Hello Everyone and Good Morning/Afternoon/Night, I hope you’re well!
This article will be regarding addiction, it will touch on the nature of addiction and how to let it go.
I hope this will be insightful and eye opening for you if you suffer from addiction. If you do suffer from addiction I KNOW you can overcome it if that is what you so desire. I believe in you.
What is addiction?
I figure I’ll go ahead and define addiction so that we know what we’re talking about.
Oxford Languages provides a somewhat acceptable definition of addiction:
ad·dic·tion/əˈdikSH(ə)n/ noun: addiction; plural noun: addictions
- the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity.
Notice how Oxford Languages doesn’t provide any judgement within the definition. There is no “good” or “bad” inherently in addiction. The “good” or “bad” comes from the one that is addicted and the impact that such an addiction has on their life.
Addictions can certainly be had in a healthy manageable way.
The Oxford Languages page falls short in my opinion, however, because it uses the word in its own definition!! Blech!
I found that Merriam Webster more properly covers the definition of addiction:
1: a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)
2 : an unusually great interest in something or a need to do or have something
The important difference between the two being these words:
1-strong, harmful, regularly, have/do
2-unusually, great, interest, do/have
If we take a moment to ponder the the relation of these two groups of words we can determine that number one is the negative definition and number two, the positive definition.
The majority of this writing will be concerning definition number one. This is because, as the metaphor goes: a doctor doesn’t go to the healthy people, they go to the sick. As such, I’ll go ahead and get us a look at definition two first, because our real objective is concerned with definition 1.
Before I proceed, just want to really say that I really hope that you don’t feel like I’m being condescending for going over something that appears so simple. I understand it’s simple, but I hope to extrapolate on these terms and their nature within the definition of addiction in such a way that you may not have thought of before. This will allow you/others to better grasp you addiction and do what you will with it. Though some of this may be obvious to you, it may not be obvious to others.
Definition 2 – unusually, great, interest
I mean really, that definition speaks for itself and if you don’t see it then you may not have a pulse.
What I will say about when you possess an instance of definition two in real life you are more likely to be able to utilize your unusual interest in something in order to profit. Let’s remember that money is not the only thing that we may profit in for example feelings, friendship, experience, knowledge. An unusual interest is an out-of-the-ordinary interest, an interest that occurs less frequently and, said differently, is of more value due to its scarcity/lack of prominence.
Great interest, notice how they didn’t say something like the word obsession. You are not fixated on something if your addiction is positive. You are interested, and more than a little. Having an interest in something often leads to the learning of something. Hardly anybody takes the time to learn about the things that they have an interest in, so they are of importance to you in some way or another that you would be willing to take the time to do that.
This definition places doing something before/over having something. The positive definition implying that it is more of an activity and free will rather than something required/compelled/obligated.
Definition 1 – strong, harmful, regularly
Strong, an adamant word to start with.. mostly because adamant is a particularly unyielding substance.
But how does something become strong, it is built and that’s how regularly happens, essentially it’s a habit; it’s like working out a muscle. Actually, it is working out a muscle because as far as addition is concerned, satisfying that addiction leads to the building of neural passageways; it’s like a scratching an itch, or the making of a canyon.
Lastly, harmful. This means it is something that negatively affects us. There are many types of harm aside from the physical. Harm’s parent, the Old English hearm is “hurt, pain; evil, grief; insult” provides some insight. I would also like to point out that harm can be done knowlingly or unknowningly; sometimes we can be completely oblivious to the harm we do ourselves of others.
Harm is interesting, because if you really think about it, it doesn’t necessarily have to exist.
Let’s quickly find a commonly accepted definition of harm right quick here:
Now, why is it possible for no harm to exist?
Well, I would say that’s because it’s purely subjective. If you’ll notice, I bolded the keyword above. “Negatively”. Negatively is a purely subjective word. It depends entirely on judgement.
We can really dive into the word harm and just pull out a few more things to back up the case. So I’m presenting you the idea that harm is subjective, to determine that we’ll have to get to know it better. We’ll do this by taking a closer look its definition and diving deeper.
