Addiction to Recovery: Unlocking Your Potential

By David E. McCauley

This book, Addiction to Recovery: Unlocking Your Potential, is an accumulation of existential realization, many resources, years of recovery, education, insights, and years working in the field of addiction, with all adepts in the goal of personal transformation from addiction to recovery. This is an integrative approach to living in wellness of recovery. I vacated my own mind through deep personal process, my own form of meditation, and this book came about.

My hope is this book unlocks the potential that advances new insight into the recovery process for each individual by reframing the process in such a way that the right interpretation by the reader will help recovery click into place. What we need to celebrate in recovery is the self-discovery of the individual. I offer my carefully considered overviews and assessments on the best-known treatments (theories) connected to recovery. I have provided a new outlook as a guide for the unwary who had failed at recovery in the past and those just coming into recovery for the first time. I count myself among the autodidacts, the self-taught perpetual student fueled by a passion for new answers and a sense of mission.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781514482940

David E. McCauley

David E. McCauley began his journey and recovery in 1989. Became a member of a twelve-step group and began working in a hospital detox setting for years while earning his certification in alcohol and drug counseling as well as becoming a certified social worker. He later moved on to an outpatient facility then worked with the Division of Youth and Family Services before opening his own outpatient program (Life Skills Counseling) in 1998. After fifteen years in recovery, a single drink led to a major relapse, and in a matter of weeks, the blackouts occurred. McCauley woke up in a hospital surrounded by medical staff and police. He was later sent to prison for crime he does not remember committing. Thus began his journey anew to reclaim his life and recovery, doing a deep, inner soul-searching journey to answer the question of why this all happened. As he regained himself through reading and writing, his meticulous notes were kept on what worked and what doesn’t. This book is a result of that journey.

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Copyright © 2016 by David E. McCauley.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2016905655

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5144-8296-4

      Softcover      978-1-5144-8295-7

      eBook         978-1-5144-8294-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

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Rev. date: 06/10/2016

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CONTENTS

Prologue

Introduction

Chapter 1 Coming into Recovery

Chapter 2 Addiction

Chapter 3 Transformation

Chapter 4 Changing Self

Chapter 5 Self and Soul

Chapter 6 Emotions, Our Inner Being

Chapter 7 Understanding Our Anger

Chapter 8 The Stress of Change, Effects on Your Health

Chapter 9 The Resilient Self and Spiritual Path

Chapter 10 Relationships, Mentorship, Helping Others

Chapter 11 Being Effective in Recovery

Chapter 12 Developing Our Inner Self

Chapter 13 Consciousness and Awareness

Chapter 14 Recovery

Bibliography

Dedication

In memory of my brother Glenn.

With the passing of Glenn, I felt as if a sort of cloud weighed upon me, which kept me below my highest notch of clearness, very much in discernment, an uncertainty in reasoning behind his death. This sense of being cut off at the inner core of my being. Did I possess the power to help him, did I do enough, or did I try too much?

In memory of my loving mother, Jessie McCauley.

To a wonderful mother who never for one minute gave up on me or my dreams, I dedicate every word in this book to you as your inspiration made it all possible.

Heaven has another angel in you.

Prologue

All I have written over the years contained in this book is about the will to survive and the search for answers in a life of recovery. This arduous journey has not come to me without some pain, suffering, and difficulty. But I have written only what I have learned, what I know, and what I’ve experienced in life’s trials and tribulations. I have survived and come out on the other side with a renewed faith, an inner wholeness, and a new vigor for life in recovery. So I offer this as my contribution and explanation of how this journey was accomplished. My only hope is that it might prove helpful to those who suffer from addiction and are interested in seeking answers to full life in recovery.

I hope that everything written here will have meaning to those in need to understand how movement of the mind,body and soul are critical to a renewed life. I have learned myself through this experience, and it is our honesty and the simple truths that set us free to appreciate ourselves. Nothing comes to those who want a better life without some pain, suffering, anguish, reflection, and a deep inner soul-searching journey. We must remove the darkness of pain and suffering that has surrounded our life and step into the light to feel the warmth of life.

No one can do this for you. There are those who can help along the path you are to embark on, but only you can choose to step onto that path. What I have come to understand and learn is lessons in life can be painful and slowly learned as mine had been. My hope is that my journey might be of service to enrich the lives of others. I am embarrassed about the mistakes I have made in my life, but truth be told, I am nevertheless driven to share my story, my journey, so others may not have to make the same mistakes.

