This is an excerpt from Project Addiction--The Complete Guide to Using, Abusing and Recovering from Drugs and Behaviors. For more, go to https://www.life-mind.com/project-addiction-book/
THE DECISION TO QUIT:
ROCK-BOTTOM
“Which way you ought to go depends on where you want to get to...” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
We've tried everything: Cutting down, switching brands, using less, stopping for stretches of time, smoking instead of shooting, snorting instead of smoking and its ended in failure each time. We always end up using more not less, returning to shooting or snorting… or both… until we begin to realize there is no way to control this thing. Each time we think we got it figured out it fools us and beats us again. Convinced we've got a fool proof plan to live a life with drugs rather than totally without them, our intentions end in failure. We finally realize that when our addict brain tells us it will be “just one time, and we can certainly handle it”, that it’s lying! But it seems so truthful! It doesn't feel like a lie and that's how we get tricked.
An OCD person is convinced their hands are still dirty even after the hundredth wash. An OCD brain skips over the "completion-feeling" that goes with the action of washing. Their mind deprives them of the sense of completion that everyone else takes for granted. It tells them they can be cleaner, “wash em one more time and this time I swear you'll feel done.” OCD and addict brains are perpetually trying to attain the feeling, the sense, of completion, but are deprived of it. The conscious-intellect says, "No! I can't use drugs: ever. It's bad and it will get out of control again."
But the addicted subconscious says, "Nuh-uh... I swear this time it'll be different, I promise. And if you doubt me, just check your “truth-feeling meter”. See! The feeling you normally get when you hear a lie is not present, so I must be telling the truth!" Within the OCD brain is a “looping” circuit. The need-to feeling works fine: there is a need-to accomplish something, like wash your hands. However, the “done-it” part does not work properly. The “need-to” circuit skips over the “done-it” circuit and loops back to the “need-to” circuit creating a nearly perpetual feeling of needing to perform an action while never getting the accompanying feeling of doing it once it is done.
One of the most debilitating expressions of OCD is those who feel compelled to continuously drive by a section of street they passed to check and see if they hit someone. An OCD sufferer can do this for hours and hundreds of times, each time being newly convinced they may have hit someone and so they better double-back to check. They intellectually know they are likely imagining this paranoia but it is so powerful they need to be certain. The addict intellect knows it should stop using drugs but the supporting feeling does not occur. They both “know” they should stop, but “feel” they can’t. Most minds are driven 70% by emotion and only 30% by logic or reason. We will be compelled towards what we feel much more than what we know and it takes exhausting conscious effort to override this. A very intense personal feeling to quit our vice needs to take place.
PLEASURE - PAIN PRINCIPLE
The human mind and spirit functions on a simple and absolute principle: Pursue Pleasure & Avoid Pain.
The first time you use drugs it is 100% pleasure. Yes, it can also be scary in some scenarios, but to the addict-disordered mind it is an entertaining and seductive type of scary that we are inexplicably drawn to, like a slasher-movie or a rollercoaster. When you're young you don't even get hang-overs! This makes the beginning experiences nearly 100% pleasure, with no pain. Over time, the pleasure diminishes as pain begins: the first hang-over, late for work, a conflict with parents, girlfriend, boyfriend or spouse. It’s now 90% pleasure with 10% pain. Still an equitable trade. This offset continues to seek balance becoming 75% pleasure, 25% pain and so on until it becomes 50/50: Trouble in school, bad reputation, legal issues, family problems- all related to using. The now burgeoning addict does not perceive that the problems are a consequence of using. They feel it is society's issue with drugs, the family's attitude and disapproval; it is other people’s lack of acceptance that causes the problems, not the using itself (denial). “Yeah,” the user argues, “the only reason I fight with my parents over drugs is because they don’t get it, man! If THEY were cool, we’d never fight about it. The reason we have conflicts about drug use isn’t cuz I’m an addict- it’s because my parents (spouse, law, employer, etc.) are sooo up-tight!”
According to the pain/pleasure principle, when it reaches 50% pleasure-50% pain drug use should no longer increase, but stabilize, yet it continues to progress to 49% pleasure and 51% pain; a milestone where the pain now outweighs the pleasure. Once something is even one percent more painful than pleasurable, it’s common sense we would STOP! After all, we are conditioned to pursue pleasure and avoid pain so if it’s more pain than pleasure, even by only 1%, our subconscious should be compelled towards abstinence… at least theoretically!
