Failure is NOT final…

First of all, as with most all of my discussion articles, I like to define my primary terms. Failure can be perceived differently from the different and unique viewpoints of multiple people. A person who is only interested in the final outcome of an activity would consider it to be an “Outcome Failure” if the core issue has not been resolved or a core need is not met. A failure can also be a process failure whereby although the activity is completed successfully, a person may still feel dissatisfied if the underlying process is perceived to be below expected standards.

Failure isn’t final unless one desires their failure to be final, that is, because we determine when or whether to give up on something or not. If we choose to surrender and are no longer willing to attempt that which we have previously failed, we have chosen to make failure permanent. The truth is, though, that we do not have to accept this reality of failure. We can try and try again, as much as we must! For failure made temporary, is to turn failure into lessons. And when one accomplishes this, not only has the failure been made temporary, but it has also been turned into valuable knowledge and experience. Knowledge and experience combine to make wisdom, and wisdom cannot be taught or obtained by any other means on this earth. Therefore, without failure, one cannot attain wisdom, and when one accepts failure as final, they prevent themselves from reaping the grand benefits had through perseverance. The lessons and wisdom obtained through said lessons are permanent.

What is the opposite of failure? Victory? Perhaps it is achievement, or completion? Failure is the state or condition of not meeting a desirable or intended objective, and may be viewed as the opposite of success.

I strongly suspect that one of the many ‘purposes’ or ‘meanings’ of the human life experience that we all share is to not only identify the good that exists and sometimes hides within the bad, but sometimes also to transform that which is bad into good. This requires perseverance, determination, motivation, and conviction, and nothing short of these will suffice. Although failing to achieve a particular goal, or obtain a desired result can be degrading, and can diminish one’s motivation or determination to continue striving for success, failure can also be turned into the greatest motivation. The more one fails, the greater their chances of success are in the future. The key is, to keep trying! Failing gives insight that is otherwise unattainable and unknowable.

When I reflect on my life and I think of all the times I have failed at something, or failed to succeed, or failed to meet my own or another’s standards, etc., I cannot ignore the immense help that those failures ultimately had in my achieving greater success later on. Failures are indicators that we must approach something differently. And as every single person interacts with every single thing and each situation differently, only can we as individuals identify the things which we should do differently. If we really investigate our failures, we can learn a lot about our true intentions as well. We may have failed something because we really weren’t too compelled to have gotten it, but were just sort of going along with life, not truly understanding why or whether we should have pursued that specific thing or not.

We typically have a harder time failing when it is failing to achieve or obtain something we really truly want or require. When we experience a failure during the endeavor of something unimportant, uninteresting, or unbeneficial to you, not succeeding is irrelevant and does not impact you in a powerful or negative way. Maybe when we fail going after the greater things in life, it’s because we are trying to take and have good things, but are going about getting and having those good things in bad ways. We must always realize the caliber of motivation, dedication, and involvement we will be required to express when endeavoring toward a task or goal. Never underestimate a goal, and never underestimate yourself, either.

The most potent example of success due to the unacceptance of failure in my life has to be in regard to my recovery and long-term abstinence from opiate and heroin addiction. I was ‘hopelessly’ addicted and dependent on the drugs to do anything at all. When I sank deeper into my addiction, and my life began to deteriorate at greater rates and in greater magnitudes, impacting me and others in my life in ways that I was not willing to accept, I tried to get myself out from underneath the smothering heroin addiction that was killing me. I experienced four failed attempts at getting clean, not even sustaining a separation from the drugs for more than 11 days- which was my longest period of sobriety in the near ten-year period of addiction. These failures were degrading. These failures were demoralizing, and only enhanced the sense of hopelessness I had toward my chances of getting clean and free of addiction once and for all. I began to accept the fact that I was just going to be a guy who needed heroin every 8 hours or less for the rest of his life, or die when that can’t happen. On the other hand, I also now knew what not to do when it came to any future attempts at getting clean. I knew what did not work, I knew what I could do different, and had knowledge of what I could have done differently and what I thought and felt would work if only such things could be made reality.

