*This is an old draft I never published…
     
     As we become increasingly inundated with wordly life and the reality of responsible adulthood, we begin to realize that addicts and self-help gurus alike who don’t ever leave the cushy spiritual retreat centers are missing quite a few ‘muscle’ stones in their foundation. It’s easy to be calm and at peace when all you do is hang out at an oceanfront retreat sweeping leaves and writing books on how messed up everybody is. It’s easy to stay in the womb-like bubble of the treatment center with endless service opportunities at your fingertips to lift you up, all while worldly clamors are essentially absent. The bubble of isolation leads to idealism and false knowledge, and thus to a flimsy foundation. After a certain amount of time, remaining in retreat mode year after year can become a crutch. I am guilty of multiple crutches, too, so no need to get trigger-happy with the keyboard. Feel free, however, to bash away as I believe in free speech with every cell in my body, unlike the SJW/ PC tyrants of today.

     Try joining the world, working a full-time job and having children and then we’ll talk. Better yet, try serving in the world as well as serving the dust particles in the monastery, as even I cannot deny that a balance between the inner and outer is the way. But to truly grow, we must rejoin the world, face the challenges of adult life and put away the blanky and the stuffed animal collection. Trust me, if you want to get really strong in your recovery, come home, serve your family, serve your friends and colleagues, get a job, work hard, pay down debts, start a family of your own, serve your region, try new things and jump in. Remaining protected and isolated is fine for a short while, but will cripple you after too long.

     Remember, we addicts and alcoholics will want to do what is HARDER, NOT EASIER, as the harder thing is the better thing for people like us, and perhaps for everybody. It is harder to come home. It is harder to be there for our families, for those who may push our buttons but those who need us and whom we owe it to. Whenever we get too comfortable, we need to get moving. That is the trick to growing and staying strong year after year. Never make a home in your comfort zone.

     This is perhaps the single most important thing for addicts to understand if we truly want to recover and conquer ALL of our demons, not simply drug and alcohol addiction. It was by doing the very things I didn’t want to do that fixed me and made me stronger. Doing that which scared me and made me uncomfortable, insecure and self-conscious is what repaired my mind and soul, enabling me to go from recovering to recovered. Making a tough amends, running a group or speaking publicly are good examples. Working full-time, raising children, helping one’s family, living by God’s principles while surrounded by a world of idiots are other examples. I’m sure you can think of several others…

     At times we all feel like isolating, shutting off, going inward and avoiding people, places and things that push us out of our comfort zone. But this is exactly why the most important part of the Step process is to go work with other people. When we get up and force ourselves to sit with another addict who is suffering, it thrusts us out of isolation and lifts us up inside. It shifts our direction from the small and narrow world of self-focus to the colorful and limitless world of service. Giving, sharing and being with others is perhaps the greatest contributor to personal strength, and it adds the most to our reservoir of relief and freedom.

     Do yourself a favor and step outside of your comfort zone, something many programs, doctors and counselors in the bullshit, new-age addiction world don’t recommend for some reason. But the truth is that it’s often the things that scare us the most which are also the most healing and beneficial for us and for those in our lives. So do not isolate. Rather, do the opposite.

God, please give me the power and willingness to walk through fear, pain and discomfort…

     To be an alcoholic or a drug addict is not a complicated thing to understand, despite our efforts to complicate just about everything, especially something that seems so mind-boggling. But it’s pretty simple. Junkies are entitled, blame everybody and everything else but themselves, and desire to maintain maximum comfort 24/7 with the least amount of effort possible and the least amount of gratitude possible, similar to a child or millenial (or liberal socialist). Of course, we’re then faced with the unfortunate (or perhaps fortunate) reality that perpetual comfort is not real life. So if we can simply become willing to be uncomfortable, we can choose to give up the right we falsely believe we have to drink or use drugs. We can shed the ignorance of childhood and come to understand that life is uncomfortable at times and shouldn’t preclude us from working hard and taking responsibility for ourselves. Recovery, therefore, whether from addiction or some adolescent ideology, simply revolves around growing up and the development of one’s conscience.

     This is why AA has such shitty relapse stats, that is, from the fluff version as opposed to the original program/process. Quitting non-spiritually depends on the extent to which one’s willpower has been lost or weakened, so if most hardcore, chronic addicts quit and recovered on a spiritual basis, those stats would be entirely different. If you measure recovery rates among those who have worked tirelessly and given everything they have to the Step process and way of life (a path of action), we’re probably looking at something more like 80% as opposed to the horrific stats that are measured by meeting attendance and sobriety.

