Sorry, But Nothing “Happens” to An Addict or An Alcoholic – Your Entire Life Has Been Created By You and No One Else

Hey guys, first a quick reminder to join The Privileged Addict Telegram channel. It’s the replacement for the old TPA Facebook Page. I will never again use or support a platform that censors people and opposing opinions, actively demonizes the truth, and promotes dangerous propaganda as “facts.” It is free,  just like this blog, and where I can post the TPA memes and day to day thoughts, as well as links to new posts.

I have made a commitment to tell the truth about addiction, alcoholism, recovery and God as it has been revealed to me through my experience and what I have learned over the years. Therefore, I will never sugar-coat this subject nor will I censor myself. This is not only a life and death concern, but the truth is especially important when you consider the damage and abuse addicts and alcoholics inflict on their families, spouses, parents, children, friends, communities, the entire world, and of course, themselves.

Speaking to my wife today who expressed a shared aversion to the soon to follow phrase and general attitude, I managed to find some inspiration to write… so here are some thoughts.

The worst thing anyone can tell an addict is, “I’m so sorry this is happening to you.” Um, nothing is “happening” to us. We have literally created our current lives in entirety and we alone are responsible for everything that “happens” to us. Needless to say, we are also responsible for how we respond to these events. We must take ownership of the people we have become. Addiction does not “happen” to you. You turn yourself willingly and quite deliberately into an addict. You have made your life about nothing but yourself, your comfort and your physical pleasure. You have refused to grow up and accept adult human life the way it is. And like a child, you do not care about anyone else but yourself. You do not think about others, because if you did, you would understand that anything you do to hurt yourself breaks the hearts of those who love you. There is no getting around this. Using drugs and drinking is selfish NO MATTER WHAT.

So just like we can choose God and what it is right, we can (and we do) also choose evil and what is objectively wrong. Yes, we choose to be addicts or we choose to be recovered. If the progressive bullshit you hear today were true and addicts actually could not stop, nobody would ever recover. This is of course, asinine, and runs contrary to logic, reason, experience and truth. I have been recovered for 17 years and I have no obsession to use or drink whatsoever. For the 15 years prior to returning to sanity, all I did was use. At some point, I become genuinely terrified about the condition and the fate of my soul, and it is at that moment that God began to conspire to facilitate a spiritual experience whereby I was touched by the Lord.

By the way, His power is not only real but it is so mind-blowing and limitless and intense, that once a person is touched by Him, the drug problem vanishes. If you come to want God and spiritual growth more than drugs (and trust me, it is much better), you have solved your problem. There is also a sudden and keen awareness that everything we have generally believed in life is a lie. For one, fear is a lie. Fear is the greatest human illusion and it is sin. It is the opposite of faith. It is also the single reason why nothing in your life works out, if that is the case with you. The secret to success is merely the absence of fear… and some hard work, of course. But when we let go and give our lives to God and trust in Him, not only will have everything we need, but the rest of our worldly lives will succeed to the greatest degree possible.

So regarding the notion the addiction “happens” to the addict (this is difficult to even write as it is so absurd), there is no such thing as a trigger. Nothing outside of you makes you drink or use, nor does it make you WANT to drink or use. YOU are the one and the only thing that makes you use and that makes you want to use. Breathing is the only trigger. And if you are sober and you still want to use or drink, you are guaranteed to relapse because you are still completely insane. Only when the obsession is removed and you have been restored to sanity by your Creator (thus establishing a relationship with Him and with your conscience), will you then never return to using drugs or drinking alcohol, which are all spiritual poisons. Alcohol in particular opens the individual up to demonic energy and is particularly destructive. How ironic that it is the most widely used, legally sold substance.

The utter nonsense that liberal progressives, faux scientists, doctors and experts say about addiction and recovery is unbelievable and dangerous. Relapse is part of recovery? What a stupid thing to say to an addict. “Hey, listen, give it a try but if you relapse over and over and over and over again, no biggie.” Sorry, but no. The truth? Relapse has nothing to do with recovery. That’s the point of recovery – you don’t relapse.

The mindset that something external is “happening” to us is a dangerous and warped belief to adopt. First of all, it is the antithesis of self-honesty and therefore the antithesis of true growth and recovery. No addict will get better when they have been brainwashed with a false victim mentality. We are not victims of drugs and alcohol. The idea that we are victims of anything is the typical lie of the degenerate. When an addict loses a job, family, friends, housing, money or custody of a child, that is nobody’s fault but their own. What may I ask is one doing having children as an active drug addict? Nothing on Earth could be more selfish. It is also immature and displays a severe lack of judgment, let alone intelligence. Worse, it signals that there is no conscience inside the addict, for if there were, he and/or she would never choose to abuse a child in this way. Addicts and alcoholics are pathological.

So if you have been brainwashed by waiting room wisdom, pamphlets from your doctor, or anything you see or hear on TV, turn towards God and become honest. Take Steps as they are laid out in the Big Book. Then run towards Christ and seek to do His will with every breath that you take.

 

Comfort Addicts

     Suffering after getting sober is good. In fact, it’s a necessary test…

     Addicts and alcoholics (same thing) are addicted to comfort. Finding and maintaining comfort is a compulsion and a preoccupation. The problem many addicts face is that once we get sober, we still need to feel good ALL OF THE TIME. So we start using the tools we have acquired (tools meant solely to keep us sane) to get a little buzz, albeit spiritual. Sure, getting a lift from meditating or writing inventory or speaking at a meeting is far better than jamming a needle into our vein, but it shouldn’t be entirely ignored.

     If we do this spiritual work only to feel better, what happens when it doesn’t work anymore? What happens when it no longer gives us that charge and merely keeps us from going insane again? What happens is that we start looking for more ways to feel good. We gradually become more selfish and more preoccupied with our comfort again. Sooner or later our minds begin to deteriorate. We get sicker. Then we relapse… and destroy everything all over again.

     After I took the first 6 Steps and finished reading the 7th Step prayer, I had a profound spiritual experience. As I returned home from treatment, I had several more mind-blowing experiences while making amends, working with others, and meditating. Then I returned to planet Earth and became human again. Normal, mundane life set back in and I came flying off the pink cloud I was perched upon. I felt bored, anxious, conflicted, even quite angry and depressed at times. I knew that the great test of anyone truly committed to growing spiritually is to walk through all of these painful feelings and continue to do the right thing.

     I had to suffer to see if I was truly committed to getting better. Because getting better is not just going to rehab, reading some inventory, getting a little pink cloud buzz and then off we go. The novelty of being sober wears off hard and fast. Living along spiritual lines means: Are we going to keep doing the work in 5 years, 10 years, 25? Are we going to continue praying and meditating, writing inventory and helping others, especially when we feel like shit and don’t want to anything?

     Newsflash: Life isn’t about me feeling good 24/7… although I used to be pretty sure it was. I finally had to ask myself why I got better. Did I get better in order to grow up and be a normal, responsible adult? Did I get better to live a healthy, fulfilling, and relatively happy life? Or did I get better only to find ways to continue feeling good all of the time? If that’s the case, then you should just keep drinking and getting jammed out of your fucking mind, because you’ll still be virtually useless to anybody in your still selfish life.

     So getting better involved me understanding that life was about feeling both good and bad, about success and failure, joy and pain, love and heartache, gain and loss, light and dark. I had to accept that the sole purpose of my life was not about perpetually feeling comfortable. It was about experiencing both the ups and downs and walking through all of it with courage and grace.

God, help me to put my spiritual health above all else, regardless of how I feel…