I have been given a voice to speak with and a pencil to write with so you may find what you need to help you on the pages of this book. For every movement of our life has a purpose, and the circumstances of each day carve out our actions no matter how small, dull, or routine they may be; our life has meaning, value, and worth. No matter what is affected in your life, it is your responsibility to take care of yourself and hold on to your dignity. The answers lie in recovery. Do not be afraid, believe it, accept it fully with commitment of the heart and you will discover the meaning of happiness, inner peace, and the freedom you so desire.

Recovery is not mine to be given but yours to be taken.

Introduction

This book Addiction to Recovery: Unlocking Your Potential is an accumulation of existential realization, many resources, years of recovery, education, insights, and years working in the field of addiction, with all adepts in the goal of personal transformation from addiction to recovery. This is an integrative approach to living in wellness of recovery. I vacated my own mind through deep personal process, my own form of meditation, and this book came about.

My hope is this book Unlocks the Potential that advances new insight into the recovery process for each individual by reframing the process in such a way that the right interpretation by the reader will help recovery click into place. What we need to celebrate in recovery is the self-discovery of the individual. I offer my carefully considered overviews and assessments on the best-known treatments (theories) connected to recovery. I have provided a new outlook as a guide for the unwary who had failed at recovery in the past and those just coming into recovery for the first time. I count myself among the autodidacts, the self-taught perpetual student fueled by a passion for new answers and a sense of mission.

Any change in any system that you can think of is always ultimately traceable to its roots. What I consider the nuts and bolts of recovery is to be the internal work we do, and the reward is the longevity of lasting change and growth. This book provides a new outlook as a guide for those seeking a new life in recovery.

One must possess a thirst for knowledge, understanding, and spiritual insight. They must open up their own initiatory conduit into a direct inner experience of what life has to offer. In recovery, we are called to engage and dedicate ourselves to the importance of the bigger picture of our life and how we can open up and embody our values and put them into practice. We must recognize the end of addiction as a new beginning and start to formulate new values that we hold close to our hearts. Relapse is an unwanted intruder in the dream of lasting recovery. It is our spiritual wholeness that will last and see us through the trials and tribulations that life can bring.

Recovery is a doorway that leads an open mind to a higher more integrative way of living. It needs to be interpreted as much more than just abstinence. Sobriety needs to be full of a new understanding on how life should be lived with contentment, happiness, inner peace, and new possibilities. One must allow for a higher perspective and not deny the transcendence needed for total transformation of one’s life. Recovery must be inspired by a direct inner experience of the truth in one’s life.

With the concept that all change starts in the mind, in order to have a breakthrough in recovery, it requires a shift of awareness and consciousness in the individual—a shift in how we deal with our problems. Otherwise, recovery becomes meaningless if we cannot frame our problems correctly. When this happens, the awakened mind is open to its potential. One must rise from the unconscious addictive thinking into conscious thinking, where recovery is given meaning and purpose, thus enhancing the individual’s life. It is an essential key to happiness, inner peace, and freedom in recovery.

Addiction to Recovery is a book of knowledge about life in recovery. As knowledge is the answer or answers to the questions of the innermost self. When searching for a better way of life, there can be no evasion as we must push forward to no avail. There can be no shifting of responsibility as it lies completely on the individual

Our answers to many questions of our life lie in our soul, buried under the wounds of our past and present. They must be revealed and understood, learned from, released and let go of for good. Our dignity and self-worth is at stake here, and we must go to any length to bring it out and retain it. We must search into our inner selves if we choose to acquire another view of our life, which can and will give us meaning, purpose, value, dignity, self-worth, self-confidence, and, most of all, freedom from addiction. As we all are, by nature, born with a desire for happiness, inner peace, and freedom to be ourselves as unique individuals.

Our answers lie in the discovery of our inner freedom. It must become self-evident that the reflection you see in the mirror is a result of your inner power that moves you through your daily life. Our outer self is a reflection of who we are on the inside. The key is to possess an inner being for a better outer being. When you accept the reality of your life and where you are at this point you can decide to change the direction of your life as you choose.

With the freedom of choice and free will, you will have many reasons to feel optimistic about your life and future. And this will make a difference between your outlook in recovery and returning to the hell and sickness of addiction. Only failure to accept reality will lead to frustration, despair, and inappropriate choices and a return to active addiction. In recovery, we must heal what is broken. We must start with the inner core of our being. Your inner self makes you who you are.

My writing comes out of a need for new outlook on the recovery process, one that fosters longevity with the new strength, much like a mighty oak tree flexes and survives nature’s wrath. This book is the culmination of many years of recovery a committed constant search into the challenging aspects of sobriety. Every reader will find in here things to agree with and other things to disagree with. For many readers, it will probably be a challenging and innovating journey. Be prepared to dive in head first into the mind, body, soul, and self. My only hope is you find it useful, challenging, and informative to change your life forever.