When it came time for me to confront my situation with its end in sight, I approached it differently than before. I knew that simply smashing into rock bottom on some unspecified or prepared for day would not work out for the long-term good. I knew that I must prepare and plan while still using the drug. I accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to do anything without using, so I must set up my recovery before the cessation of the drug use. From my past failures, I now understood that I must taper my drug intake, because the times I had detoxed from my lesser daily intakes- before my habit had fully matured- were less traumatic and intense. I also knew from my past failures what my options were and what those options entailed: I could make an informed decision about MAT or at-home detox, in-patient or out-patient, etc. Deciding that I would taper for several months while adjusting my life circumstances to depart from my entire life situation with as little stress and mess as possible. I knew that I would have to leave my job, my apartment, my independence, my friends (which I had already lost, anyway), and essentially leave behind every environment and community and all the settings and characters of my life so that I could wholly focus on my recovery in a fresh, new setting, without the old, poison life reaching its tentacles into the new, fresh setting. I had to also set up a support system, and remove myself from any physical abilities of attaining drugs if I were to seek relapse or succumb to the pressures and stresses of sobriety.

With all that I knew from my failures, I now had a good idea of what it would require of me and really take from me to succeed. I would not have been able to succeed at all if I would have given up. But I was able to ultimately succeed, which would have never happened without first making those several failed attempts. The lesson here, is that failure does not mean something cannot be done, or should not be done, but rather that it merely requires more than you are currently putting into succeeding, or more than you currently have in order to succeed. Most successes require one or more failures to finally manifest and be reached. Knowing this, we must not be discouraged by our failure, nor should we see failure as a negative thing, or something we do not wish to experience. On the contrary, we should embrace failure, and look forward to failure, as it is the greatest means of achieving greater successes than otherwise and previously possible!

Sometimes I think about my recovery: if I would have succeeded in my sobriety the first time I attempted it, I cannot say that I would be experiencing the long-term stability that I currently am. I would have been robbed of the powerful and deeply-transforming lessons that have propelled me to the success that I am living with now. I went from a hopeless heroin junkie living in a ratty garage, to a clean and serene, published author, born again Christian, uncle, straight-A student in college, dependable son, idolized big brother, and legal driver! I am free of probation, I have overcome a felony, I have clean urine, I have a driver’s license, I have a paid-off vehicle, I have healthier relationships with my family than ever before in my entire life, I am head of an opiate recovery ministry through my church, I am reliable and trusted, I am self-sufficient, I have a savings account and checking account- both with money in them, and I even have car insurance! But most of all, I am simply alive and happy! The single source of motivation that has propelled this transformation from dope to divinity, was how I used my past failures. I knew what it meant to fail, thus enabling me to know what it takes to succeed. I could not have done it without Christ, either. All glory to God in the Highest.

You’ll never appreciate success like you do when you

have overcome failure to get there.

Don’t Underestimate the Subtle Things

Recently we learned about PAWS- Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome. The symptoms and effects of PAWS are not overtly noticeable, therefore harder to identify which is why PAWS is rarely understood as the source of our post-addiction struggles, like confusion, losing track of an idea or thought while communicating it, emotional instability and over-reaction, sudden and temporary coordination problems, lack of motivation, etc. We often do not assume PAWS to be affecting us, as we do not notice them like typical withdrawal symptoms. This is because they are nothing like the overt, powerful, and obvious withdrawal symptoms that occur during addiction; the types of ailments we experience through the onset of PAWS are subtle, harder to detect and therefore harder to manage and take preventative actions against. May I suggest that the subtle things in our lives are potentially the most powerful and detrimental obstacles we face in addiction recovery.