I think the two keywords in the definition of harm are “damage” and “injury”.
Let’s get to know them a little better, it’s only polite.
Damage
1. physical harm caused to something in such a way as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function.”bombing caused extensive damage to the town” Similar:harm
unwelcome and detrimental effects.”the damage to his reputation was considerable”
2. a sum of money claimed or awarded in compensation for a loss or an injury.” She was awarded $284,000 in damages”
3. inflict physical harm on (something) so as to impair its value, usefulness, or normal function.”the car was badly damaged in the accident”
Injure
1a : to inflict bodily hurt on
b : to impair the soundness of
c : to inflict material damage or loss on
2a : to harm, impair, or tarnish the standing of
b : to give pain to injure a person’s pride
c : to do an injustice to : wrong
Let’s look at damage first
Keywords: Impair value, usefulness, or normal function. unwelcome and detrimental. compensation for loss or an injury.
Impair: to diminish in function, ability, or quality : to weaken or make worse
There we go, we have struck subjectivity! Do you see it? I bolded them for clarity.
Who says what has what is value/use/normal/welcomness/detrimentalness/loss/function/ability/quality?
Every person has different thoughts about that; there are just as many opinions as people.
Time for injury to take the stage
Keywords: bodily hurt. impair soundness. material damage loss.
inflict: 1 – to give by or as if by striking; inflict a painful sting inflict damage. 2 – to cause (something unpleasant) to be endured
soundness: 1 – the state of being in good condition; robustness. 2 – the quality of being based on valid reason or good judgment.
bodily hurt: physical hurt
person’s pride: can you bring me your pride and put it in front of me?
injustice: : unfair treatment.
wrong: unfair, or unjust act.
Who is the authority of subjectivity?
You. Everything is subjective to you, the one reading this.
You are the Ruler of what you see and what you experience, what you experience is subject to you.
Harm can cease to exist if you realize that it is entirely under your control because it is a chosen perspective.
This can be hard to hear and accept because it can seem that what I’m saying is to go blind to the negativity/evil of the world.
This is not at all what I would ever suggest. There are very few things that I would ever suggest to ignore and that is not one of them.
Having the chosen perspective where harm ceases to exist is NOT ignoring the negativity/evil of the world, it is seeing these things for what they really are and knowing their true nature.
Who does the doctor ask when they say “how much does this hurt on a scale of 1-10”? That’s hardy even a good scale to use other than a very rough image of the amount of pain. Is the doctor’s 1-10 scale the same as yours? What if you were an MMA fighter? I will take that back, that it’s not a good scale. It’s probably half decent considering the majority of “normal” people do their best to avoid pain, so many people do have about the same pain scale.
There are a some different things of yours that could take harm. Your body, your mind, and your emotions for example. Your things could also take harm, but we’ll dive into that another time if it’s requested, it’s not important too important in regards to addiction but I will touch on it where it’s necessary.
If you’ve never thought of the function of the word “your”, it is very valuable to ponder what accompanies the use of that word.. what it implies when it is used. This may like an arbitrary thing, something boring, or insignificant but the devil is in the details. There is great value there, especially in regards to your body, your mind, and your emotions.
“Your” is an adjective. It’s a determiner. It speaks of things in their relation to YOU. By using the word “your” you refer to something OTHER than yourself. This means what it “your” refers to is NOT you. Does that make sense? Again, these things are your subjects YOU are in charge of them, you can love them a lot and you can strongly relate to them and their status to you is your concern/deliberation… but they are not you.
How does this tie back into addiction?
We have taken a bit of a journey. We defined addiction, discussed the “good/bad” versions of it, and laid out what makes addictions “good” or “bad”. As well as what makes addiction good or bad which we can re-sum up as:
good: unusually, great, interest – controlled
bad: strong, harmful, regularly – repetitively undisciplined, habit
This ties back because we have determined that the bad addiction is one that negatively affects us.