The path of recovery that you walk is neither predetermined nor clear-cut it is forged in the process of working day by day, listening deeply within your own heart.

I stand on this ground for my fellow men and women believing they have suffered enough from addiction and have thoughts like myself, and in their actions, one will hear, one will seek, one will take, one will heal as one does not have to ask the one who gives.

There is such a clearness as I move forward and an appreciation of this arduous journey I have been on that my only wish is to share this with others like you, my friend. As always, know that I am with you in heart and spirit in your journey.

Yours truly,

David E. McCauley

Chapter 1

Coming into Recovery

When coming into recovery, your life doesn’t end. It will be transformed.

Coming into recovery, we want questions answered.

* How did I get to this point?

* Why am I here?

* What does all this mean?

* What, if anything, am I supposed to do now?

These questions are understandable because recovery confronts the individual with the most momentous option life can present. It calls for one to make life-altering changes of the greatest importance one can ever undertake. Our projected journey down the path that has many bumps and peaks along the way. You are called to live in reality to master yourself and face the difficulties in this journey.

You need to use logic and gain insight into self and, at the same time, laugh at the mistakes you have made in our past. And if you fail along the way, we must not take it seriously. Just get up, brush off our knees, and progress forward. We must rid ourselves of the preconceived notion that we cannot speak of our failures. One must always remember without failure, you cannot have success. In the long run, if you cannot tell everyone what you have done wrong, what you’re doing has been worthless.

Failure is the fire that forges the steel for success.

When coming into recovery, you’re not unhappy. You only think you are. It is only a feeling, a thought that has been so intimately intertwined because of the experience addiction has left in you that it is hard to separate when coming into recovery. You have to let happiness unfold like a flower. It’s important to remain positive and open the window of life as if it were the first time. You need to breathe the fresh air like never before, let your life unfold each day, as it is a new beginning.

Addiction is like a parasite. It eats you alive.

When we are stuck in the throes of addiction, life is something just to cope with. Stuck in the cramping confines of self-centeredness, we need to be released from the bondage that has held us down for so many years. How many times have you said, I don’t know what I want for my life, but every day I do the very thing I hate the most.?

This life of entrapment leads to all the guilt, fear, and despair you feel each and every day. Only recovery can rescue you from this bondage that is choking the life out of you. It will release the bondage that has held you like a prisoner of life. Recovery is the bridge to healing what is broken in your life.

Recovery is the bridge that touches both banks.

When we come into recovery, we are steeped in a delusional world of addiction that has damaged us physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. The tremendous effects of delusional thoughts, thinking, and ideas of life are all denied by the reality of the truth. We must begin to look at our life with clear eyes and a clear mind and see the truth of the damage addiction has done to us. We need to bring the unconsciousness into our conscious awareness so we can change and grow into a new life of recovery.

For the vast majority of people coming into recovery we need sometimes to be knocking on hells door or even be in hell before we realize we need to be saved from ourselves. It is presumptuous to think how bad it must get for the individual before we make a decision to change our life.

At times, one must experience the evilness of addiction at its fullest depths and suffer accordingly because this is the only way he or she can give up and see the light of recovery. How can an individual find out how much he or she needs to be saved if he or she is not quite sure there is nothing they need saving from? And most of all, that there is a better alternative to the pain and suffering in their life.

When we come into recovery, your mind is polluted by addiction and you are mentally deficient. You may think something is wrong with you, but the truth is you need to begin disciplining your mind. Don’t let thoughts run all over you. Keep one foot in front of the other, and focus your mind on what you are doing. Stay in the present moment. Breaking old habits and forming new ones take practice, practice, and more practice. It will be worth it in the end because a wandering mind not trained by discipline can cause one to relapse. With time and patience, you will arrive at a place of concentration without thought it will come naturally.

The only thing that has to change is everything.

When coming into recovery, one needs to put their life in perspective. Because without doing so, we cannot really understand what is happening now in the present moment. Recovery will provide you with a sense of order and purpose in living a life that you can understand, and that you have a special place in the life of others.

Recovery is all about being released from the bondage of addiction. We are held hostage, bound by the constraints of fear—fear of the unknown. Unsure of our pain and suffering will continue in recovery. We must come to terms that life in addiction is meaningless, and it has devoured everything good and has reduced your life to nothing. Recovery will produce happiness, inner peace, and freedom; however, it’s going to take action on our part.

Addiction is a situation etched in sorrow. Recovery is marked by perseverance.