But there’s a catch: Pleasure is defined by that which is sensually pleasurable AND by that which is familiar. By the time we reach the 49/51% something has happened: getting loaded, interacting with the drug scene etc., has now become so familiar that the subconscious continues to reinforce these addict behaviors, rejecting abstinence or sober behavior. The offset continues... 30% pleasure-70% pain, 20-80%, 10-90%. Inevitably, if we keep using we will arrive at 100% pain, 0% pleasure:
Welcome to Rock-Bottom.
Rock-Bottom is the event of realization that drugs will ultimately only bring pain, 100% of the time, and the pleasure of them is an illusion that is transitory and not worth it.
It could come at 50 years old after tanking a career, house and family or at 14 years old after getting busted by high school campus security for a joint. The depth of the realization to the individual, not the circumstances, are what qualify Rock-Bottom realization. Subjective opinion is everything; what the “worst thing ever” may be to me, may be a “whatever” to you.
The conundrum with Rock-Bottom is that an addict cannot tell when or if they have arrived there. They’re convinced every time they run out of dope or suffer a hangover that they're at Rock-Bottom. A non-addict family member cannot evaluate it either because they have never been on either side of that fence. Only an experienced, veteran addict who himself has experienced Rock-Bottom can have an insight or instinct to recognize a real Rock-Bottom episode. It's a mystery to some, but with addicts, we know it takes one to know one. I can pick out an addict in a crowd of people by a sort of addict sixth-sense. We are drawn towards each other: it's a secret brotherhood. So is recovery (“Are you a friend of Bill's?": the cryptic code for being in recovery among 12-Steppers). The experience of drug use, as well as recovery, is an informal cultural bond, an unspoken yet highly recognized bond that doesn’t require confession or declaration. We can pick each other out.
FALSE BOTTOMS
Just about every week I am in a session where someone is passionately proclaiming and convinced they’re: “at Rock-Bottom!” Yet they continue to use within a few of days. An addict who is convinced they are at Rock-Bottom- isn’t! It is too visceral and intense and incomparable to have any reliable sense of being there when you’re actually there. Every addict I’ve known who went through genuine “Rock-Bottom”, including myself, never knew it at the time it was happening. It was only through hindsight and retrospection that they figured out that what they had been through was Rock-Bottom. We can look back and even identify the moment of the event (often referred to as “the moment of clarity”) but no one saw it as Rock-Bottom while it was actually occurring. While you’re in it you feel hopeless and exhausted from your addiction and sense that you’ve been wrong about so very much in life and about yourself that you couldn’t possibly be having real clarity. During actual Rock-Bottom you’re certain of only one thing: that being wrong about everything your whole life got you in this misery, so how could you possibly be sure about wanting to stop now?! You’ve swore it was over before, so why should you believe you now? You’ve been in actual misery for so long that this moment is just another episode of suffering and misery, even though it’s the worst one. You cannot relate or conceive of any other way of feeling. It is not possible to know you’re going through it when you’re going through it as you do not, and cannot, believe in anything you think or feel. You’ve successfully lied to yourself so many times before that you assume this is just one more. When someone is convinced and declares they are at Rock-Bottom it is a red-flag that tells me, a veteran who’s been there and done it, that they’re not.
If we actually could know we’re at Rock-Bottom we would be happy and hopeful that the beginning of the end has finally arrived. That is the quality of the pseudo-Rock-Bottom state. False Rock-Bottom has happiness and relief and hope, but the real one is total and absolute fear, uncertainty and an intense awareness that this addiction could very well go on and on and on… and on! It is this fear and uncertainty that makes us dig deep and not take recovery for granted- to do what we were previously never able, or willing, to do before! The complete acceptance of this state of suffering is so immense that the addict becomes desperate and desperation is required. Rock-Bottom feels truly hopeless and one of the worst things an addict can have is hope!
Hope is suspect and should not be trusted as it provides a false and dangerously risky feeling of safety. If I’m playing with a live grenade, well… it is probably a bad idea to have a false sense of safety that might make me careless… BOOM!