     Why does the mainstream so widely misunderstand AA? One, because AA is defined as attending meetings and the 12 Steps are seen as nothing more than an intellectual element of meetings. There is simply a lack of knowledge as to what the Steps really are – that they are not just a poster on the wall, that service is not reduced to putting chairs away, that sponsorship is not talking on the phone to some pity pot crying outside of a bar. The set of right actions prescribed in the Big Book are daily, lifelong and take place outside of any meeting. They occur in our daily lives and external relationships. Service and character development, for example, are themes that we bring home, to work, to all of our worldly engagement.

     So the atrocious statistics of AA’s success rate are based on a sample who I suspect has never engaged in or completed the Steps at all. How many in the sample size have written all four columns of their resentment, fear and sex inventory? How many have then read every word on the page, meditated for an hour and then recited the 7th Step prayer out loud, down on their knees? How many have made a comprehensive amends list and made ALL of them, including living amends, where we simply change our behavior and approach to those close to us. How many of them engage in taking others through this Big Book process and get to see others touched by God and restored to sanity? How many of them actually engage in ongoing 10th step written inventory, prayer and meditation?

     The very problem with modern, watered-down AA is that it begins and ends with a 1st Step – the simple admission that one has lost power over their drug or alcohol problem (power that can be restored, mind you). This reduction of the program is certainly the result of a radical cultural and attitudinal shift towards addiction – that because we have somehow been involuntarily victimized by addiction and permanently damaged, the best we can hope for is to load up on substitution drugs and hold on by a thread.

     Well, that never interested me and I rejected any solution that left me on the edge of a cliff 20 years down the road. In fact, if you see me whining on the edge of a cliff in ten years, please shoot me in the f’ing head. Good thing that sort of nonsense has nothing to do with original AA. Good thing that is just the tragic byproduct of how we view addiction today – to placate addicts with the lifetime excuse of the disease beyond their control, entitled to go through life numb and useless, and oh, here are more drugs you can take to spiral deeper into zombieland. We should all reject this cowardly view of our spiritual malady. We should all reject the notion that we just have to rip our family’s hearts out forever and ever, and even more disturbing, that doing so is no our fault – so sorry mom, sorry dad, sorry kids, sorry spouse… I can’t help it. The doctor said so.

     Bullshit.

Comment:

     Charlie, I’ve just recently started reading your blog, and I have to say, if this isn’t one of the most important blogsites on the internet, I don’t know what is!! I am so glad you have the freedom to take the gloves off here, and say things that have previously been unaddressed in ‘recovery circles’, and, for a variety of other unacceptable reasons, are left unresolved. I am committed to doing whatever it takes to invite those who need it most, to come and benefit from your powerful and compelling story, and your accompanying recovery dialogue.

     Granted, this is pretty graphic and brutal stuff, but you know what? It’s exactly what some of us need to escape the grasp of addiction. I don’t think one of us ever thought about the consequences of our behaviors. If we did, it was never at this level. If this information doesn’t shake us, rock our world, and motivate one so affected to change, or at least to seek out the resources for treatment, you might be dealing with something far deeper, like ASPD.


     Thank you Sir, for all you continue do !! And a Very Peace-filled Christmas to you & yours’.

Response:

     Charrah, God bless you. I really can’t tell you how much this means to me. Right before you wrote and submitted this, I got panned by someone else on some old post, so perfect timing ;-)     And what you say about having the freedom to take the gloves off is, first of all, beautifully said, but it is also reflective of a much larger issue facing us all. How fortunate we are to have this freedom, a necessary freedom, yet one that many seem all too willing to cede, though I cannot for the life of me explain why.

     Just imagine a parent coming home to find the lifeless body of their son or daughter. Imagine the little angel that you raised from birth has stopped breathing permanently. Imagine losing the only thing on Earth that you cannot fathom losing because he or she is planted so deep in your heart…

     When I look at videos or pics of my children, the feelings I have are so profound and gut-wrenching… and this is why I do not sugar coat addiction here. If you want to lie to yourself or be lied to, just read anything else or go listen to an addict spewing their myriad of excuses for why they use, why it’s not their fault because it’s a disease blah, blah, blah, blah… all complete bullshit.

     Quite frankly, the new-age attitude towards addiction is sin. How on Earth do these people think it’s appropriate to excuse, justify, rationalize and even victimize addiction? Obviously, this ever-expanding group of assholes do not have children of their own, like the imbecile I heard on the radio who asserted that it was appropriate for Sesame Street to do a bit about a puppet’s mother going to rehab. She said that media, schools and government should be deciding what children are exposed to should decide how parents must raise their own children. Are you fucking serious? A caller asked her if she had children and of course she said no. Typical for a childless liberal to think they know what’s best for everybody else. Typical for a childless liberal to smugly tell everybody else what they should think, say and do. Typical for a childless, Godless liberal to insult, smear, attack and isolate anyone who disagrees with them, branding them as bigots, racists, facists or Nazi’s.