“Duh FCP. We went through all that?”
Yes, yes we did. We need to lay out all of that because it backs it up. Anyone who now reads this cannot deny that they know the difference between a good or bad addiction as well as that these things are what we determine are bad.
What does it take for something to be “good” or “bad”?
A judgement.
What does it take for a judgement to be made? Really nothing………
Let’s instead say, what does it take for a “good” judgement to be made?
A thorough examination/presentation of the case.
The examination/presentation of the case can only be done by you.
How much work are you going to do for it? Whose side are you on? Are you going to do yourself proper justice?
If you have addictions, take the time to consider whether they’re good or bad.
If you’re here, you’re likely not here because you have good addictions you’re trying to figure it out.
There are plenty of other reasons you could be here, but I’ll cut to the point of the article.
How to get rid of addictions
Well first, we need to determine that we have (an) addiction(s) to get rid of.
I have laid out above what an addiction is and the starting parts of a negative addiction, which is an activity that is:
strong, harmful, and regular
Now, strong and regular I feel go hand and hand and are somewhat self-explanatory. A strong urge, an urge stronger than your will that is. What does it take for something to become stronger? Regular exercise/reinforcement.
You, one way or another, have allowed yourself to succumb to your desire.
Strong and regular on their own are not harmful, these are neutral words.
What really determines an addiction that needs to be rid of would be one that is HARMFUL to you.
If you are a sane human being and not one that’s a glutton for punishment or one with self-destructive tendencies then you would want to prevent any harm that may come towards you.
If you’ll remember, negative addictions can be had knowingly/unknowingly or intentionally/unintentionally.
What this means is that you may be doing harm to yourself that you don’t even realize. Due to this, I am going to take some time to extrapolate on some common traits/effects that come from negative addictions.
Before proceeding, I’d like to make it clear, I’m going to touch on some very common types of addictions but please realize, ANYTHING can be a negative addiction– it just needs to inhibit you or your life. Relationships with people, defaulting to a certain action, a mindset,http://gmail.com and many things that people never even think about can be an addiction. Just remember that if you’re wondering about whether something is a negative addiction then it may very well be, it would make me wonder why you were wondering about it in the first place.
Negative effects of addictions
Control
The first thing to realize about addiction is that, essentially you are a slave to it.
Let’s look at the negative definition of addiction once more as a quick refresher:
1: a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)
Now. Notice the relevant word I bolded above, “need”.
What is a need?
1: a situation in which someone or something must do or have something
2: something that a person must have.
3: a strong feeling that you must have or do something
What do these three essential meanings of need all have in common? I didn’t bold it this time. Take a moment to determine for yourself before reading ahead……………………………………………………………
Ok, see it? Hope so! Let’s define that word.
Definition of must. (Too long to include on the webpage here).
OBLIGED. COMPELLED. COMMANDED. NECESSITY (the vicious circle).
I’m sure I don’t need to define those words.
A negative addiction is something you are slave to. This addiction feels like a necessary/compelling obligation/command.
Did you notice how I used the words “feels like” up there?
What does every slave need? A willing master
What does every master need? A willing slave.
For any relationship to exist, the two entities in question need to be in agreement. If either entity is not on board, then the two are in conflict.
For a slave to be a slave, they need to do what the master obliges/compels/commands.
If you have a negative addiction, you essentially have an activity that you are behest to; it dictates your behavior above other things and you feel as if you have no choice in the matter because you NEED to do the activity.
Now, let me tie this back in to a point I made earlier. I will not give it to you right away, but I will lead you to it.
Have you noticed the words I use wherein I have been describing negative addictions.
“If you have a negative addiction”
“your addiction”
Do you see it yet, fair ruler?
“YOU HAVE” – “YOUR”
I am implying that you possess your addiction, and you do.
You have let your subjects get the better of you fair ruler.
YOU are the ruler of your possessions and as such you are in-charge. If you have a negative addiction you have allowed yourself to be under the rule of your possession/subject. No wonder you don’t feel right.