An addict who’s never been at Rock-Bottom themselves cannot identify it nor can a non-addict. Only one person is even remotely qualified to sense if someone is at true Rock-Bottom or not: a dope fiend who’s previously had the Rock-Bottom experience and no one else!
Rock-Bottom is an intense and thorough immersions into despair. Actual Rock-Bottom indicates that the person will get and stay clean! The term is NOT used for a partial or temporary realization, the term Rock-Bottom is reserved for the absolute, permanent realization.
Nothing I can say or do could convince you that “rain” is anything but “wet”, right? Of course not! And nothing anyone can think of or feel again AFTER Rock-Bottom could ever convince them there is any reason, situation, condition or circumstance that could justify using as “ok” again. Nothing. The realization is complete and absolute (the paradox is that it can be forgotten over time).
Rock-Bottom is exceptionally rare, though it happens to thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of addicts. You can pray for it and you can hope for it, but I tell you this: You will regret those prayers and hopes while it’s actually happening and pray for it to be over and to have never had the Rock-Bottom realization to begin with. Once it starts you’ll wish for the good ole’ days when you were a heartless dope-fiend. Yes… I’m totally grateful for it now! But at the time- back then- I wanted to DIE. And that’s putting it mildly! Being a dope-fiend addict was easy compared to the Rock-Bottom experience.
Rock-Bottom is not simply running out of opportunities. It is a real and complete sense of running out of options! Nowhere to go! (but up?) And that sounds tremendously more promising and positive than it feels, I assure you! The “Rock-Bottom” realization needs to occur and there are 3 events can that facilitate this:
· Objective Clarity (realization)
· Personal Choice
· Tragedy
1. OBJECTIVE CLARITY
Rock-Bottom is a unique experience that varies from person to person:
· A 15 year old gets a reprimand from their parents at the first use of pot. With objective clarity, he realizes he could lose parental respect and approval. He becomes aware of the chain reaction of negative consequences that will follow and so he- stops. Just like that: tragedy averted:
Rock-Bottom!
It happens this simply all the time, but since there’s no tragic story involved it goes unreported or even really acknowledged as a Rock-Bottom experience.
· An independent adult is left for dead in an alley after o.d.’ing at a shooting gallery, getting sodomized and beaten to near death. These circumstances then make him realize, with objective-clarity, the inevitable outcomes of drug use:
Rock-Bottom!
Any and every experience lying between the spectrum of this parent alienation and left-for-dead scenario can be Rock-Bottom. There is a misconception that the Rock-Bottom experience must be tragic and shocking to some conventional standard.
A Moment of Objective-Clarity
“I began doing drugs when I was 13: pot and alcohol. By 15 I was taking acid and a few pills and some coke. By 17 I had injected cocaine and heroin (“speedball”; cocaine mixed with heroin) and by 18 shooting coke or speed was pretty regular. By 20 it was an obsession and running my life more than I thought it could or would. I used, off and on, never getting more than a month clean at a time for the next ten years. At 28 years old I became a father. By the time my new son was 8 months old I was working construction and living in a 1 room apartment. I was separated from my wife of six months, who was also severely dysfunctional (violent, drunk, etc). I was miserable… again... but not more than usual. I was tired of dope and the patterns of it, but it didn't seem more extraordinary than any other times I’d been miserable from dope: it was always horrible…
until...
I was goofing off with my baby-son who was lying on the floor being changed and playing “patty-cake” to get attention. I looked at his hand. So tiny. I compared it to my own hand, which was so much larger. It crossed my mind that no matter what I did, his little hand was going to grow: that his hand would get large like mine someday and he was going to get older and, much like I had done with my own father, he was probably going to look up to me no matter who or what I was... he was going to want to be like…
me.
"And who and what am I?" I asked.
…and then then the world caved in.
I had a moment of total objectivity. I "saw" myself as I truly was:
A-piece-of-s**t-dopefiend.
Not a father, not an employee, not a brother or a son or a friend:
A piece-of-s**t-dopefiend.