When coming into recovery, every one of us has a history. As an individual, we all have our limitations of a conscious outlook, and therefore, it requires a compensatory adjustment period. Each one of us changes and grows at a different pace depending upon the baggage we carry from our past and even our current situation. The environment we find ourselves in plays a major role in change, growth, and how we progress through the stages of recovery.

Sobriety is not accomplished by intellect alone. It must come from inner necessity to no longer live in the pain and suffering of our past but in the present moment with happiness, inner peace, and freedom. We can only accomplish this when we heal what ails us and look at what has caused us to live in this destructive way of life. Our goal should always be to move forward daily as each day brings a lesson to be learned if we are staying focused in the present moment.

When you come to recovery, do not hold your views too firmly, as your mind is very mixed up due to the nature of addiction. Our own erroneous thinking needs time to mend itself, even our judgment strays far from the right. Even in cases of obvious certainty, it is fine to yield and consult another person. Our reasons and views must not escape our awareness of where we are in the recovery process.

We must never allow stubbornness to get in the way, as it is our steadfastness of will that leads us down the path we were on and our prudence gets us through the day. You must allow yourself to stay in good judgment and the execution of it. Most importantly, we must stay in a conscious awareness of the present moment and move forward in change and growth. When this happens, we will know we have arrived at a new place in our life.

You have been blinded by addiction, and you must come to terms with this fact before recovery can take root.

When you come into recovery, take interest in all the information you gain in recovery, as your life depends on understanding new knowledge and learning how to live a better life. As human beings, we live by information and experience, not by our senses, as we exist by having faith in others as well.

Coming into the recovery process, we must acquire as much insight and knowledge as we can to live a better lifestyle. This is a very serious time for us to understand this life-changing period. It is certainly a way of learning how to deal with the difficulties of any situation that we come upon. Learning to control yourself at all times is, after all, a new way of living and is also a considerable piece of recovery. In addiction, our life was out of control. In recovery, we must strive to stay in control at all times until it becomes second nature.

Addiction is the most unpleasant thing we do. Recovery is the most pleasant thing we become.

Ending the war that addiction has raged upon us is the most difficult challenge we will ever face in our life. We have to make an informed and conscious choice whether we’re going to embrace recovery and honor a commitment to change our life forever. Hopefully, you have come to understand there are only two choices:

* One is to continue your addiction with its own distinct dire consequences.

* Two; choose recovery that is amplified by principals in our core values.

Once sober, we should now be able to make an informed and conscious choice about what kind of life we want to have and live.

When we are faced with leaving addiction behind and the possibility of a new and perhaps much better life, we are full of doubts and fears and look for compelling reasons not to give up our old lifestyle. All this can affect the mind and paralyze rational thinking. Many are tortured by this thinking even though it makes sense logically at the moment to enter recovery. This rationalization can go on for a long time against all the valid arguments to end the pain, suffering, and change our life for the better. This dilemma is a calling of doing what I know I should do or continuing doing what I know is wrong. Everyone who has weighed this choice is tortured by so many questions.

Yet a decision must be made in all sincerity of what we value in life. When you feel no happiness, no inner peace, and no joy, and when you are always distraught, the logical answer is recovery to resolve your problems. When your mind is in such turmoil and your intellect so poisoned by addiction, it is time to break the pattern that has dominated your life.

You must understand recovery will resolve your problems with addiction as long as action is taken on your part. An open mind and willingness are needed for change and growth to occur. You must listen to the voice of reason when it comes to making decisions. This is a time to move forward with the best intentions each day and strive for happiness, inner peace, and the freedom from addiction.

Many come into recovery, and when the pink cloud has evaporated, they say to themselves This life is not what I thought it would be. This is not what I bargained for. I’m not sure if I made the right choice. I was promised more than this. I am miserable, and this is not serving me well. At least when I was using, I did not feel or care about anything. At this time, you need to re-evaluate what you are doing in recovery and understand there is always some pain when it comes to change and growth.

You must learn to look at your day with acceptance and recognize nothing good comes without a struggle, and we must act accordingly. We must surround ourselves with positive people in recovery for our support and understand it is our willingness that will see us through the hard times. You must stay focused on your daily life and learn to recognize everything that crosses your path with clear eyes and move through each day with a goal and a purpose.

The simple truth is when we enter into a life of recovery, there will be growing pains, problems, and temptations faced by everyone in the beginning. However, when you follow the right path, you will discover the answers lie in understanding that we can never avoid some pain and life’s problems. The greatest gift recovery offers is you’re not alone, and if you stay in the here and now, you will grow stronger and stronger to meet each challenge every day. This life of ours is about learning to accept the truth and act upon it. This is what sets us free.