Now, it may be hard to hear this, but any of your possessions/subjects ruling you immediately equates to you possessing no self-discipline.
If you possess a negative addiction, you have allowed yourself to become the slave.
Again, I said ALLOWED. Because if we take a closer look at the word following “allowed” you will see that it is the word, “yourself”….
“YOURself”….
YOU are in charge of YOUR-self.
And you have let yourself say “Yes, master. Right away master” to your desires.
And once you have allowed that vampire to enter the humble abode that is your mind, the next thing it wants is blood.
Give ’em an inch, and they’ll take a mile.
Give a mouse a cookie, and then it’s going to want a glass of milk.
Once the door has been open and an intruder allowed to enter, it is very difficult to get them to leave without what it is they desire unless you possess a more compelling reason to leave.
Now, here’s the thing about being a slave. You don’t have to say yes to the master.
The master will give you every single reason to do what they wish:
“I’m going to make life hell for you”, “You won’t be able to survive without me”, “I’m going to take away your comforts”
These are only threats. There are definitely more intricacies in an actual physical master-slave relationship and we may end up tying back into those to discern the proper action to take, but let’s please stay in this realm for now where the current master “addiction” is non-physical and only exists in your mind.
Again, this addiction only exists in your mind. YOUR mind. And your mind is your domain.
Letting the addiction run freely in your mind implies no self-discipline. So how do we grow self-discipline?
How do you win an arm wrestling contest?
We exercise it regularly to make it strong. We exercise it regularly enough to make it STRONGER than any addiction could ever be. That’s the secret to winning anything really: practice, train, and thus be more prepared than your opponent.
The first step in training self-discipline is saying “no” to yourself. You are the ruler of your domain, and your word should be law. In other words, if you say “no” that means “no”, and you must adhere that and, if necessary, punish yourself for not following your own law… nobody is above the law after all, not even the ruler of the land.
You may have been a lazy or incapable monarch before this, and if this were the case in real life, where you allowed yourself to be walked all over, this means that your subjects (including yourself) may not take you seriously overnight. Your subjects have to take your seriously and know that there will indeed be consequences for them to listen. Which means that you will need to take the appropriate measure to show them that you mean business.
They may not listen at first, but so long as you are persistent they will eventually yield to the strength of your self-discipline.
Time/Energy
We have already established that you have no control (currently) over your addictions.
This means that they take priority and as such they cut into your valuable time.
Instead of doing something productive and worth value to yourself or others you are pursuing your addiction.
Depending on the addiction that you are behest to, this can quickly add up.
Drugs will alter your mindset to sub-optimal, they will take time to get and to use and will also require a recovery period. You will also have to spend more time working so that you may have the funds to obtain your substance(s) of choice.
Porn/Masturbation. If you are like the average Joe that indulges in this activity, you will spend 30sec – 30min on this per day. Which equates to 3.5min – 3.5hrs per week. 14min – 14hrs per month. 2.89hrs – 168hrs per year. Now, for those who have pursued this activity for a long time, you are not likely to be on the smaller side of these numbers. As people continue to go for this hit of dopamine/serotonin they often require the perfect video more and more and their tastes will continue to evolve to where it takes more and more to get that perfect hit. In reality, Porn/masturbation should fall under the “drugs” umbrella but it is such a big problem for definitely the modern man (and to a lesser extent, the modern female) that it must have its own entry.
Social Media/Technology. These things definitely have their merits, but if everyone were to check their time/energy spent on social media, they would see that on average they spend at least 2hrs/day on social media alone (according to statista.com) or 60ish hrs/month or 730ish hrs/yr. Not even including other types of technology that take our time such as streaming or video games. Imagine how many things you could accomplish with 730+hrs/yr available to spend on them. they say it takes 1,000ish hours to become a master of something, if you were to give up social media towards the bare minimum necessary you would have about half of the hours come about just through that.