Nothing more- nothing less. This realization was not intellectual, no… it was emotional and went through to the core of my soul. In that instant I saw how my son would see me if he were older and able of perceiving me honestly and clearly; how this innocent, pure and simple boy would actually see me if he were cognizant and aware. He would see the truth: that I was a piece-of-sh**t dopefiend.
And I was ashamed.
I didn’t just feel ashamed: I became shame. I was nothing but shame. In that instant I truly saw that my whole life was a lie and had become a single denial mechanism. I was nothing good and had never been anything good. Over the next few hours all my denial disintegrated. I saw my past and my present and was so disgusted I felt I could not go on. I wanted to die. I wanted to do more than die: I wanted to never have existed in the first place. I was in agony as I was forced to continue to breathe in and out and live; every moment hating myself and feeling more and more ashamed. I did not know what the future held and I was NOT hopeful. I felt the future was black and I did not want a future. Any future. Or a present either.
I did not “decide” to quit drugs because I had hope for a better, sober life. I HAD to quit because I could not exist another moment the way that I was. I did not lose a house, or a job or even my child. I simply had "a moment of clarity"; a moment of complete objective truth, and was horrified by what I saw. My spirit was crushed and who I was had to DIE.
In those moments I was dying and also being reborn. And birth is violent and messy!
I would love to tell you that the ensuing days became more positive and hopeful and were filled with "this-is-the-first-day-of-the-rest-of-my-life" optimism, but it wasn't. The next 3 months were pure agony and isolation. I literally sobbed myself to sleep every night, wishing and praying to never wake up. The next 3 months were unbearably lonely and depressing. "Sobriety" was not fun.
I hated sobriety.
I just hated being an addict even more..
That's how I got through each day. I didn't know what I wanted to be, I only knew, with intense hatred, what I no longer COULD be.
Physical suicide was not an option. While I could not even fathom feeling worse, somehow I intuited that suicide would be worse; probably botched and vegetative instead of dead- just my luck. I figured I’d just will myself to die; sort of “give-up-the-ghost” and just stop caring enough to not even draw a breath. Go to sleep and never wake up. Simple: “Let’s just not ‘be’ anymore. I quit.”
That Rock-Bottom anecdote was mine, your author.
There is always a contradictory nature to the truth. As absolute as the Rock-Bottom experience is, it’s simply not a cure. I bet there are desperate people reading the Rock-Bottom stuff wishing there were a Rock-Bottom pill to take, “bring it on!” they’re saying, “I’ll suffer… that’s okay, cuz I need to stop!” There are 2 contradictions to this that can be hard to convey:
1) Be careful what you wish for. Some people do not survive their Rock-Bottom experience. I said there was only way left to go and it was up, but that’s not entirely accurate: There’s also death. Many people “choose” this option. As one guy told me about his Rock-Bottom: “I couldn’t go on. I knew I was to be enslaved forever. That I was owned by heroin and could never break free. So I went into the bathroom while my parents slept and shot-up: a huge hit. And it didn’t kill me. So I did another. And it didn’t kill me. So I did another. I wanted and was prepared to die and let it win since it already had. I woke up 2 days later in the hospital.”
This one was saved and even years later is clean to this day, but many Rock-Bottoms are not saved and do not survive to tell their story. It is a fine line, to be sure. 43,000 o.d. deaths in 2012 in the U.S. alone. Rock-Bottom is something that happens to many, many addicts, but it is not something you can consciously choose to experience. Yes, I’ve been instrumental in facilitating many, many Rock-Bottom realizations, but this takes caution, experience, knowledge, care and so many factors that few should attempt to facilitate it as it is risky and dangerous and if gone wrong the result can be death.
2) It is not a permanent realization. The incurable and permanent disorder of addiction is a life-long pathology, right? It took over 10 years for me to relapse after my Rock-Bottom, but I did indeed relapse. Not only did I use again after the visceral, absolute experience of Rock-Bottom, but I also relapsed my Rock-Bottom experience as a result: I re-experienced the Rock-Bottom realization experience slightly less intense and definitely shorter as it was proportionate to the relapse. I had gone 10 years clean and re-visited drugs again in a different way. My gold-medal goal now is to go 11 years.
I think I will.
These 2 contradictions need to be a part of the Rock-Bottom knowledge. Don’t forget them: We’re never safe.