     Ironically, this is exactly what the Nazis actually did. This is precisely what fascism is. How ironic that the modern-day left has co-opted an anti-fascist platform to cleverly hide the fact that they are, in fact, fascists. They demand all who disagree must conform, lest they be attacked viciously. It’s almost not believable but I’ve actually read articles by liberal communists that white, male, cisgendered heterosexuals should just be executed. So does that include my 7 year-old son as well? Trust me, if I am out and about and a gang of liberal antifa thugs try to attack me and my children just because there is an American flag on my t-shirt or something, they will all end up hemorrhaging in the intensive care unit. Of course that won’t happen because they are the biggest bunch of pussies the world has ever seen.

     At any rate, this is why people who do not have children are particularly clueless when it comes to addiction. What we do to our parents is absolutely outrageous and should never be excused. There is nothing to blame except ourselves. There is no disease of addiction. Just the notion that we are now to compare addiction to other terminal diseases beyond our control such as juvenile leukemia is truly beyond the pale. Even more mind-blowing is the fact that addiction is so clearly self-inflicted, that we consciously mutate ourselves into drug addicts and risk death all because we are too selfish and too cowardly to be a human being like everybody else who does not feel good 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We are too cowardly to live life on life’s terms, to face reality, to grow up and to get better.

     I see billboards now with the “Addiction is not a choice! No one wants to be an addict!” propaganda and it is all false advertising and lies from pharmaceutical marketers and big business recovery who have clearly lobbied the APA and the government. The truth? It is all bullshit. Not a single soul on the Earth has ever been born a drug addict or an alcoholic. Becoming an addict requires repeated and sustained effort. It requires tremendous selfishness and preoccupation with oneself. And sorry to disappoint you, but it also requires a love affair with drugs. Trust me, addicts and alcoholics LOVE drugs and alcohol with all of their hearts.

     Addiction is 100% a choice. The damage we do to our willpower from using so much and from being a total pussy is a temporary condition. And even then, none of us actually loses choice altogether. If so, nobody would ever get better! When I finally dragged myself into detox and then went up North to take Steps, what was that? Yup, a choice. That was 15 years ago and do I hold on by a thread? Nope. Not at all. I have zero urge to self-destruct. I never think about heroin or coke or oxycontin or alcohol or weed or anything else. In fact, all of it just disgusts me. I find substances repulsive and immature, whether you’re an addict or not. It is all just spiritual poison designed to push us away from God.

    So listen: It is a choice to mutate oneself into a piece of shit drug addict or alcoholic and it is a choice NOT to get better, especially when there is a solution.

    Please.

    Sugar-coating addiction and alcoholism doesn’t help anyone.

     My incredible girlfriend often texts me various forms of inspiration to get me to write. One of her favorite sources is the addict’s diary (which is, to put it lightly, brutal), as she has a plethora of asinine FB posts at her fingertips. I’m not sure if it’s the poor quality of the writing, the infantile attention-seeking or the new-age idiocy, but regardless, I used to act like a loud, cocky, smug, liberal intellectual and it is not only a mental disorder but it is truly nauseating. Getting off on attention and self-seeking this way is exactly the sort of hubris that brings addicts down.

     *This is an older piece but I’m reposting it while I write a few new blogs on how dangerous it is to ignore the moral component of addiction and how the disease model has become a religion of degeneracy. I’m also trying to move away from full time real estate and construction so I can write a new book for parents and spouses about how us becoming addicts is not your fault whatsoever. There is nothing external that can be blamed for who we are and what we do. Any and all external “causes” of addiction are myths, including genetics and other ridiculous notions such as addiction being some evil entity that we caught in the air, or waking up one day and suddenly having a brain disease. We are not born addicts. We voluntarily turn ourselves into them. And there are no such things as “triggers.” That one just makes me laugh. Any addicted person can recover permanently, become free and never again struggle so long as they remove their actual condition, which is insanity, which is achieved through total accountability and spiritual help. Therefore, relapse is NOT part of recovery. That is a marketing slogan designed by treatment centers and peddled by clueless addiction “specialists.” Relapse, needless to say, has nothing to do with recovery. More to come…
 