When I came clean, and was getting past the initial shock and awe of being independent of opiates for basic comfort and functionality, I began to clearly see the immense negativity in my life. Through a clarity of mind that was previously not present due to the numbing and haziness of the drugs, I was now able to see and feel the negative impacts that simple, seemingly unimportant things were having on my life. My clothing, the images on the shirts I wore, the style of pants and shorts, and the overall look of my clothing was so negative and depressing. Even my hair had to go, thus compelling me to cut my hair and comb it for the first time in years. I began to refrain from listening to my music, as all the CDs that I had loved and cherished for my entire life up unto this point were all evil, intensely negative, and provoking bad thoughts and feelings. The artwork that I had surrounded myself with, whether my tattoos, posters on the wall, the t-shirts as I mentioned already, or any other possession or decorative thing I had in my life was consistently dark, depressing, angry, and negative.

There are two reasons that I was finding the life I had previously built up around myself before and during my drug addiction no longer tenable, no longer in sync with outwardly expressing my internal realities. One, I no longer identify with such negativity. As the way we dress, the music we listen to, and all the individual things that shape our presentation of ourselves to the world, communicates to others about our personality and interests, communicates to ourselves the way we feel and are perceived by others, and I was no longer willing to communicate the same things that I was previously communicating while using drugs and having a careless outlook on life due to the drugs. Secondly, I was now able to feel the full impact that these things were having on me, and no longer desired such influences and things in my life. Our outer reality and the many manifestations of it are direct indications and descriptions of our inner reality.

Now, one who does enjoy and does relate to these specific things that I now reject may disagree with my observations that such things are indeed negative. As the statement that I no longer relate to said things, because I deem them negative is my opinion, aren’t such things subjective? Each individual has their own truth in regard to particular things, therefore, these things are not negative in and of themselves, but rather negative in the sense that they no longer provoke positivity in my life. This is valid, but now we must think on why such things are positive to the individual who enjoys them. I used to like wearing black clothes with images of skulls, death, smoke and fire, offensive language and statements, or drug-related propaganda on printed on them- but why? Well, it represented that which I took interest in. But why was I interested in such things? Because such things gave me pleasure, gave me satisfaction. Drugs made me feel good, enabling me to escape the hell I was living in. The imagery of death, skulls, etc. displayed to others that I was comfortable living in hell, found enjoyment in the others’ displeasure of such things, and that I stood for rebellion and chaos against the domesticated, regulated, consistent and controlled lifestyles of those who disagreed with my style and mentality. I could relate to these things I am now describing, I understood them and identified with the appeal of them. What we wear, what we use in presenting ourselves to the world around us, are things that represent our inner mentality. Inside, I was living in torment, displeasure, ugliness, and death- therefore, these were the things that manifested in my clothing, music, and taste in style and desired influences. When we relate to something, we often set up our surroundings to perpetuate that relation. I identified with suffering, pain, death, negativity, depression, etc. therefore I was surrounding myself with all things conducive and illustrative of that.

I propose that once I had overcome my state of illness, I no longer found peace and solace in these things. I no longer related to them. I now sought peace, happiness, positivity, and consistency. Rather than images of torment and chaos, I now identified with smooth, gentle, inviting images of peace and happiness. I enjoyed clean, consistent imagery, instead of messy, emotional representations of an inner reality that I was no longer experiencing. My taste in clothing changed, music, movies, books, etc. I now found pleasure and enjoyment from a presentation of myself that communicated my inner reality of cleansed and gentle consistency, positivity, inviting, happy, sincerity, and peace. The taste for war and destruction had been washed from my mouth, and I no longer took delight in the suffering and displeasure of others, no longer sought to drag others beneath me as a stepping stone for my escape from hell, just to look back on them and watch the panic-stricken agony as their precious and perfect life frayed and degraded, engulfed in flames. I used to think of how quickly those with seemingly wonderful lives, who were always so cheery and positive would whore themselves out in desperate hopelessness, being brought down to ‘my level’. I suppose this is the way in which those at the bottom of life’s pyramid scheme raise themselves up in their own minds, to reinforce the ill, delusional mentality that they have installed to keep themselves seeking more of the same negativity. After all, when you do not have reasons to use drugs and drop out of life, you seek or create reasons.