2. PERSONAL CHOICE
The realization to move on from addiction life is based in being conscious of what’s valuable. This is different for everyone because value concepts vary from person to person and at different stages of life. What's valuable to an adolescent is vastly different than what’s valuable to a middle-aged family man. They both have sooo much to lose, yet the adolescent is much less aware of what they have to lose whereas the middle-aged person is typically much aware of what they’ve acquired and how rare it is to have acquired it and how painful it may be to lose it. We cannot assume that an addict mind and personality has the same values that are conventional to most people or in the same way. They are different not simply because they’re ill with this disorder or under the influence; the disordered mindset of addicts along with individual up-bringing, culture and experiences make each living person’s values slightly unique.
Most people place value on the same ideas and concepts: love, companionship, comfort, etc. but we arrange values in a different priority, some might feel that comfort is more valuable than love. However, addicts are disordered and under the influence, which clouds their ability to see and connect with their own values.
For example: adolescents have no values! Just kidding (sort of), they do have values but those values are underdeveloped and immature. In other words, the threat of loss to the adolescent is rarely a powerful enough force to have Rock-Bottom realization.
Adolescents have accomplished comparatively little due to their short time on the planet and therefore don't sense in a very real way what they have to lose or are losing. Losing values/valuables to them is abstract; the idea of losses is minimized when we either haven’t possessed these things already, very long or have not toiled, sacrificed or struggled to acquire them. I’m not suggesting a young person hasn’t worked hard for whatever they value but let’s face it; not until you toil and trouble for years and years can you truly sense the impact of losses in your life. Combine this with the very real awareness of the sacrifice needed to re-establish such things and we are proportionately motivated- worried, neurotic… even desperate to protect the things we value. The more we’ve invested in something the more desperate we are to protect it. Motivation to attain or sustain a thing is directly proportionate to the value we truly feel, not understand, something has: Not the value we “understand” it has, but the value we “feel” it has. When parents remind kids that drug use and recklessness is risking their "future", this is an abstract notion they cannot grasp in a significant way. The “future” to an adolescent is abstract. When elementary kids are taught to “beware of strangers”, adults naturally assume this implication is understood. Parents have a rather collective image or definition of “a stranger”. A “Stranger” to an adult literally means anyone and everyone you are not acquainted with, but when elementary school kids were asked after these programs to describe a “stranger” they often describe a person with monstrous, toothless, dirty troll-like qualities. When a “dangerous stranger” was described to them it did not include a physical description, so their mind created one and- in their world- a dangerous man would look like a troll from a story, not a regular guy! Parents and teachers assume that the idea or image of a “stranger” is universal and they therefore do not adequately describe what “stranger danger” truly is or looks like. Kids then assume a threatening “stranger” is scary to look at and therefore easy to identify. This means they are at big risk for the more common threat: the pedophile who looks normal and acts very nice and friendly: “well… that can’t be the stranger I was warned of!” And off they go into the van…
What is apparent and obvious to some, even many, is not apparent to others. Therefore, the “better-sober-life” is not something the addict can see nor imagine the same way the healthy, non-addict does. A disordered addict mind sees the unfamiliar, sober life like that troll; something scary and unfamiliar.
3. TRAGEDY
Sometimes addicts die and sometimes they die from overdose or other drug related incidents. The shock of losing someone can be a horrific jolt that wakes up the addict with a profound, tragic, Rock-Bottom moment. Rock-Bottom could be triggered by a loss of a friend, lover or family member due to a drug related cause like an O.D. or the loss could be through a break up or family and dear friends they thought they could count on forever detaching and separating due to the excessive drug use. Loss is risky because often an addict might truly feel they don't have anything to try for anymore and can therefore go even deeper into drugs, giving up entirely. During or following a loss-crisis I like to encourage addicts and family members to have hope but ONLY as a possibility! Hope does not make recovering from losses a certainty; recovering from losses requires work, not hope. While there are no guarantees such work will pay dividends, all the “hope” in the universe may not create a “happy” life either. The slightest ray of hope that something could bring them back into the folds of those who they loved but lost along the way can be essential to accessing the strength to fight on and do the work. Anything is possible, but only misery and failure through using is assured and truly certain!