If you’re looking for a reason to drop your addictions, then I suggest highly monitoring the time you spend pursuing in a log at least for two weeks if not a month. If you’re the type to often use the excuse, “I don’t have time”, this will more than likely give you the place to retrieve it.
Mental/Physical Health
Ultimately, all addictions end up satisfying a trigger for ourselves. Many end up giving our brain the serotonin/dopamine satisfaction that feels oh so good.
Many negative addictions take away from our physical health.
Gorging ourselves on salty/sugary and/or processed foods, is a given although I will say that it has definitely become harder to know what is actually “good” for our bodies. If the populous en masse were to ever all suddenly do their homework and stop eating all of the foods touted as “healthy”, we would have a crashing of the economy. Food/nutrition has become a battle ground. Those who sell us salty/sugary and/or processed foods know the goods that they pedal and do their best to convince you that what they have is what you need. They sleep with a good conscience in knowing that while they pedal their things, it’s not illegal and their products do bring happiness; they know that ultimately the responsibility falls upon the customer to consume their product responsibly, it’s not their fault if that individual doesn’t have the capability/want to control themselves.
Most drugs do absolutely harm the body with each ingestion. Alcohol, cigarettes, weed, meth, speed, coke, molly, and of course the prescription drugs that always come with their list of possible side effects (as well as selling you more prescription drugs with their list of possible side effects to counter the side effects of the first ones they gave you). The most dangerous of these being the ones that are legal or people see as less harmful: alcohol, cigarettes/vaping, weed– at least those are the ones that I would say. Alcohol as become so socially accepted that if you don’t drink then you’re the weird one, or you need to “relax” a little– no need to think about the lowered inhibitions, effects on the liver (which is luckily one of the most regenerative organs), brain, or the next day hangover. Cigarettes/vaping/weed, man, you sure look cool smoking those– it sure is nice that they calm us down AND energize us. Nicotine in itself is a very interesting chemical that I won’t get into just at the moment. What I will get into though is that there is no world anywhere that you may inhale a combusted substance or any foreign substance and it not have any negative effect on your body. Smokers make fun of newbies coughing but that is SO backwards. Why laugh at a cough? A cough is just the bodies NATURAL response to a negative foreign substance being within the respiratory system; a cough is the body saying, “this doesn’t belong here, get rid of it!”. How backwards, people laughing at a cough. If anything, we should all be concerned that your body’s natural response to a foreign substance isn’t working properly. Air is one of the foundational needs for life, and every inhalation takes away from one’s ability to do this. All drugs change the natural chemistry of the human body and cause wear.
Porn/masturbation. Unless you’re careful you’re going to have an arm that’s stronger than the other one, so there’s that, ha! I can’t speak as to the exact effects of porn/masturbation on women, but I may speak as to their effects on men. First off, if done regularly, there are a host of problems that arise due to porn/masturbation. If you do it with only your hand, you will grip tightly without realizing and this will affect your circulation and reduce the sensitivity of your member. Your normal sexual relationships will be affected by you either climaxing to quickly or remove your ability to do it all together without the “proper” stimulus which entirely depends on how you have trained yourself. Next, men produce semen for the entirety of their lives (barring exceptions), do you understand what this means? The bodies of men are always using energy/resources to make semen. In watching porn/masturbating and then climaxing you are expelling the energy within your body out into the world into some dirty sock, napkin, or really any place of your choice. What a waste. You not only train your body that it needs to continually waste energy/resources to make semen for you to (what it thinks is being) utilized but do you realize what semen is? Semen is your code, your essence, your physical material to make an ENTIRELY NEW PERSON. We should not waste our energy/sacred blueprint out into the world frivolously. You could easily put that energy to good use elsewhere, and yet you don’t. Women, take what is applicable towards yourself, I am not able to speak on that.