I used to ask my mother, who is exactly the person I am describing- always having this bubbly, cheery, un-realistic happiness that propels her evermore through life as if she were unaware of the truth that real life is harsh, unforgiving, hopeless, and agonizing taste of hell- “How are you so pleasant all the time? How do you wake up happy and just get up and face the world with a smile? Why do you never consider getting high?!” I would ask in genuine curiosity as to her secret approach to perfect happiness, as well as to gain insight to why I do seek drugs to endure the norms of life. She said, “I don’t know? I guess I just don’t have anything to complain about?” she would say. Even though she did still have struggles, bad days, negative experiences, traumas, emergencies, etc. I thought that perhaps life had just never cast her into the abyss and leave her for dead as life had done to me…but is that really true? Did life do that to me? Or did I willingly jump into that abyss, and now I regret such a decision, and am angry that I cannot get out so easily as I had entered?…

I realized that the drug addict uses because he/she has reasons to. Whether they are justified or not, whether they are genuine or not, whether they are sufficient or not does not matter, for the addict perceives them as such, therefore relies on drugs as their coping mechanism for enduring the life they find themselves in. The positive, happy-go-luck person is not enduring life, for it is not a struggle, or a burden, but an enjoyable and pleasant experience! My mother had no reason to consider using drugs, for she was already experiencing the bliss and satisfaction she desired from life itself, where I found such satisfaction and bliss in escaping life, through the use of drugs.

Addicts perceive themselves as victims, sentenced to this punishment of living life, when in reality, this is not true, but rather a mere point of view. When we give up and dwell on the perceived injustices, the feelings, emotional reactions, the losses, the failures of life, it does certainly seem miserable…especially when we are experiencing withdrawals every few hours, constantly having to procure money for a fix just to physically function without extreme discomfort and pain. Life for the addict is bad, and just perpetuates into worse and worse states of reality until the life ends, jail intervenes with the continuation of the perpetual drug-induced negativity, or that person finally uses those rare and temporary moments of clarity that occur between highs and lows, where you neither need to use, feel like using, or are sick, and you realize that the core, source, and epicenter of your constant and ever-growing suffering is that damn drug you keep using to suppress the hell you are in to start thinking about your escape from the escapist drug use. The drug is both the poison and the cure, the cause and relief of pain, the source and solution of misery…but using the drug that kills to live and using the poison for the cure will never truly and fully eject you from the cycle.

When I looked at my mother’s life and compared it to mine, I looked at her surroundings, her taste, her interests. I had revealed to me a profound insight. What you put into your mind and life, is what you will get out of it. She did not dress like a angry, depressed drug addict who listens to satanic music and smokes pot all day, but dressed very nice and professional. She listened to Christian music and country music. She doesn’t watch TV. She exercises every day, and interacts with other people most of the time. She eats healthy, and takes care of her responsibilities without a single complaint or grudge when paying her bills on time, gassing up the car, or even having to lose money on a bad deal or emergency situation. I was the opposite; always isolating from others, never talking to other people. I did not dress nicely, and rarely looked in a mirror, combed my hair, or brushed my teeth even. I procrastinated and cursed paying debts and argued paying bills and they were always late if paid at all. I would be so angry and curse God Himself when emergencies or bad things occurred in my life, as if it was a direct and personal attack against my ever obtaining peace or happiness. I had a victim’s mentality, the perspective of a victim. I was always being held down and ruined by this or that, or those people, those things, or if this or that wasn’t happening, I could do well or get ahead…but the truth was, that I and I alone was the reason everything was so bad and negative. This is because of the things I surrounded myself with, and the things of my life that I put into myself. What I put in, I got out. I was putting death metal, the color black, drugs, heroin, pot, screaming and intense music, evil and dark imagery, suffering, depression, and anger into my life, and I for some reason expected to get something good, pleasant, fulfilling, positive out of it? Man, was I foolish! I truly did not understand why my life was producing and experiencing nothing but the things I was surrounded with and filling my life with…wow…talk about blind!