Always remember people drink and do drugs because they don’t want to be in touch with themselves. Recovery is about being in touch with all of yourself. So if we consciously live in the realization of recovery, then all our thoughts, our thinking, and our every action will bear the fruits of our labor.

When coming into recovery, who does not feel bad about themselves? We are all in need of healing and improvement. If you wish to grow, you must take counsel with yourself, for unless you change yourself inwardly outside changes are only fruitless. We need to do the inner work necessary for change and growth to happen. For without this, we will be the same person we always were, and relapse is inevitable.

All of us come to recovery unpolished, without knowledge on how to live life in sobriety. Every kind of excellence needs some polish. Let recovery be the polish that makes you shine.

When coming into recovery, to make promises to everything is to promise nothing, as promises are the pitfalls of anyone entering into the challenges of changing your life. It is through our change and growth that we show others that we are leading a new lifestyle. The wise man/woman will anticipate mistakes and errors along the way, as this is the way of life. We learn by our experience and gain wisdom along the way when we are open-minded and approach life with composure. We must aspire for a new life and rise up to all the challenges set forth in our journey.

Reality is a matter of what we choose to perceive despite any appearance to the contrary.

The Bottom Line

Face it! Nobody owes you a living. What you achieve in your lifetime is directly related to what you do or fail to do.

No one chooses their parents, childhood, or environment they live in, but we can choose our own direction in this new life of recovery. Everyone has problems and obstacles to overcome, but that too is relative to each individual. Nothing in life is carved in stone. You can change anything in your life if you want it badly enough. Excuses are for losers! Those who take responsibility for their actions are the real winners in life. Winners meet life’s challenges head-on knowing there are no guarantees and give it all they got and never think it’s too late or too early to begin.

As time plays no favorites and will pass whether you act or not, take control of your life. Dare to dream and take risks. If you are not willing to work for your dreams and goals, don’t expect others to believe in you!

Recovery is a bridge for the seeker of the other shore in which a new life can begin.

Chapter 2

Addiction

We are hostage to what we don’t know.

The disease of addiction, regardless of what kind of addiction, is essentially an obsession with power and control. The addicted individual wants control and finds it in the altering of his or her state of mind by indulging in the addictive behavior. In order to recover, one must surrender this desire to control. But surrender to what? The only answer is to surrender to a life of recovery.

One must come to the understanding of their addiction. What is the real problem? Addiction has caused you a fundamental inability to live peacefully and contently, and using only induces a temporary state of relief from your deep, insistent discomfort with life.

So what are your symptoms of all this discomfort in your life?

Is it the fact that you are miserable, unhappy, misunderstood, living with pain, hurt, or past trauma? What do you need to understand about yourself and life to stop self-medicating the symptoms that cause you to self-destruct when problems arise? You do have the choice to stop self-medicating the symptoms and treat the real problems that give rise to the symptoms to begin with.

The quest for meaning and truth makes life worth living.

As addicted individuals, we are perfect at the skill of self-detachment by rising above or below the conscious self, never having to second-guess ourselves when making the difficult decisions because self was never a part of the decision-making process to begin with. In recovery, we need to be conscious not be self-indulgent and self-destructive. We need to understand how to truly break free of it in order to live a life of happiness, inner peace, and freedom in recovery.

Whatever you are trying to run away from with addiction, you will never escape it until you confront it in recovery. Whatever the problem is, you will carry that fear until you face it head-on.

* Is it that you are frightened merely of the answers that you might receive?

* Or are you afraid of the very nature of what they may reveal about yourself?

* Could it be that the answers would change your life forever and you would have no excuse to continue in the self-destruction of addiction?

To gradually overcome addiction, we need to do an excruciating self-examination of our life. We must look at every aspect and contributing factor that got us to this point of no return. We need liberation from the unconscious thoughts of addictive thinking to a consciousness that is our awareness of ourselves and our environment. Our mind and eyes need to be open and see everything as it really is. If we maintain our attention and stay focused, our thoughts, our feelings, and our behavior will change for the better.

We need to witness our moods and emotions non-reactively, neither condemning nor holding onto them. We need to just understand them as a way of change and growth. Recovery is about learning to change into a different person who experiences life in a new way. A poorly focused mind will lead us to delusions of addictive thinking, cravings, hostility, and eventual relapse. Our best thinking comes on we are consciously aware and living in the present moment.

When we are talking about our lives and our very existence in this world, we cannot be true to ourselves and we cannot be in tune with reality if we are obsessed with an illusory image of self that addiction brings upon us. We cannot live in recovery that way, in an illusion of self. The only solution is finding the real self, with strengths, weaknesses, and understanding where your power is, without an illusionary image.