    Achieving physical sobriety is not an accomplishment, nor is recovery is not a function of time. It is a function of what actions we take and at what frequency we take them. The fact remains that no alcoholic or drug addict can achieve and maintain any quality of recovery without cultivating and obeying his or her conscience. Once the obsession to drink or use has been lifted and willpower restored, relapse becomes a moral failure, especially if you consider the degree of agony and pain we cause others. There is no science that can justify ripping a mother’s heart right out of her chest. Sorry, but that is just the truth as it has been revealed to us through our experience…

     I took Steps and recovered and stopped robbing my family blind about 15 years ago. Because of that, my mom was recently able to sell her condo in the communist republic of Cambridge, MA and buy her cozy little dream home out by my family. I brokered the deal, helped her move, contracted work on the house, built her a desk and shelves, put up chandeliers, towel rods and mirrors, drywalled gaping holes left by the overpaid electricians, built a casing for the new service wires, laid a concrete floor to finish the basement and sprayed the entire room with waterproofing after scrubbing every inch of the foundation with a metal brush and Mold-B-Gone. I also rented an auger and a 4′ bit and drilled footings at the end of her driveway for two 8′, 6×6 pressure-treated posts to protect the new condenser for the AC split system we installed.

     Why broadcast the above laundry list and ruin any shred of altruism? Because there is no chance in fucking hell I would have even helped my mom do any of that and save her thousands of dollars were I still some self-indulgent, worthless drug addict. Mom would be broke and most likely broken inside after burying me years ago. Sorry, but if you think addicts and alcoholics have the right to whine about their feelings, cry in a pity pot, act like blameless victims and declare that the world owes them something, you are not only clueless, but you should be banned from addiction treatment.

     I wrote the italicized paragraph above a few weeks ago, but tonight, after reading a story about a mom who lost a son to his selfish heroin addiction, I thought I’d post it again. There is just no excuse for crushing the spirit of a mother and veiling the rest of her life experience with a thick cloud of bitter, heart-wrenching darkness. I am a father now and I will tell you that the love for my children is boundless and cannot be controlled. I would give everything I have to love them the right way, to ensure their happiness and success in the world. I would kill to protect my children (hence the one thousand rounds of hollow points and buckshot in my safe, lol). I cannot imagine in my wildest dreams what the loss of a child would do to me… what it would do to my heart, my soul, my life.

     And here’s the thing… the saddest thing of all: We kill ourselves. The addiction is not some evil force that kills us. There is nothing any of us can conveniently blame, including our genes. Sorry, nope. Regardless of our physical loss of “control” (not choice) while actively using and the insanity of the mental obsession, we kill ourselves. We are not born addicts, we become them. It is our selfishness that kill us. It is the loss of conscience. By using and drinking over and over and over again, the mind and soul deteriorate to the point of moral and spiritual destitution. Fact. And it will happen to anyone who engages in this sort of destructive, indulgent and irresponsible behavior.

     Addicts and alcoholics have no excuse not to prevent drug and alcohol addiction from killing us. We have no excuse to give up on life, to give up on ourselves, to not FIGHT for our souls. We have no excuse not to reach out, ask for help, get over our pride, ego, and preoccupation with comfort. We have no excuse not to reach out to God… or to just find a solution that actually works without being doped out on some concoction of mind-numbing meds for the rest of our lives. Really, the key to recovering is just not being a fucking wimp.

     Trust me, once an addict begins to get better, and by that I mean once he or she begins to repair themselves spiritually and the conscience returns, never in my life have I seen a person relapse and die, because the truth is if we come to care about the consequences of our actions, there is no amount of suffering, boredom, frustration, depression, anger, angst and selfishness that would have us once again ravage our mom’s poor soul. There is nothing that would have us break mom’s heart so deeply and so permanently. You are basically killing two people. Make that three to include your father. And any siblings you may have as well.

     I write the way I do about addiction not to piss people off, although I’m certainly fine with pissing you off. This is addiction we are talking about. Should I hold my tongue and not rip into a sponsee of mine if he was some dumbass who needed that to survive? Why would any of this shit matter outside of the subject of addiction and trying to get people to go get better in order to stop hurting other people? I write this way to get lazy, immature, entitled, indulgent pigs like myself to run with this solution no matter how shitty we feel and then never look back, because once we lose control of our drinking or using, we no longer have the right to use. We no longer have the right to remain sick.

     So please… get better so that you do not commit the crime of choking the life out of the woman who gave life to you, the woman who raised you, fed you, stayed up all night with you, sacrificed everything and gave you her time, energy, body, mind, love… the woman who gave you her heart… not to mention your dad who probably loves you more the anything in this world.

