Depending on what you are addicted to…be it drugs, alcohol, women, men, drama, anger, fighting, shopping, food, money, or gambling – it controls you and you do not control it.
My experience in addiction has been with drugs and alcohol. The substances controlled me because every decision I ever made while I was using revolved around “it”.
Most people will say “just stop doing it then.”
I am laughing because if you have ever been truly addicted, obsessed with something…you cannot just stop doing it.
Addiction is a disease of the mind, body and spirit. The mind is the one that seems to have the steering wheel the majority of the time.
Once I was able to get rid of the drugs in my system, receive some of gods grace.. I was then able to learn about my sick mind.
This life saving tool for me is simply ” I am not my thoughts.”
If I close my eyes and visualize a red barn…it does not mean that I am a red barn.
I can do this with any thought that tells me to pick up a drink or a drug. I can do this with any thought that does not soothe my soul.
This has saved my life on many occasions.
The daily addict 
VERY NICE WRITE-UP.
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Thank you kindly ♥️
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“I am not my thoughts” love this!
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So happy you liked it 💜❤️💜
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It is absolutely brilliant. I could not be more pleased you discovered this. And help potentially endless others with the knowing. What grace, indeed.
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Thank you Casey – you are so kind ♥️❤️♥️hopefully it does help even one of us💗💗
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Brilliant. You are my inspiration. 😊😊😊
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Thank you Aparna!! Love to you ❤️🌈
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So very true! I would love to discover WHY we think we are what we imagine. How or why did we begin to think like this? It’s incredibly powerful and can become our worst enemy. So glad the red barn works for you! I guess the real trick is breaking into that negative thought construct and inserting the red barn! Thanks for sharing that… VK ❤
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Ha ha ! Insert red barn or whatever may work that is non destructive of course!! Much love ❤️❤️
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The power of mind over matter is real… You have succeeded because your intention is real and positive to heal yourself.. ❤ Also many do not understand how our minds can be highjacked .
So well done you.. ❤
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The hijacked mind would make a great post! Thank you Sue – hope your enJoying the day❤️
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Thank you, my day now almost done…. And happy the Hijacked sparked an idea 🙂
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“I am not my thoughts.” I re-read those words instantly and said them aloud as I did. This sentence now requires me to do some serious introspection, and I may borrow it for a future blog post as well. Thank you for making the weight I carry on my shoulders just a little bit lighter with that sentence.
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Please write on it! So many are unaware that we are hurting ourselves ❤️💜❤️
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I say “these are just thoughts” … works for all types of obsessive rumination spin cycles … when I can remember that these are just thoughts!😂
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Right!! If I am not a red barn – then what the hell am I ?? Ha ha! Who’s driving the bus here?? Lol! Have a great day Steven ! 💜🌈💜
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Neglecting people dealing with debilitating drug addiction should never be an acceptable or preferable political option. But the callous politics typically involved with addiction funding/services likely reflect conservative electorate opposition, however irrational, towards making proper treatment, which may include ‘harm reduction’ methodology, available to low- and no-income addicts.
Often societally overlooked is that intense addiction usually does not originate from a bout of boredom, where a person repeatedly consumed recreationally but became heavily hooked — and homeless, soon after — on an unregulated often-deadly chemical that eventually destroyed their life and even those of loved-ones.
Tragically, it’s as though some people, however precious their souls, can be considered disposable. Even to an otherwise democratic and relatively civilized nation, their worth(lessness) is measured basically by their sober ‘productivity’ or lack thereof.
Those people may then begin perceiving themselves as worthless and accordingly live their daily lives more haphazardly. Sadly, many of the chronically addicted don’t really care if they overdose and never wake up. It’s not that they necessarily want to die; it’s that they want their pointless corporeal hell to cease and desist. And I don’t think I’m just splitting hairs with that point.
Though I have not been personally affected by the opioid addiction/overdose crisis in my country, I have suffered enough unrelenting ACE-related hyper-anxiety to have known, enjoyed and appreciated the great release upon consuming alcohol and/or THC. Yet, I once was one of those who, while sympathetic, would look down on those who’d ‘allowed’ themselves to become addicted to alcohol and/or illicit hard drugs.
However, upon learning that serious life trauma, notably adverse childhood experiences, is very often behind the addict’s debilitating addiction, I began to understand ball-and-chain self-medicating: The greater the drug-induced euphoria/escape one attains from its use, the more one wants to repeat the experience; and the more intolerable one finds their sober reality, the more pleasurable that escape should be perceived. By extension, the greater one’s mental pain or trauma while sober, the greater the need for escape from reality, thus the more addictive the euphoric escape-form will likely be.
The lasting mental pain resulting from trauma is very formidable yet invisibly confined to inside one’s head. It is solitarily suffered, unlike an openly visible physical disability or condition, which tends to elicit sympathy/empathy from others. It can make every day a mental ordeal, unless the turmoil is prescription and/or illicitly medicated.
The preconceived erroneous notion addicts are simply weak-willed and/or have committed a moral crime is, fortunately, gradually diminishing. Also, we now know that Western pharmaceutical corporations intentionally pushed their very addictive and profitable opiates — I call it the real moral crime — for which they got off relatively lightly, considering the resulting immense suffering and overdose death numbers.
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Thank you for this understanding. I agree with you that the addict suffers quietly and mentally. Most of the time we did not even know we were suffering UNTIL we escaped by using. Then we were stupid not to use – you see.
However – there is a way out and we try to do it daily ❤️
Much love to you ! Thank you kindly
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Albeit perhaps on a subconscious level, there is a similar inhumane devaluation by external-nation [usually of the Western world] attitudes toward the daily civilian lives lost in devastatingly long-drawn-out war zones and famine-stricken nations: the worth of such life will be measured by its overabundance and/or the protracted conditions under which it suffers.
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You continue to amaze me. I love the way you think.
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Thank you friend…it’s actually been a matter of survival…and now I get to enjoy and share ❤️💜❤️
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