The above is all mostly in regards to physical health, I’m sure I don’t need to go into the effects of these to your brain. What I will touch on to once again sound like a broken record is that your mind is basically the firing of electrical neurons. Your brain is a biological computer and the superiority of our biological computer is that it is a mass of individually self-regulating cells. The cells are not too smart unfortunately and just show up for the job that they are called to do. As you give into your addictions you are physically changing your brain chemistry and pathways like I have said. Before we had paved roads, all roads were those that were just so commonly traveled that they wore a path out in nature itself, this is what is happening to your brain. And if you’re changing your brain physically, it goes without saying that your are affecting your mental abilities and training certain harmful actions to be taken over productive/positive actions.
There are also addictions that reduce sleep which is essential. There are addictions that negatively affect every portion of the body.
You only have one body, one vessel, you do not get a replacement. Yet how do you treat it, why would you ever want to run it into the ground? I would hope you wouldn’t.
Relationships
Negative addictions are a need/must, this means they come first.
This means that your relationships to any individual fall to the wayside.
You will be late, step away, hide, leave early, not interact properly, and put others in your life second (including yourself) to whatever it is that you need to do.
Now, the intricacies of your relationships are your own and I cannot speak to them. There is one relationship that I may speak on though and that is the relationship between you and yourself.
Your addiction should not come before you. Due to the nature of addiction, you have one way or another, come to the conclusion that giving yourself into your addiction is good for you and you are indeed putting you first. That is the wrong conclusion. You are putting yourself first, but you are not putting you first.
You are putting these physical external things ahead of certain more valuable things like your dreams/goals/desires. You may certainly still be pursuing those, even successfully, but please realize that even if this is the case you are still being sold short. You are not doing as good for you as would be otherwise. Though you are not doing as good for you as would be most beneficial to you, you have been convinced otherwise that your actions are the most beneficial for you. Brainwashing and gaslighting.
What’s even potentially worse is that you may think that you’ve got your addiction under control or maybe even hidden.. but I guarantee you that those around you are aware of what is happening with you even if they can’t quite put their finger on it. You are not as sneaky as you think and if you think you are controlling it, it is still controlling you.
People can always tell when someone is not being honest or is hiding something, no matter how good you are; the longer that time goes on, the more opportunities there are for these things to leak out.
No matter how good you are you will have something off in your eyes or demeanor. You may be cranky, tired, itching for your next hit, sexualizing women, or have a bit of white on your nose. There are many tell-tale sings as to what may be going on behind the scenes with someone and your handicap is that you know how you present yourself, but you don’t know how you come off to another individual.
The effects of negative addiction on a person in regards to relationships is often one of the biggest things that addicts never realize. They won’t necessarily understand why others treat them differently, why they get certain reactions from certain people. The nail in the coffin is that most people tend to ignore the elephant in the room and let it make a little cubby for itself than address it, especially in matters that don’t affect themselves. Addicts are also least likely to notice this because they are too focused on their target rather than themselves.
Money
Are you in debt? How do you finance your addiction?
Somehow, some way, when you’re addicted to something you find a way.
Even those with no idea as to when they’ll get their next meal, a shower, clean clothes somehow are able to procure their fix if they want it bad enough.
An addiction ends up becoming a bill, a recurring subscription.
If you can afford your addiction, then there is less of a reason to let it go; you’ll have to look elsewhere for the motivation.
Before you do that though, do yourself a favor and make sure to do some proper accounting.
The detriment of money when it comes to addictions is that we find a way to make it work and that is what we focus on. When we pin our focus on something it is much easier to overlook other facts such as the exact amount of capital we throw towards it.
A six pack or a couple tall boys a day. Coffee every morning. A pack a day smoker/vaper. All the snack foods. Porn. Shopping. Drugs. The other things you can think of or suffer from, and all of the auxiliary things that go with all of these.
You may be able to afford it, whatever it is, but I find it helpful to approach it this way:
Is there money I could be saving or could be better spent elsewhere? Would this money be better spent on myself?
Here’s the thing, if you’re like the majority of people in the world then you more than likely could be better off in the financial department.
Is that something you would like to solve?
The truth is, in the matter of negative addictions, more than likely the money spent on them could be better spent elsewhere.