With every addiction comes the problem that the person is primarily obsessed with control. This is why it is so important to actually surrender that control. However, in order to fully address the issue of control, it must be recognized that the person’s desire for control is just that, a desire. In other words, the person has a will. He or she wants to be in control. Coming into recovery says that one has a will to find a new way of life. Fulfilling one’s will is a manifestation of our truest self. When a person can undergo such a change, something incredible begins to happen. Recovery will lead a person into the circumstances most conducive to expressing his or her own desire to stay in recovery.

Over time, addiction fundamentally becomes a disease of isolation. Through active addiction, one becomes wrapped up in themselves and increasingly divorced from everything that is objectively real. By developing the appropriate positive relationships with others, you are gradually released from the prison of self-obsession. There are various kinds of relationships that are needed for our well-being. Not all relationships are the same, nor do they need to be, but all are indispensable. They get us out of ourselves and connect us with reality.

When we look at our addiction closely, you can see how your thinking, thoughts, and destructive behaviors were designed to keep your pain alive for yourself and those around you. So if you don’t face your pain and bring it into the light of your consciousness through awareness, you’ll be forced to relive it over and over and over again. When we live in our pain, how do we live in recovery? It is impossible. We must change our thinking and thoughts and release, relax, and let go of our past pain and understand how our pain has stunted our growth in life and will stunt our growth in recovery.

Staying in the present moment and staying conscious while being in awareness of your inner space, you are present to address any issues around your pain. Staying in the present moment and staying conscious while being in awareness and alert of your inner space, you are present to address any issues around pain. Then they cannot control your thinking, thoughts, or actions. The moment you let your guard down and your pain is aligned with your past, your thoughts identify with it and you begin feeding it, thus setting a relapse in motion.

People touched by addiction need to explore their emotional needs in recovery.

Every addiction arises from an unconscious refusal to face and move through your own pain. Every addiction starts with pain and ends with pain. Whatever your addiction is, you are using something or somebody to cover up your pain. In recovery, we must learn to understand our pain, grow from our pain, and move on for the betterment of our life. If there is no pain, there is no gain. If it wasn’t for pain, how would we know pleasure?

No matter how we arrived at this point in our life, no matter how broken we feel, it is our healing that makes it all worthwhile. One needs to make the most of their life, so we must recognize that our happiness lies within our unhappiness, our pleasure lies over our pain and suffering. In order to bring light into our soul, we must be willing to look into the darkness and heal what is broken.

Life is full of problems, and when you live in those problems, past or present, there is no room for anything new to enter, no room for a solution. Addiction has never been a solution in your life and never will be. So it’s imperative to make room for a solution. Make some room, create some space, and open yourself up so you can find the life you so desire in recovery. Underneath your past life situations is a solution to a better life if you’re willing to open up.

In addiction, you live compulsively in this endless preoccupation, an endless illusion. In recovery, you just need a willingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment, staying focused on the future promise of fulfillment in many different forms. When you are living in present moment, your life will unfold each day.

The fact about addiction is that it is fatal. Whenever there is an addiction present, someone is eventually going to die before their natural lifetime. So getting someone into recovery is paramount to life. Those who get themselves into recovery before death have actually saved themselves quite a bit of misery and heartache of their loved ones.

Addiction questions to ask yourself:

* How much more time do you think you will need before you’re ready for recovery?

* How much more pain do you need before you can make that choice?

* Are you tired of the pain and suffering?

If you think that you need more time, you’ll get more time and more pain and suffering. Always keep in mind, time, pain, and suffering are inseparable when you are stuck in addiction.

An important initial pathway to healing is to simply acknowledge that your addiction is real.

When we are stuck in addiction, we are unenlightened, a state of unconsciousness. Our power and infinite creative potential are concealed in addiction. Your mind and life loses their vibrancy, freshness, and sense of wonder. Patterns of thinking, thoughts, and emotional behavior are acted out in the endless repeat performances. Your mind distorts and covers up the reality of your life. Your addiction and your mind create an obsession, seeing no escape from this unsatisfactory life.

Addiction gives you only what you have largely made yourself. It does not give you what you seek or prefer. Your destiny, the fragmented fate opportune to your particular mission that now has provided you with the physical and mental compulsion that at this appointed time has dragged you from reality into an arena of despair, distant from your desire to live and concealed from your conscious mind for years.

When addiction is the driving force, you will obey this unexpected inner force, this overwhelming life has become the voice of your destiny. Paradoxically, it carries your fate within oneself. Addiction needs to send no attorney to plead its cause. It has you.