     I posted the above meme a while back on the FB page, which, needless to say, triggered a few of the more sensitive crowd. To note, the sensitives are generally miserable, still drink and use, and indulge in lavish excuses and justifications as to why they use, why it’s not their fault (of course) and why they have no choice. Right, sure, sign me up. Sensitives also despise when anyone challenges their delusional excuses. Sensitives are generally young, immature, clueless, progressive, and want everything for free (i.e. taken from others and given to them). They generally believe that nothing is their fault, everything is unjust, and all who disagree with them are evil. For all intents and purposes, they have been brainwashed.

     We speak of fundamental change for the addict who seeks to get better. The Big Book refers to this as an “entire psychic change,” and Jung further describes this sudden change by stating, “Here and there, once in a while, alcoholics have what are called vital spiritual experiences. To me these occurrences are phenomena. They appear to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes that were once guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions begin to dominate them.” (Alcoholics Anonymous) As well, Williams James provides several accounts of significant and sudden conversions in “Varieties of Religious Experience.”

     There is never a reason why addicts use and alcoholics drink. We drink and use because that’s what we do. We love using drugs and drinking alcohol. It is our first love in this world. We are married. Sure it is a false love and a false solution, but nonetheless, we believe we have found the solution to living life. Everything else is secondary to using and drinking. And until God becomes first in our lives, there is virtually no hope. Substitution drugs and watered-down programs will fail you every time, including Swedish massages at Passages Malibu, Filet Mignon on the Cape, hot tub orgies at Narconon, play time with social workers doing role play and inventing a list of triggers, and last but not least, Methadone, Suboxone, Seroquel etc… and, oh yeah, every psychotropic known to mankind.

     But what does it mean to have an entire psychic change? Rather, what causes it? This sort of fundamental and life-altering change is certainly powered by God, but we addicts must induce it through hard work. Put simply, we addicts (i.e. we permanent adolescents), need to engage in something that the rest of the world does naturally: 

     Growing up. 

     Unfortunately for you parents and spouses, addicts have no idea what this means. 

     “We feel that elimination of our drinking is but a beginning. A much more important demonstration of our principles lies before us in our respective homes, occupations and affairs.” – Alcoholics Anonymous

     Growing up means that I no longer see myself as a victim. Victimhood is a state of mind, and a narcissistic one at that. Believing oneself to be a victim is delusional. Yes, there are real victims out there, but the ranting, whiny, drug or alcohol addicted pity-pot is not one of them. Read “Victim Mentality” for more on this. As well, here is a list of older blogs geared for parents and spouses etc. – “Posts Geared for Parents, Spouses & Codependents.”

     Growing up means that I begin to see life from the point of view of someone other than myself. I begin to understand that my suffering is no more acute or unique than anybody else’s. I begin to understand that other people suffer – they have their own pain, feelings, thoughts, opinions and a worldview that may differ from my own. I understand that suffering is no novelty, it is simply called life on Earth, and that I am no different or more special than the other 7 billion people on our planet. The only difference is most people can wake up feeling like shit and still go to work and be a responsible parent etc without banging a bag of dope (or smearing CBD oil all over their third eye). 

     Growing up means that I become less focused on self and more focused on others and their needs. I understand that my focus and preoccupation with myself and my feelings and comfort has been pathological. I begin to see the importance and the rewards in helping and taking care of others. 

     Growing up means that I begin to see that I am solely responsible for my own choices – my actions, thoughts and words. I also understand that I have a basic human responsibility to act in a way that I would recommend for all others. Imagine if all the world did as we do? What an F-show that would be!

     Growing up means that I make amends to all of the people I have wronged and continue to make amends at once when I commit wrongs in the future. I also understand that the point of making an amends is not to clear my own conscience so I can sleep at night, but it is for the object of my amends and as such, they have the right to either listen or to speak, to say whatever they may need to, now or in the future, and that they may ask something additional from us and we are to respond. Our sanity depends on it. 

     Growing up means that I do not simply make a one-time amends to my family members and close friends, but that I change into the person I should have been day after day, year after year. Our mothers and fathers and spouses and children do not need a rehearsed soliloquy and then off we go. They want the son, daughter, brother, sister, mother, father or spouse that they deserved but never got. 

     Growing up means that I make adult choices such as not accumulating debt. It means that I strive to make all of my financial amends and that I go out into the world and work hard. Yes, that means full time, and it does not mean you can take a week off to cry because Trump was elected, lol. 

     Growing up means that I take care of my mind, heart and spirit, that I nourish myself appropriately through exercise, prayer, mediation, good nutrition and service.  

     Growing up means that we nourish our relationships by listening deeply to our partners and understanding their needs, and then applying specific action. 