Money for education, loans/debt, your children, your well-being, any pursuits you may have, medicine for your mental/physical/physical health, investments— the sky is the limit really!
So, in regards to the relationship between negative addictions and finances, the question becomes:
What do you want more? Would you rather have a quick “high” or something that benefits you more overtime and in the long run?
Self-Control/Discipline
Very under-looked, and really the source of everything.
The very source of any negative addiction is the lack of control.. or perhaps rather the lack of a desire of control, though I counter that by saying that there are plenty of individuals in the world who desire to better control or stamp out their addictions entirely, but (supposedly) without the actual control to do so.
You’re not dumb, in fact, if you’re reading this then I believe you to be very smart. I feel like there is perhaps very little that I have relayed within this essay that is news to you.
You understand what you are doing, you have been told it all before one way or another. I feel like this may come off harsh but, in the end, you are refusing to acknowledge these things.
I say that because it is possible that you feel like you have no control and that you must have or give in to what it is that afflicts you.
Understand that this is merely a feeling, not the truth of the matter. You may shake your head or disagree, but this is the case.
I truly feel that if you were to take the time and acknowledge (thoroughly examine) what you are exchanging in your life in order to feed your addictions then you would not give into them so easily.
There are plenty of smokers who say that they could never quit, but there are plenty of parents who quit cold turkey once their kids come around.
What it takes is the proper motivation. Not only that, but also the proper measures.
You can’t… well, you could… but it would be much more difficult… potentially… to quit eating fast food if you work at a fast food joint; to quit drinking if you always hang out at the bar or with friends who drink.
The thing is though, it is most difficult to control ourselves and especially so when we feel that we are alone and nobody is watching.
We always have the capability to get our fix when nobody is watching; nobody is there to hold ourselves accountable. That is, nobody but you is there to stop you.
It comes down to you being able to say “no” to yourself and resist your urges/hold yourself accountable— this is not easy to do whenever you’ve only ever enabled yourself.
When you make a habit… when you walk a path in the woods, each time you go down it the path is worn deeper. Each time you go down the same path it is more familiar and comfortable.
There is a better path you could make, but is is through the wild and the brush, you might even have to make a bridge to traverse it successfully; it is much easier to not bring yourself to do it.
It is much easier to not to go through the physical labor and mine for gold, digging at the earth or panning in the water— but all the richer you become if you put in the work and wake up each morning at sunrise, working all day to find it.
If you can say no to one thing, if you can wear a new path— making more in the future will be all the easier. Each path with its own challenges of course, but all with the some objective and purpose.
An individual who can control themselves can shape the world as they will it— and that is one of the most valuable powers any of us can hope to attain.
Is that perhaps audacious or arrogant? It could certainly come off that way, until that is we recognize that this is not a special power, it is everyone has the right and ability to do that as it is their inheritance.
The reason why we and so many others refuse their inheritance
I would like to pivot down this path for the moment before we proceed towards the act of overcoming one’s negative addictions, I believe this segue will properly prepare you for that subject.
Your inheritance is the power to shape the world as you will it, this ability is inherent in you.
“No way, if that were true then why is x, y, or z the case?” is a standard response to this.
The answer to that being, you have refused your inheritance and to go further you have refused your inheritance out of fear. That is the crux of it, I know it could sound silly…
“I’m afraid of quitting porn? I’m afraid of stopping drinking?” and so on..
“There’s no way, that’s the very thing I want in the first place! How could I be afraid of that?”
The question I would pose in response would be, if you’re not afraid then why haven’t you quit yet?
Maybe you feel that you are too weak to stand against the pull, that quitting is is hard. I will concede that if your addiction is a substance that certain medical measures may need to be taken in order to wean your body’s dependence on it.
I don’t believe that you’re too weak to stand against the pull, I don’t believe anyone is. There are plenty of examples of people out there in the world who have taken the action of releasing their addictions and turning their life around. These people are not special, you are not special, if they can do it, you can do it too– the only difference between them and you is that they did not pick up what they decided to finally put down.