when I looked at my mother’s life and compared it to mine, I looked at her surroundings, her taste, her interests. I had revealed to me a profound insight. What you put into your mind and life, is what you will get out of it. She did not dress like a angry, depressed drug addict who listens to satanic music and smokes pot all day, but dressed very nice and professional. She listened to Christian music and country music. She doesn’t watch TV. She exercises every day, and interacts with other people most of the time. She eats healthy, and takes care of her responsibilities without a single complaint or grudge when paying her bills on time, gassing up the car, or even having to lose money on a bad deal or emergency situation. I was the opposite; always isolating from others, never talking to other people. I did not dress nicely, and rarely looked in a mirror, combed my hair, or brushed my teeth even. I procrastinated and cursed paying debts and argued paying bills and they were always late if paid at all. I would be so angry and curse God Himself when emergencies or bad things occurred in my life, as if it was a direct and personal attack against my ever obtaining peace or happiness. I had a victim’s mentality, the perspective of a victim. I was always being held down and ruined by this or that, or those people, those things, or if this or that wasn’t happening, I could do well or get ahead…but the truth was, that I and I alone was the reason everything was so bad and negative. This is because of the things I surrounded myself with, and the things of my life that I put into myself. What I put in, I got out. I was putting death metal, the color black, drugs, heroin, pot, screaming and intense music, evil and dark imagery, suffering, depression, and anger into my life, and I for some reason expected to get something good, pleasant, fulfilling, positive out of it? Man, was I foolish! I truly did not understand why my life was producing and experiencing nothing but the things I was surrounded with and filling my life with…wow…talk about blind!

The Importance of a ‘Clean Break’

What do I mean by a clean break? Well, in the context of leaving one’s addiction behind, making a clean break is a reference to a complete and thorough severance of the past life, so as to make way for the new life without interference or clinging to the old life. A full deletion of all things previously held dear and perceived as important. Nothing shall remain of the old, drug-using lifestyle as you endeavor through the transitions and changes into a life of sobriety.

Why is making a clean break important? During recovery from drug addiction, people are very fragile. They are encountering many new and overwhelming things without their trusty drugs to save them, leaving them exposed and vulnerable as they do not yet have the coping mechanisms established for correctly managing this most intense phase of transformation. Because of this vulnerability, seeming simple stresses, minor obstacles, and unpleasant things can trigger craving and relapse. I like the analogy of a diver in the depths of the deep ocean, observing the life forms and colorful terrain of the sea bottom. Suddenly, an octopus looms near, reaching its tentacles toward his body. As the diver cannot afford to be entangled in the powerful grip of the octopus, nor can he afford to have his air hose or goggles yanked off, he is very much in danger upon the appearance of a basic sea creature. As recovering addicts, when we are confronted with challenges, or old ‘friends’ and acquaintances, or familiar emotions and memories show up in our lives, we are much like the diver facing the octopus’ tentacles. If we do not put sufficient distance between ourselves and the tentacles of our past addiction, we will certainly be snatched and entangled, pulled into the grip of a relapse, or perhaps even death…

Recovery from addiction is difficult enough as it is, which is why one cannot afford to make the mistake of hanging onto old connections to their life of addiction. Delete all means of contact to dealers, drug users, and those who instigate or tolerate drug use. There will always be a deep, inner personality within you that likes to use drugs, will use drugs, and wants to use drugs, which you must do well to sabotage and take preventative actions against in preparation for those moments when that personality takes the wheel of your life. No matter how long one has been clean or has been in recovery or even has been doing well for many years, moments or overwhelming stress, weakness, or temptation can immediately incarnate that personality and you will have relapsed before you know it. Therefore, put up barriers against this altered mood’s personality so that it cannot ruin your sobriety and stability, even if it does show up one day.