Insight into self will penetrate the screen of causes and effects of addiction. External troubles come from your faults and weaknesses of internal character. Having internal insight, you will have good reflection and external events. Internal and external reoccurrence will occur if we repeat ourselves and our circumstances do not change. If an event corresponds to a previous one, this will bring back feelings with the past that have not been dealt with. Symptoms of our inner failure, a self-created suffering and every self-accepted evil, will be unavoidable.

What causes addiction?

What makes an addict an addict is the combination of two factors:

1. We are profoundly disturbed and unsettled with our own existence as an entity apart from others and our spiritual connection.

2. For reasons only known to self can we somehow briefly stimulate relief from this condition by taking our drug of choice.

This is the trap of addiction. The real problem lies at the core of addiction, the dire need to find self and have true relationships with others and our spiritual connection.

Dr. Carl Jung believed that the alcoholic/addict is on a spiritual quest for wholeness because of an incompleteness and emptiness of the individual. The spiritual thirst of our being for wholeness… the union with a god of our understanding.

Often, we are simply unwilling or unable to accept the reality of our addiction and, therefore, to accept our need for recovery.

Many people find themselves stuck in the darkness of addiction that they have not chosen and ask themselves, How did I get here and what am I doing here? It is meaningless that we live in addiction and more meaningless that we die in addiction. Recovery makes us aware of what happens when someone descends into long-term passivity, discouragement, and despair and dies in addiction. When in addiction, our internal self goes flat and everything becomes meaningless and joyless. Recovery is your chance to step out of the darkness and into the light of a renewed life.

Winning the war that addiction has raged upon you can only be won if you do not quit. This is not the time to hit the pause button. It is the time to step up and press play and live your life to the fullest. Enjoy the journey recovery has to offer. When addiction takes over your life, there is no reset button; it’s over. Recovery is the only answer. This is your time to turn your life around. This is no time to quit. It is your time to stand tall and take control of your life. It is the dawn of a new day. Quitters will never win. You must fight for what you want and chase your dreams. Live for today.

Our pain and suffering in addiction are the stimuli to make us do something about our life. Recovery is the path to renewed stimuli, searching for the happiness, inner peace, and freedom we have always desired.

The time has come to stop blaming everyone else. You spend your whole life blaming, but nothing changes. Take ownership of your life, and be responsible for your actions—past, present, and future. If you don’t plant the seed, you’ll never see the harvest.

Addictions stronghold on us is like gravity that pulls our mind, body, and soul downward into the hell we live in daily.

In addiction, people suffer from pollution of the mind, body, and soul. Their whole system is off-balance. This delusional state has obstructed the mind from seeing the true face of people and the reality behind matters and objectives in life. This also has caused us to look at life and our world in a distorted and deviant way. Recovery refers to a living that keeps the mind far away from temptations while maintaining a new life.

When the delusion is cleared and our mind becomes clear to an extent, we give rise to wisdom. With wisdom we are able to see all others and matters in recovery completely and clearly. When our hearts are open, we can see the past, present, and future. Only when we can see our life as a whole can our viewpoint and understanding be considered right. A mind without the slightest pollution sees everything clearly and entirely right.

The fact is your only real weapon against addiction is your mind, and it’s a powerful weapon. But be careful; it’s also a double-edged sword. It’s your protection against what could be a predictable downward spiral into the pain of the abyss, the darkness of addiction, and the return to pain and suffering.

After years of preoccupation with addiction, your mind is numb to reality and the truth. Now without deceit and using practical results will determine the truth in your life. You have come to a point in your life where you’re overwhelmed, terrified, and apprehensive of what will become of your life. Now is the time you need to make yet another turn. It is very important now to start your future equipped with the right principles, values, and a strong character. Patience is needed. In time, the truth will rejoin the mind and there will be peace of mind.

In addiction, the mind believes that, through negativity, it can manipulate reality and get what it wants. It believes that through it, it can attract a desirable condition through the use of chemicals, alcohol, or destructive addictive behavior and it can dissolve any undesirable conditions. In your mind, if you believe you can never achieve happiness without addiction, you will continue to live this lifestyle.

In recovery instead of attracting an undesirable condition, it stops it from arising and growing. In addiction instead of dissolving an undesirable condition it keeps it in place reinforcing your use of destructive behavior. Recovery is the only useful function (tool) that strengthens the mind and as a result one can have a positive outlook and a normal life with many rewards.

When stuck in the cycle of addiction, you don’t want to identify with the negativity in your life, you don’t want to let go, and on a deeper unconscious level, you see no positive change coming out of stopping. You then ignore, deny, or sabotage anything positive in your life. This is the insanity of your addiction that lives in your mind, body, and soul and will never be relinquished until you face your demons in recovery.

When it comes to addiction, what are you defending?