While there’s no guarantees sobriety will bring happiness there is an absolute guarantee that addictive-using life will sustain misery!
RECOVERY MODE
Unfortunately, an addict will not shift into “recovery mode” until that moment comes when they have a personal desire that is bigger than the desire to do drugs (so it needs to be HUGE because drugs are awesome!). Since the desire to do drugs, as scientifically explained earlier, is an overwhelming desire, the “bigger-desire moment” is hard to attain or even perceive. As a counselor, one of my main objectives is to help the addict find something profound in their lives or existence that means more to them than dope does, which will then override the subconscious desire for drugs. This bigger desire will not remove the drug desire, but it will supersede and displace it.
I do not enjoy doing dishes, but I require a semi-clean and organized home to feel sensible and in ordered! My desire for clean dishes outweighs my contempt for the chore of washing them! My desire for a nice car or house outweighs my desire to sleep in and avoid work and bills. One set of desires displaces the others.
Awareness of personal values needs cultivation and takes time. Trying to get them to manage, slow down or abstain from drugs is paramount to buy time in order to figure that “bigger-desire” thing out. The catch is this: If they see and connect with that profound “bigger-desire thing” they will then feel motivated and access a dormant inner-strength needed to commit to recovery, but when someone's thinking is influenced by the addictive mindset, it is not likely they will have enough clarity to recognize a “bigger-desire thing” in their life even if it came along and smacked them in the rear! So… forcing and pushing for abstinence is key. They need clarity to see and connect with the “bigger desire”, therefore we need to buy as much sober time as possible (this will be explained in "Abstinence Vs. Sobriety”). It’s a catch-22:
1. Can’t get motivated unless clarity of true life objectives is present-
2. Can’t get clarity without abstinence-
3. Can’t get abstinence until motivated (back to #1)!
Clarity spawns motivation and motivation spawns clarity, yet: no clarity=no motivation and no motivation=no clarity! No wonder why addiction kills.
HOPE Vs. CONFIDENCE
Hope: To desire with expectation of obtainment.
Confidence: A quality or state of being certain.
Hope and confidence are essential to recovery. They are required ingredients of success in all endeavors. The healthiest and most productive ratio of these needed ingredients is 30% hope and 70% confidence.
· How to Hope:
Believe. Believe in what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. Hope is free and anyone can do it at any time about anything in particular. Hope is an emotional quality and can add to our courage and endurance as we hope and believe that our efforts will pay off in results. We do not require evidence, knowledge or facts to have hope. We only need to choose it and believe in it.
However…
Belief and hope is rooted in opinion and opinion is a subjective reality, meaning it depends on an individuals’ perspective and understanding. Remember that subjective perception is dependent upon an individuals’ particular view and an objective perception is not dependent upon anything as it is a component of reality. The prior example of rain: the subjective perception of rain can be good or bad by varying degrees, but the objective reality of rain is exempt of a perception of “good” or “bad”: it is “WET” and that’s all. We can say wet in Spanish as “mojado” or in German as “nass”, but regardless of the word being used the objective quality of it is universal: it is “wet” as in, “not dry”. Anyone who disagrees that water and rain is “wet” is living in a delusional and entirely subjective reality that is simply NOT real- I don’t care what they “believe” or “hope”.
Hope is integral and gives us strength and motivation, but it does not get the job done. All the hope in the world will not guarantee the next card dealt will be an Ace. If we get the card we hoped for we will assuredly believe our hope was the catalyzing factor that brought it about. However, if we get any other card then unfulfilled hope is rarely cursed or blamed, it is merely discarded like the unwanted card! Hope gets much of the credit when things go favorably but none of the blame when things go awry. Have hope. It’s integral, but do not rely on it: Hope is not magic.
· How to have confidence:
Confidence is not free. It costs time and effort. It takes time and effort to gain knowledge, and it takes insight and practice to build a relationship with reason. I have confidence that when I put gas in my car it will run. I have confidence that if I turn on a light I will see better as light will fill the space. If we read instructions on baking a cake and the instructions are thorough and we follow them in detail we can have confidence that a cake will be produced. If we practice by making many cakes we will gain experience and also confidence that following the recipe in detail will indeed produce a cake, likely a good cake. Not hope- but practice- will build our confidence. Too much confidence is not a good thing as it makes us lazy from a false sense of security. Not enough and we will apply only half-hearted efforts. We need the right ratio of confidence: not so much we feel entitled, but not so little we’re weak.Confidence and hope are very similar with the exception that confidence is rooted more in certainty and hope is rooted more in belief.