Because abstinence in itself is so difficult for the recovering addict, it takes everything one has just to establish and sustain it. Having lingering problems from your addiction that have not been dealt with- like debts, legal obligations, and other un-solved issues that continue to affect your life and require your focus, etc. causes unnecessary stress, drains your confidence and will to prevail, and takes your focus away from your priority, which is to simplify your life, deal with your psycho-emotional state, and most importantly, remain sober. Before you can recover successfully, any sources of stress, irritation, or any duties or responsibilities must be dealt with, handled, and resolved before you move on to getting sober. I recommend- if at all possible-dealing  with all the loose-ends in your life and tie them all up into a nice, tight bow before moving on in your transition to recovery. While still in active addiction, as part of your preparation to recover, lower the intake of drugs and use whatever means and money possible to annihilate all responsibilities, debts, and obligations so that you will not have them weighing on your conscious, or showing up to test and irritate you during your vulnerable, sensitive phases of recovery. A major stumbling block for recovering addicts is having to face problems and old negative situations while navigating the new life of sobriety and trying to stay away from drugs and the triggers to use.

I cannot emphasize densely enough the importance of simplification to your life. While sorting through your life during preparation for your recovery from addiction, it is wise to make a list of all the things you are responsible for; list your bills, debts, responsibilities, obligations, and other things of importance that you are tied to or involved in. After making the list, start to sort these things out, putting them into categories. Categorize them according to things that will have negative effects on you for leaving without handling, and things that you can easily leave behind with no worry of them resurfacing later. All financial and legal responsibilities should be organized so that you know exactly what you must do to end them, whether it’s figuring out how much money you may owe, getting your payments arranged and figured out. Legal issues must be organized, and lay out exactly what you are required to do, what the possibilities for you are as far as pursuing the end of their power over you, and through this process, you can then estimate or establish the amount of time it may take before these things are no longer an issue that affects you in any way. By organizing your loose-ends, you can then discover the amount of time that you will be tapering for.

For example: you wish to get clean, and you decide that you will begin tapering your daily intake of drugs. But how long shall you taper? The length of time for tapering is important, because everything else rides on this timeline. How long you will taper will gauge the rate of decrease you will initiate. A good starting point would be to plan on tapering for 6 months. This means, that every week, you will decrease your daily intake to a lower amount, and over the course of 6 months, this will provide a comfortable rate of decrease for the user.

Now, plug in your data regarding your legal and financial responsibilities, employment, living situation, vehicle, etc. Plan on when you will leave your job, letting your employer know ahead of time, most likely two weeks in advance to your actual cessation of work. Also plan on telling your landlord, or renter that you will be moving out at least a month before you actually do. Organize your money and debts to figure out what you owe and to who. Prioritize this information, paying back the debts that have the most immediate and powerful impact on your life and ability to proceed with your recovery plan. If you have legal issues, figure out how long you will be under legal supervision, or figure out the payments you still have remaining before you will no longer be attached to legal ramifications for failure to pay or appear. When you have all of this figured out, you will then realize that 6 months is not enough time, or plenty of time.

The basic idea here is to align everything in your life to fall into suit with your schedule of tapering and pre-set date of detox and recovery. It is important to set a date ahead of time so as to motivate yourself, and to organize the rest of your life around that date. This will give you a schedule, a time period, and determine the rates of speed and decrease for you to taper and sever your debts and obligations. Ideally, you want to encounter your detox date with minimal to absolutely no responsibilities or obligations to anyone or anything. You want to be able to focus completely on yourself and endure the detox process, or MAT process with no irritations, no issues, no worries beyond the stresses and worries of the recovery process itself. Entering recovery with no debts, no legal issues, no lingering problems or toxic relationships, no contacts to drugs or users, etc. will increase your chances of success by a lot.