     The list goes on… feel free to add to it… and feel free to let addicts know that this is the proper way to conduct themselves. It is not cruel or offensive to tell addicts the truth about their behavior and the effect it has on those who love them. How is this offensive and hateful to addicts given we drive a knife directly into our mothers’ hearts???

Please.

     This may be a bit over the heads of some recent critics who caste me as hateful and offensive (lol), but the entire modern liberal attitude towards addiction and the disease model is actually harmful to addicts, not helpful.

     When they speak of us poor, victimized addicts, stricken with the lifelong disease of addiction, what they are really saying is that we are damaged goods. Relegated to the ash heap of mediocrity, we are but poor, damaged snowflakes who must be coddled, medicated and subsidized like any other “oppressed group.” What this does is it limits the scope of recovery and change. Regardless of what we do, we will always be diseased and damaged, and as such, we will be showered with special treatment as if we have some sort of handicap or somehow suffer social marginalization. We are to receive compassion, kindness and hugs.

     Do the bashers have any idea what this does to the mind of an addict who is not recovered, who is still mired in the mental and emotional poison of lies, deception, self-absorption, cowardice, fear and entitlement? No, they don’t, because it is impossible for them to engage in a discussion or hear arguments contrary to their own… oh wait, I meant it’s impossible for them to simply hear arguments, as they do not have an argument. All I can hear once they get triggered are hostile insults born from anger and self-righteousness. To note, intellectual arrogance is extremely unbecoming, especially when it is delivered by those of whom knowledge and wisdom is merely a facade.

    For one, addicts who have been brainwashed to believe they are victims of a disease through no fault of their own will view themselves as yup, you guessed it, victims. This frame of mind, one of self-pity, will limit the vision, the will and the perseverance of the addict to embrace, believe in, reach for and fight for life-changing fundamental change. Addicts who are pumped with this patronizing nonsense of victimhood become attached to it emotionally, further sinking into the trap of self-pity, hopelessness and failure.

     How is that inspiring?

    The entire purpose of this blog is to inspire hope and to describe the spiritual solution as best as I can. Why? Because spiritual action is a comprehensive solution that will not simply leave an addict physically sober and holding on by a thread, but rather change one’s entire life that they may be catapulted into a miraculous life of personal growth, achieve amazing things, affect the world and serve.

     For 15 years I shoveled in “science,” and it failed me in the grandest way. I went to McClean Hospital and was treated by classroom psychiatrists with no actual experience with addiction or recovery, and then diagnosed and medicated with a salad of useless psychotropics. I had so-called addiction specialists tell me to write down my triggers and then simply avoid them, knowing full well that triggers do not exist. Breathing is a trigger. I went to “compassionate” therapists who tried to dig for the REASONS why I used – mom, dad, trauma, blah, blah, blah, only to leave with a pile of wonderful excuses. I tried CBT, which might work for normal people but for addicts it is entirely useless. Our minds our insane. We are not capable of thinking ourselves into right action. The only hope for addicts is that we begin to act right and the mind and soul will follow.

     Have you ever tried to work with a freshly sober addict? No? Please read The Privileged Addict as a testimony for right, moral action versus meds and theory… and no, I don’t care at all about selling it. Leave a mailing address and I’ll send you a copy of all three.

     I majored in neuroscience and the “science of addiction” and I have learned through my experience that all intellectual pursuits regarding addiction were entirely useless and left me crawling into heroin detox an emaciated wreck. That said, when a handful of recovered addicts told me to begin taking right action and that doing so repeatedly will change me and induce an entire psychic change, I listened. I took action until I was touched by something much greater than myself (God) and then I continued to act, day after day, month after month, year after year. I do not suffer from recurring thoughts to drink or use. I repel drugs and alcohol as mere poisons that push me away from God. They have no power over me. I came to want God and goodness more than drugs and thus my problem was solved.

     Second, addicts are masters in the art of lies, deception and manipulation. Telling an addict not to worry about it because they are victims of a disease is the absolute worst thing you can do. It is asinine, and I’ll tell you why. Addicts love drugs and alcohol. Fact. We want to use and drink as much as we can and it is our top priority in life. We will do anything to use the way we want to, including lying to you, betraying you, manipulating you, stealing from you, abusing you and breaking your fucking heart. Giving us some sort of clinical pass for our atrocious and selfish behavior is not compassionate, it is clueless. We will use this and any other excuse to ride the self-comfort train as long as humanly possible.

    Addicts are like children who refuse to grow up. And if you treat us as victims, there will certainly be no growing up. Growing up and becoming a sane, responsible adult is the entire process of recovering.