It is only an illusionary identity and image in your mind that you can go on living this way or someday return to using. By making all these thoughts conscious, by identifying with them and bringing them into the light of your consciousness, even the unconscious thoughts will then begin to dissolve. The power struggles between addiction or recovery will weaken, and the true power of recovery will take over in your mind, and you will no longer suffer. The more you are able to honor recovery and accept this new lifestyle, the more you will be free of pain, of suffering, and you will free the mind of obsession.

What is now imperfect in addiction will one day be perfect in recovery.

Your mind is clouded entirely by addiction. It will take great effort of willingness to compartmentalize your pain and suffering to clear a tiny corner of your consciousness so that reason can take over from instinct.

The memory of the pain that you have endured has been seared in your mind, body, and spirit. Even when the physical reality of it has faded, the memory of it must remain sharp and clear for the rest of your life. It is a ghost that lies in; you must invoke all that once was and had been. Use that capacity to relive it in order to keep yourself in this new place you will find in recovery.

The effects of addiction and the insanity of it all are visible in your life. The bondage and suffering has taken its toll on you and the ones that love you. The time has come to break free of a long collective mind-set of patterns that have kept you stuck in addiction for way too long. A new state of awareness and consciousness must emerge. You have suffered long enough. Even from this moment, a new way of thinking is emerging from you as you are reading this and thinking of the possibility of living a free life, a liberated life in which you no longer inflict pain and suffering upon yourself and the ones who love you.

With your addiction is the loss of freedom. You are enslaved by your appetite for your drug of choice and are in bondage to your dependency. Without freedom from these desires, there is no freedom at all, no inner free will. Unless you find your true self, you cannot find your true will. With willingness, we have the full freedom to greatly improve ourselves and our surroundings.

You have lived with a fortlike appearance, a reinforced image of self-importance and that you are impregnable, an image created by addiction that has been an obvious sham in your life, now beyond mere exhaustion, living in this hallucinatory world, doubted in your fears and misperceptions. Now you are at the crossroads of your life, and you need to understand that to get anything in life and of value, you have to sacrifice. You need patience and time to learn about yourself and also understand the recovery process and what it means not to be a slave to addiction. You need to allow yourself to enjoy the gift of sobriety and appreciate the joy of the journey.

If we wish to be free, if we wish to preserve life’s privileges for which we have been so long contending, we need to abandon the struggle in which we have been so long engaged and which we have never wanted to abandon. We must start with addiction’s basic problem, an obsession with self. In order to live happily, one must transcend his or her own ego. Transcending occurs when one connects outside of self with others in recovery. One connects through the fulfillment of a will, not the exertion of self-will but the surrender of it in difference to the will of recovery.

You will not be free of the unpleasant relationships with addiction until you have mentally, emotionally, and physically freed yourself from all the negative thinking, thoughts, and behaviors concerning it. Recovery will free you and show you how to free yourself outwardly.

Addiction has tried to ruin your life, an inanimate object it has labored all your life to make you feel worthless, miserable, unhappy, and undeserving of a real life. Why? Because it does not want you to love yourself and feel you can be loved by others, and so it keeps you a prisoner of mind, body, and soul locked down 24/7 and 365 days a year.

However, as human beings, we uniquely possess free choice to make decisions and take action. We have the ability not just to accept the status quo but also to make positive changes, which is a very desirable trait when taking decisive action and accepting the facts as they are. Some things call for acceptance, and other things call for action. Recovery requires both from us. This is a requirement for change, growth, and a new lifestyle.

One must realize the power of recovery in one’s life. It contains a power that goes beyond words, and it can lead us to a much better, more peaceful, and quieter place beyond our thoughts and dreams, a place where our serenity can flourish and our thought-created problems can dissolve and we can discover what it means to be happy and liberated in our lives.

Active addiction is self-help. I take care of myself the only way I know how because no one else can or will do it the way I do.

Recovery is all help. I can’t go on and continue trying to do for myself what only others can really do for me. Addiction must be arrested by many means. It is in the power of others and their positive reinforcement that you will become empowered with a lifetime of recovery.

Recovery is faith in healing in the truest sense. Recovery is about opening up yourself to a new life, so that you can do whatever you need to do with your life so you can best live your life on a new path.

What works are conforming to certain basic rules outlined in recovery and be immutable laws of the universe (nature) that determine what is healthy eating for the mind, body, and soul? We must do everything possible to live in accordance with them. If we look at recovery as a set of instructions for living according to rules of life (nature), it will help you understand and face the challenges in front of you. Coming out of addiction, a person is in desperate need of learning how to live in harmony with self and others.

"What is now imperfect in addiction