“In the course of history many more people have died for their drink and their dope than have died for their religion or their country.” ~Aldous Huxley.

 

 

Drink, pills, bets or sex,

Plenty of tempting poisons,

All for mind, body and soul;

Easy to start,

Hard to stop;

False glimpses of heaven,

Real shortcuts to hell,

With gutters and commodes.

Why start a path to nowhere?

Too many reasons—

No needed love,

No self-acceptance,

Simple laziness,

Wrong gene pool,

Bad biochemistry,

Missing something,

Too much pain,

Not enough pleasure,

Or no reason,

At least to understand,

Or know in reality.

The hardest part?

Not starting

The stopping.

Then comes the impossible:

Not quitting the quitting,

To be the true person,

You were born to be,

And not the untrue one,

You’ve sadly become.

That’s when you need

The reason and the support—

From God, friends and love,

With patience and will power,

To take that first step,

From mind to heart to foot;

Not expecting to feel good,

By magic or all at once,

Dealing with reality,

As it really is,

Despite continuing illusions,

As the first step begins.

 

 

     A drop dead handsome, smart young man gets a good education and marries a beautiful, wealthy wife, goes to Hollywood and starts partying with the in-crowd and then starts an irreversible, painfully slow downhill slide to his casket with drugs and alcohol greasing the way. He talks about getting sober but thousands of dollars of rehab and medical bills go unpaid, along with the lack of results.

 

     An older man has thrown his whole life away in the bottle—good job and wonderful family, along with every ounce of self respect and hope. But he decides one day enough is enough and takes the first step towards recovery, without any support.

 

    One man drinks away his job, home, wife and life in fatal car accident killing more than himself.  Another man losses everything, but doesn’t give up and starts all over again to get back all the things he lost.

 

     Breaking the cycle of addiction is one of life’s greatest challenges because there are so many very real obstacles. Just the very first baby-step to recovery requires the near impossible task of trying to see through the fiercely pathological interaction with the tangled mayhem of unconscious motives, conscious thoughts, intense feelings, changed brain biochemistry, overt behavior, the overwhelming hopelessness about the impossible challenges, and the temporary effectiveness of the rewards of the addiction. Add the typical ADHD symptoms of an addict personality and all you get is a blur and motion sickness.

 

    How do some people manage to recover against all odds? I think there are three possible paths:

 

1. Praying for and getting divine help and intervention. This doesn’t happen very often, but just enough to know it is possible.

2. Using brute will power just to prove to yourself and the world it can be done. This happens even less.

3. Finding a reason to do it and then getting the help and support from any available resource, especially # 1 and 2 above. This is probably the most successful path, but it requires more self-exploration, patience, courage, determination and support than most normal people have and in a much more overwhelming situation than most of us are unlucky enough to face.

 

     The potential for breaking the vicious cycle of addiction is like trying to break into the last 5% of elite success reserved for the lonely few who can’t help but know they will get there by just not giving up. Most efforts stop short before the dreams fade.

 

    I have thoughtfully come to the conclusion that a person has to personally discover the only real universal reason for making such a near impossible transformation from a wasted life of addiction to a valued one of sobriety. But this can only happen when the timing is right—not too much or too little pain to see deeply inside yourself to remember your true self, or the person you were born to be.

 

      The addict who opens his or her mind wide enough to take the first step to recovery finds a reason to want to begin making the transformation. This person finally realizes that stopping the addiction is the only way. It is exactly what God and the person both want, because it is the only way to feel the way they really want to feel—happy, loved, satisfied, successful and rewarded for doing the few things in life that really do matter most. Or, alive for the first time in a long while.

 

     Of course the things that really do matter most in life, providing this universal reason , are the same for us all. These things are:

 

 

     And, the only way a person can transform addictive behavior in fulfilling this reason and getting to these highly desired feelings, is by courageously looking inside and accepting the whole package, with the un-quitting determination to make it better day by day through tremendous support of others along the way and with generosity of love.

 

    Although this first step to recovery—finding the reason—is essential to success, it is just the easiest hard part of a lifelong journey forward, with more back-sliding temptations and opportunities than are needed to make the point. But nothing good can come without discovering the right reason to say goodbye to the addiction and hello to sobriety. The right reason does make the journey a little bit easier.