     As I wrote in a older post from which the above meme was extracted, “I actually find what I do to be considerably more kind than beating around the bush and hurling empty platitudes and frothy emotional appeal at some addict who is clearly ill and is all too willing to tell you EXACTLY what you want to hear in order to keep using the way they want. Real kindness and real love is not allowing an addict to continue lying to themselves… and then showing them a solution that actually works. Make no mistake that the lies an addict tells himself are the primary ingredients of a lethal overdose.”

   Had another standard discussion with an MD recently, and though we shared some common experience, our paths diverged on the nature of addiction and the dynamics of recovery. A very nice guy, by the way, so to be clear, our divergence was contained, I think, to medicine, God and addiction.

     Regarding the assertion that we need to start a new discussion and ‘end the stigma…’ um, why? In our new and insane world of cultural marxism where everything is offensive and no one is safe, the assertion that we should not refer to addicts as addicts, that to identify as an ‘addict’ is self-defeating and limits the scope of our persona, or something, is counter-productive. An addict is an addict and should be called an addict. We addicts should identify as addicts because it is humbling and humiliating… and yes, that is good for us. Letting addicts off the hook for their addiction and its attendant behavior is naive and it is a total disservice.

     Along this vein, he appeared to be in the “End the Stigma!” camp (sorry I didn’t idiotically put a hashtag before the social justice movement’s key phrase), which I’ve written about previously in the post, Fight the Stigma??? Lol. Not to rehash the entire thing, but ask yourself why stigmas exist? They exist when certain behaviors, attributes and mindsets run contrary to an acceptable and healthy social norm. And since addicts create themselves by way of pure selfishness, why shouldn’t there by a stigma attached to, say, becoming a toothless, STD-ridden crackhead? Sorry, but I just don’t get it. Having a stigma attached to behavior that is ruthless and destructive to self and especially to others is a good thing, as it is one common understanding that will prevent us from wanting to live that way and to be that kind of person.

     There was then an analogy made between addiction and Crohn’s disease, which is absurd on its face. Same thing as saying addiction is analogous to juvenile Leukemia – that is a medical condition outside of our control, which is ridiculous. Additionally, medical intervention in the form of medication is crucial to surviving and to remain ‘in remission,’ as it were. Sorry, but to put addiction in the same category as ANY other disease beyond our control is nuts, let alone obtuse. It lacks understanding of addiction, and therefore recovery. I must admit that it was difficult to even decipher the presented logic of this argument.

     K, so we are to liken addiction to a “disease” of which there is no known cause, one in which the victim has no control over, one where he or she will relapse by no fault or control of their own, and one that must be medically assisted with pharmaceutical intervention? None of that has any bearing to reality and it’s disappointing that otherwise well-educated people have bought (among many other falsehoods and ideas), the liberal disease model of addiction and are using faux science and collectivist intellectual arrogance to seal this claim as fact.

     There is indeed a known cause for addiction. It involves selfishly pouring booze down your throat or plying yourself with drugs like an indulgent pig until you develop the phenomenon of craving (a physical event), break your mind and shatter your spirit into a million pieces. As I wrote in The Privileged Addict years ago, the booze doesn’t crawl its way up my chest and force its way down my throat.

     We do not catch addiction in the air, nor are we born addicts. The notion that we are born addicts doesn’t even make sense. Let’s say I am supposedly born an addict but I never pick up a drink or use a drug and then die a sober man, am I an addict? Of course not. And no “addict” wakes up one day when they’re 13 or 14 years old and spontaneously morphs into a fully blown heroin junkie. We turn ourselves into drug addicts and alcoholics (same thing) through a succession of selfish choices. As noted in the meme above, the process of losing choice IS a choice.

     Furthermore, once we lose choice (that is, the ability to choose whether or not we drink or use) that itself is but a temporary condition. It is a loss of willpower. Sure an addict may never regain choice and willpower, but that is his or her choice as well. Those who do not recover their willpower (the power of choice) have chosen not to recover. Sorry, but that is the truth.

    I mentioned that I’ve been recovered for 14 years and got a smile of sorts. To clarify, aside from physical sobriety (which is not an accomplishment, it is a requirement and it is our responsibility), I’ve not suffered a mere thought to self-destruct in 14 years. If the mind and heart of an addict is fixed, the body is irrelevant, rendering the so-called science of addiction equally irrelevant.

     It takes but a drop of insight to realize that all of Western medical doctrine centers around the body of the addict, and thus symptoms of addiction, which are mere byproducts of an underlying malady that is spiritual in nature.