Hope can and should be rooted in confidence and confidence should be rooted in hope.
Have hope… that knowledge and opportunity comes your way. Have confidence… that you will take advantage of that knowledge and those opportunities. Have hope… that there’s a way out. Have confidence… you will work hard to find and use it.
Regarding the accident that virtually crippled me, I told my partner/wife: “If… it’s humanly possible for a human to recover from this, then I will do it. If it’s not humanly possible then it’s out of my hands and I will try in vain. I hope it is possible, but I am confident that if it’s possible I WILL do it.”
Blend recovery with both: 30% hope, 70% confidence.
A parable of “hope”:
A man’s town was being washed away by floods. His neighbors and family asked him to leave town with them before the flood hit and he said, “It’s ok… God will save me!”
The flood came and his house was covered in water, forcing him to the roof to escape drowning. A man in a boat motored by and offered to save him, “Nope,” he said, “It’s ok… God will save me!”
Soon, a helicopter flew over his roof and when the pilots saw him they lowered a rope to rescue him, “No, thanks… It’s ok… God will save me!” He had a lot of hope.
When he drowned and got to the gates of heaven he asked why God had not saved him and was told, “what’re you talkin about?! He sent you friends and neighbors, a man in a boat and a helicopter- all of which you refused!”
Hope is not magic; it is opportunity. Confidence is being willing to exploit and capitalize on hopeful opportunities. Pray, believe and hope- to be sure! But also get in the boat when it comes- do the work!
I hope that divine forces are working on my behalf and I have confidence that I will take advantage of any opportunity presented to me. I will sacrifice and work hard to keep my mind sharp, my character good and my body healthy so I can climb that rope into the copter when it comes!
REALIZATION Vs. KNOWING
There is a difference between realizing and knowing. Knowing something is to accept it as truth. Realizing something, i.e. having realization, is thorough, complete and absolute.
Realization is a personal identification of the truth of a things nature and essence.
An addict cannot simply believe drugs equal suffering. They must go on to know it and eventually realize it.
For the sake of understanding the concept it can be interpreted as degrees. The first degree of recovery is triggered by belief so recovery is seriously considered. The 2nd degree is triggered by knowledge and an acceptance of truth has taken hold. The 3rd and final one is through realization and there is absolute certainty that recovery is the only option.
LIKE A HOT STOVE
Addiction is like a hot stove. If you turn it on and let it get red hot and place your hand on it you will get burned. Now I seriously doubt anyone reading this will attempt that (please don’t). You know what ‘hot’ is and you don't have to get burned by it to know with complete and total faith or confidence that it will hurt like hell. There is no doubt in your mind, whatsoever, that the hot stove top will burn you bad. So you don't touch it. Yet, somehow, with drugs you keep convincing yourself that you can mess around with it and not get burned: That this time will be different. When we have 100% faith and 100% understanding and confidence that we will get burned 100% of the time… not 99.99999999% faith and understanding, but 100%... we will stop. Realization is knowing 100% that if we use we will get burned. Program it in your head. Hard wire it. Never even consider for a moment that you can touch it and avoid getting burned. Your faith and belief and understanding must be cultivated until it is 100%. I wouldn't put my hand on a red hot stove and I cannot use drugs with any illusion of safety. I will get burned!
100% of the time!
INEVITABILITY
Logic. The logic behind the inevitability of quitting is simple. Using is a dead end (often literally). It is only a matter of time before the 0% pleasure, 100% pain principle plays out. The moment an addict actually and fully realizes and accepts this simple logic the sooner they may decide to enter into recovery and truly try. It is the family's and counselor's job to bring them to this realization which is so often postponed due to involved people who are enabling or toxic influences. The rug must be pulled out, the losses must be felt. This is covered in more detail in the upcoming section on intervention.
Quitting is inevitable. The only variables are when and will it be on your terms or its terms?
Comments