Realize that you are disconnecting from one life, and connecting yourself to another. But, in order to disconnect, you must first accomplish certain things which will enable you to fully and smoothly disconnect from the life you are currently in, and after disconnecting, make the proper moves to align yourself for connection to the new life of sobriety. That in-between stage where you are disconnected from the old life and not yet connected to the new life we will refer to as the ‘initial recovery’ phase.

Your old life must be absolutely dead to you; no longer accessible to you. Shearing it from you completely, with no attachments left intact. You will now be free of the chains that held you in bondage to drug addiction mindset and behavior.

Probably the most powerful thing an addict can do, is delete all the contacts out of their phone for drug dealers, drug users, or any person that can obtain drugs or knows anyone else who could obtain drugs. This is difficult, even for the genuinely serious addict wanting recovery. For some reason, there is a powerful inner force that always tries leaving some sort of trail of crumbs for finding those drugs at some point in the future; “just in case…”, you always try and save at least one contact so that if you do relapse, or if you do give up, or if you do encounter problems and decide to get high, you will be able to get the drugs. You must learn to take preventative actions against yourself. While you are in a clear, convicted state of mind, and taking measures to succeed in your recovery, also take the time to sabotage any possibilities against that inner addict, for that inner addict may appear at some point down the road. Do so that there is literally no way of obtaining drugs. If it is literally impossible for you to do so- say you are able to score drugs without contact information or phone calls, or whatever, and you can simply go to a house, or spot, take measures to make even this impossible to do. I was glad to not have a car or license during my first few months of recovery, because this prevented me from even thinking about getting drugs, because I knew that is was impossible, and even if I was craving and determined to find a way, there were so many obstacles and risks in place that it was not worth it to me.

If you do not make a clean break from your addiction, and still have phone numbers in your phone, or they are written down on a piece of paper somewhere, or you have spots you can go, or cars you can use, or money you can spend, or whatever else you may utilize in a time of craving or desperation for using, you will struggle more and have less chance of succeeding in your recovery. When you have money again, lock it away where you cannot readily access it. Put it in a family member’s account, or have somebody else keep your safe or lock box, or give it to somebody else to hold onto, or put it into an account and do not keep possession of the debit card. Do whatever it takes to limit yourself! Sabotage every means of acquiring drugs or the things that you would need to use to acquire drugs. Simplify your life, just focus on the next task at hand. Wake up, eat breakfast, eat lunch, eat dinner, sleep…what you do in the meantime should be conducive and productive toward recovery and sobriety, like group meetings, environments and communities of people that are not drug users, not drug oriented, not drug tolerant, and you will be influenced by such things to reinforce your recovery and mindset against drugs.

You must not only simplify your life, but also take measures to influence your mindset. As drug addicts, we have a certain mindset. We tend to have interests that reflect drugs in one way or another, like the music we listen to, media we enjoy, the language we speak with, the clothes we wear and our appearance, the people we are drawn to and idolize, etc. We must start systematically addressing all of these things and changing them. Once the core of your life is removed and replaced with something else, for example: swapping heroin for Jesus Christ, soon all the rest of your life and interests will change. Instead of metal music and stoner doom music, I listen to gospel music, sermons, and preachers; instead of dressing dingy and in dark colors, I like to dress clean and nice, realizing that my appearance communicates much about my character and my values; instead of looking at perverse and violent videos and images through the internet and media, I watch sermons and Bible studies; instead of speaking like a hooker in a tattoo shop, I speak like I am attending a pastor’s funeral; instead of looking up to rock stars, drug addicts, and various other ‘rebellious’ people that have put dark and negative things into the world, I look up to Jesus Christ.