     Drugs and alcohol are a side-show and have little to do with addiction. Addiction is the sad and disgusting result of the person we are, the person we’ve become. To be clear, the person who mutates themselves into an addict, such as myself, is a cesspool of selfishness, entitlement and dishonesty. He or she is concerned with nothing but their own comfort, even at the expense of those closest to us. He or she is a person who has zero concern for others, or for the human/spiritual responsibility to serve. He or she is a person who has no purpose. The pre-addict is a Godless person.

     And herein lies one of the central problems with the progressive destruction of recovery. If you remove God and moral/behavioral destitution from addiction and its nature, you remove any and all hope of recovery. You remove recovery itself. There is no such thing as a miracle addiction drug. Miracles, and real, fundamental change, occur only in the absence of drugs.

     Why complicate something that is simple? Why drink the Kool Aid and fall prey to the degenerate propaganda of victimhood? So we addicts are all just victims now? Nothing we do is our fault? Addiction is just an evil entity that takes over our children, parents, siblings and spouses? Nope. Before you excuse yourself of responsibility and generate a fistpump because you just drove by a billboard that says, Addiction is a Disease, It’s not Your Fault (yup, saw that one Rt.1 outside of Boston)… talk to a few moms first… or dads… or spouses… or children of addicts…

…and then let’s talk.

     I am no victim of anything. I turned myself into an addict. We make ourselves into who we are. We are responsible for who we become, whether useless drug addict or courageous, productive hero. The choice is most certainly ours for the taking. This is the truth, regardless of whatever sugar-coated nonsense your doctor spews about addiction and recovery. Run from the office as fast as you can, become brutally honest, clean yourself of emotional poison and sin and delusion and fear and resentment… give tirelessly to others… make amends day after day after day… change into a good person… take right, moral, productive action over and over and over again and you will become free and know peace.

      Sure there have been challenges – the death of my father, 3 surgeries, divorce, etc. But challenges are just opportunities to grow and get better. There is one reason why I stand today a free man with three beautiful children, an incredible woman by my side, a lovely, peaceful, happy home and a successful business:

     “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” – Socrates

     “The more you eat, the less flavor; the less you eat, the more flavor.” – Chinese proverb

     If happiness lies in the ability to enjoy less, than being an addict is the precise opposite of such a condition. So when we get better, we develop the ability to enjoy less. The more we simplify, the greater the pleasure in simple things.

     I used to need about five OC 80s, a bag of heroin, a pile of coke, two packs of butts, greasy food, sex, tv, and countless other distractions of the lowest possible quality just to feel moderately okay and make it through the day. That is pathetic. It is sin. I’ve been reading quite a bit of nonsense about how becoming an addict is beyond our control. Sure addiction is an illness or malady rather, but it is a self-created one. Acting like a needy, whiny victim is not an illness beyond our control. It is what we do to desperately maintain our addiction after we’ve turned ourselves into addicts.

     When we get better, we begin to find pleasure in less. We lower the bar, but in a good way. After years of removing drugs and distraction and selfish behavior, we begin to enjoy simple pleasures we once took for granted, all those things we whined and moaned about in a fit of entitlement. Active addicts and alcoholics are like spoiled children, crying and screaming when we can’t eat candy all day long.

     Getting better is not just the process of growing up, but also one of removal and simplification. By removing things, we come to appreciate them more. Less becomes more. I personally find considerable pleasure from almost nothing: a glass of cold water, a hot shower, watching my son or daughter laugh or dance or play, lying down in bed after a long day, looking at the yard after landscaping or some floor after tiling or some bathroom or kitchen after renovating, completing some creative project, swimming in the ocean, closing my eyes and breathing, being still, playing tennis, working out, walking around on a warm, dry day and feeling the breeze on my face.

     Earlier today, I sat down on an old beach chair while my son played with sand and a great calm washed over me. I can’t explain it with any specificity or eloquence other than to say that I felt completely happy in that moment. Not a single thought or worry poisoned my mind. Not a shred of discontent could I find anywhere within. Sure it was only momentary, but I would never be able to bask in those simplest of things as an active addict. All addicts do is want, want, want and need, need, need. Nothing is ever enough. Not only is this a miserable way to move through life and navigate this world, but it also acts as a repellent to others. “Rather unbecoming” as my old man used to say with his jaw locked up good and tight.

     To enjoy less, we must never stop getting better. Go write down all the ways you behave as an addict and the way you were as an addict, and do the exact opposite, everyday, for the rest of your life. Nobody’s a saint, so all we have to do is our best. But that is how we get better… by acting like a normal person and developing the ability to enjoy less.

God, empty me out that I may bask in the simplest of things… teach me to simply be…