Atlas Shrugged”):

      “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

 

     I will continue to post new blogs on this site as well as the new site because all of the old posts and many specific topics obviously point here on search engines. Feel free to continue to link this blog if you list it on your site. This will be indefinite for quite some time until I can import the blog onto the new site and get it properly designed, optimized and trafficked. So if you enjoy this site and like the setup, I will post anything new both here AND the new site located at:

     Thanks and enjoy. 

  

Comment: 

Hi,

      I’m a therapist and work with addicts. What brought me to this population, as I was previously wanting to work with couples and marriages, was the failure of my own relationship with an alcoholic. I have never in my life been through so much pain before. We were together … years; he was sober most of the time. He was going to meetings; sponsor; etc. I moved in and we got married… months after we married he relapsed and kicked me out. He had started taking adderall and I knew a relapse was around the corner. [That’s] when he decided he wanted me gone; He became horribly
mean; calling me vile names and telling me he didn’t love me or want me anymore. This was a year ago… It killed my entire family. 

I found out later he relapsed. I have done much research and I still can’t come to peace with this. He immediately got on dating sites and acted like it was the most natural thing in the world. I moved out and picked up the pieces of my life. He has called me … times in this period wanting me back; in between arrest charges for battery (domestic violence); dui; etc. He is a… and after losing one job; he was able to get another one even with pending charges due and making more money than before. He has always had things work out for him. He called me a month ago and wanted me back again. This time he kept slipping up calling me another woman’s name. I asked who she was; he said my wife. I fell into shock. He had met someone and already married in that short period but was calling me telling me she was a mistake and wanted me back. I have blocked his number.

     I googled “why do addicts hurt people” and found this site. I ordered both of your books. After reading all of this; I am wanting to send him an email and telling him how fucked it was for him to hurt me and my family that way; how wrong and selfish he is. I feel like I never stood up to him; I lost my voice. Am I wasting my time? Will this pain ever end? He has hurt me over and offer again.

Response:

Charlie

     “Substance abuse disorder”? Lol.

     A friend of mine just texted me to share how tremendously relieved he was to know that he was in no way a selfish, dope fiend alcoholic, but just a sweet little boy with a “substance abuse disorder”. I wrote back at once to further reassure him.

     “Ya bro, you didn’t know?! It’s not your fault, man… you just happened to catch a ‘substance abuse disorder’ as it was flying through the air.”

     Again, he was relieved.

     “Oh that’s great. A disorder doesn’t sound so bad.”

     “Exactly, dude. And don’t forget that relapse is part of recovery, bro!”

     I understand that we want to minimize addiction, especially when it’s your loved one. Sure you would rather call your child someone with a “substance abuse disorder” as opposed to an emaciated, toothless, STD-ridden junkbox. Sure you would rather say that your child has an illness when in fact he or she is a thief who is robbing your jewelry or a liar who is pretending to come to dinner and plea for 20 bucks for organic kale or a bus ticket to the micro-aggression/safe space rally in Times Square.

     I understand.

      But that doesn’t change the fact that addicts do not innocently catch “substance abuse disorders” in the air. First of all, no need to minimize addiction by regurgitating psycho-babble DSM bullshit. We are addicts. Period. Second, we put a hell of a lot of time and effort into becoming addicts. We didn’t just wake up one day while cuddling our stuffed giraffe and suddenly we are some full blown meth junkie. Sorry, nope.

     P.S. When I say solution, I don’t mean 4 methadone wafers everyday until you are drooling on the couch with Kool-Aid dripping from your chin and half-chewed Twizzlers stuck to your t-shirt. That’s not a solution. Sorry to offend the makers of Kool-Aid and Twizzlers, but I might as well go for it before free speech is a thing of the distant past. Trust me, it is happening… right along side the economic/social decline and the loss of confidence in government. Collectivism is collapsing my friends, but I suppose that is a somewhat different topic for a somewhat different forum.

*P.S.S. Some new opportunities have materialized for us to expand our real estate business, and since that is the endeavor that actually pays, I will not have time to open up TPA counseling again. Apologies. However, I will soon be moving everything over to a new, beautiful Privileged Addict website, where you will be able to go for blogs, future vlogs, discussion, books, everything. I will try to connect everything with the social media as well so you can share this stuff more easily. Together, we can remove the bullshit from addiction and the sugar-coated nonsense from status quo recovery. Help me do this. I need you.

Don’t let your sponsee whine. He is not a child anymore.

 
     Talking is NOT a solution.    

     I once had a sponsee who was sort of a microcosm of the modern, fuffy (toothless) sponsor/sponsee relationship. That is, he considered sponsorship to be an opportunity to engage in all-out, daily woe-dumping sessions. It was really just free ‘pity pot’ therapy, but with the sponsor you don’t have to pay for your friend. He was ultimately shocked and heartbroken by the ruthless, coldhearted notion thought that I didn’t want to pick up the phone at all hours of the day and night and endure endless whining and complaining about every minor discomfort and disappointment known to mankind.

     Huh?

     Sorry, but how is a sponsor doing a sponsee a favor by allowing him to think that his feelings are important or have any relevance to him getting better? I’ve written at length about how the new-age therapeutic model of hyper self-focus is precisely what the addict doesn’t need. What makes an addict an addict is his or her delusional and destructive belief that their suffering is somehow unique from the rest of the human race, that our feelings are OH SO important. Therapy perpetuates the isolation of an addict by validating and empowering our warped and over-inflated sense of self. Therapy actually perpetuates addiction.

     It is precisely this mainstream, ‘every kid gets a trophy and a hug’ approach that is keeping addicts sick. Needless to say, addicts are not children and do not need trophies anymore. 

     Instead, we need to be told that our feelings and thoughts really don’t matter, because they don’t. Nor do they have much to do with getting better. The trick is actually to stop focusing on oneself so much and stop talking so much. As a sponsor, it is a complete disservice to give you a platform to flood about your life. As an addict who has failed endlessly and finally succeeded, let me tell you that the trick is to do quite the opposite: shut up and walk through it. All of it. Then watch it dissipate and lose power over you as you become a strong, mature, responsible adult.

     Sorry, but addicts are not hopeless zombies that need to be medicated. We are not screwed forever. Anybody can recover. Those who don’t, won’t. Think about that and compare it to what the clinician told you about our so-called ‘disease’ and how we need to be medicated for life. Nonsense. That is just pharmaceutical propaganda designed to lure doctors and addicts to stop working and get subsidized.

     But hey, I guess this is what you we’ve been reduced to in the whiny, entitled, everything is offensive, micro-aggressions actually exist (lol), you’re violating my safe space, nanny state of America ;-) Why worry about pulling the cart when you are now actively encouraged to jump in it? In fact, why worry about doing anything as success and work are now punished, while failure and insecurity are now rewarded? Care to take a stab at why this message is now being pumped so profusely? The answer is as obvious as the truth about the message.

     PS I’ve decided that I am now offended by my own post for discriminating against being offended, which is not only offensive, but quite frankly traumatizing. I’m traumatized. It may take me a while to recover from myself, especially since I can’t kick my own self out of my safe space. Advice? And then what happens when I’m appalled by being appalled?