I drank
alcohol, smoked cigarettes, and ate brownies to change the
way I felt. If I didn't like the way I felt,
I did all that to feel better. If I liked the way I felt,
I did all that to enhance the feeling. Without the tools
I'm sharing here, I'd either drink, smoke, and eat crap
again, or I'd be miserable. These tools lead me to peace
without my addictions.
During my years of addiction to alcohol,
nicotine, and sloth, I had many good times, enjoyed my family,
and had professional success. At the same time, life was
pure hell – a paradox. My life now is very different.
I revel in awakening and, even more incredibly, going to
bed at night. I now fall asleep easily. I treasure each
of life’s moments and am full of gratitude. Now, I
want to tell you about some of the things I’ve learned
to make that happen. Think of this as a sampler. I’m
not writing a textbook. I’m just trying to let you
know that change is possible and tell you about some of
the tools I use keep getting better.
You need to know this: What I'm
presenting isn’t theory to me. I’m in my seventh
year without alcohol and cigarettes and fifth year of significantly
improved health – both physical and mental. What I’ve
done has worked for me and I’m sharing it with you.
But, it doesn’t matter to me even a tiny little bit
if you do what I’ve done or not.
This website is meant to be a starting point, not a textbook.
You can spend the rest of your life being miserable and
arguing theory, or you can quit talking, take action, and
get better. The latter is a better course of action, I think.
Which strategy you follow is irrelevant, as long as it works.
People make this a whole lot harder than it needs to be.
Here’s what you do: Pick a strategy and try it. If
you do exactly what the theorist suggests and it works both
short and long term, keep doing it. If it doesn’t
work for you, try something else. If you don’t do
what is suggested, or only do bits and pieces of it, and
it doesn’t work, don’t say the strategy is flawed.
Look in the mirror for that.
Bad things have happened since my last drink of alcohol,
my last cigarette, and my last Snickers binge, I’ve
been diagnosed with heart disease, had another potentially
fatal heart condition called long q-t syndrome confirmed,
burned my house while trying to grill chicken, dealt with
my wife’s suicide attempt, worried about my daughters’
life decisions, seen my mother in a near coma, led the move
of my mother-in-law who is suffering form dementia into
assisted living when she didn’t want to go, worked
with several families whose children have been killed in
automobile accidents – just to name a few difficulties
that have arisen. The difference between my life before
sobriety and now is that the bad stuff doesn’t define
me anymore. Bad stuff happens; I use what I’ve learned
in sobriety to deal with it, and move on – all the
while still relishing life.
You'll recognize some of these tools as those alcoholics
use and you'll think they don't apply to you. Don't think
that. Listen to this: They work for anything. I
use them when I want to smoke a cigarette, when I want to
eat something I shouldn't, and when I'm just plain feeling
down. I didn't make up any of these. I apply my own perspective
on them, but I learned these things from others. They work
for me, so I want to pass them along.
The Tools
Shouldn’t even a sampling of the
tools that hold the key to happiness be hundreds of pages
long and full of complicated, intricate thought that the
reader has to puzzle out? Isn’t that the way of things?
Don’t books about finding happiness in life have to
be thick and intricate? Isn’t life way too full of
complications for these simple principles and notions to
work?
No, it isn’t. Not at all.
Some folks insist on making life hard and complicated. If
you’re one of those, these tools and principles won’t
help you. Nothing will. You will get what you want –
continued misery. For those who want to get better, I can
tell you these tools have helped me get better and stay
better. This isn’t theory from the pulpit. I’ve
lived it. Perhaps you can too.
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