We are scared of releasing these things though. We like their familiarity, the way they make us feel, we take pleasure in them. Once again I think of a child with their security blanket.
We wonder what would happen if we did make that decision and forge ahead into that unknown, and we fear the possibility of what we could find. We fear the change, we wonder if this will just end up making our lives worse, it’s easier to accept it and live with it. It’s not just the negative change we’re scared of, we also fear the possibility of us being successful– a new life, how do I live like that, what would I do instead? What if I don’t find anything?
What if we can’t connect with people through drinking or smoking anymore? They’re all doing it and they’re fine, what if this is the right place to be and it’s where the enjoyment is?
How do I live without it?
That is the fear. You fear going without it, otherwise you would have already put whatever it is down.
The beauty of you having picked something up, is that it’s optional. You didn’t used to have it and lived just fine, then one day, after encountering whatever it is you picked it up and took it with you.
Now that thing is within your inventory, and as far as I’m aware it’s not welded to your body– if it is something purely in the mind then I would like you to remember that the mind is #1 your domain and #2 intangible.
To be rid of our addictions we need only make the decision to put them down and make sure not to pick them up again. This is something you can do, this is your inheritance– to shape your world to your will.
Fear is the root cause of your decision to not utilize your inheritance– once you succeed in using it, you realize you could have done it all along. This is not something that sits well with everyone, that they allowed themselves to carry on in such a way a feel obliged to their addictions when they could have just said “no” to themselves all along. This sits so little well with people that they actively find excuses to deny the existence of this reality and actively refuse to acknowledge it– they will say others who beat the addiction had something to help them or that it’s easier for them, that they’ve done it for too long to stop now, that they are not strong enough.
With power comes responsibility, and people don’t typically want responsibility.
If you wish to refuse your inheritance that’s fine, that’s your decision, the only one you are affecting as a result of that decision is yourself.
Accept your inheritance
I urge you to accept your inheritance. I ask you to please take and use it. The world and yourself will be better off for it.
I give you permission to shape your world in the way that you desire. You are allowed to wield it in whatever way pleases you.
It is time for you to become your best self, it is time to walk the path to attain what you would really desire.
Take it and walk hard and bold towards the life you would rather have.
If you wish to move forwards and use your inheritance to release your addictions, you can make the decision whenever you already. However I stress, that now is the time. You can make this decision at any time, but the best time to plant a tree was five years ago– if you want to really want to plant a tree, then the next 1,826th best time is now (I could split this up further into a higher number).
Releasing your addictions
We have finally gotten to the actionable content within this essay, thank you for making it here. You are ready, able, willing, and continuing on to make the change for the better of your life. You are ready to finally be rid of what you realize is of no benefit to you; it is time.
Now, we must begin at the root of the problem if we do not want this to continue to sprout.
The root, the beginning, so, where did your addiction begin?
Take the time to think of where you picked this thing up in the first place.
Why did you do it?
I wish I could know your answer, I wish I could sit and walk with you through it, if only to be a sounding board for you.
I can’t do that, only you can. It would do you well to take the time and meditate over that, you may find things that help in letting go.
As I can’t do that, I have to provide my advice very generally. I can’t know specifically why you picked up your addiction or what your addiction is– but what I can know is that you picked up an addiction.
At some point you decided to pick up an addiction. Why did you do that?
Why does anyone pick anything up?– Because they feel that it will benefit them in some way.
Picking something up is an act of acquiring something external from ourselves that we feel we lack– otherwise, we wouldn’t benefit from acquiring said “thing”.
So what I know, is that some way, some how, you had a lack– you felt you were incomplete. A lack could also be said to be a void. You had a void in yourself that you were seeking to fill.
I’ve got to tell you, if this void were able to be filled with porn/sex/drugs/social media/whatever, then you wouldn’t need to continue to consume these things; many who hold onto addictions choose to overlook this or not even think about it. If you have more than one addiction, you are more likely to know this but keep it tucked away in the back of your mind from view.
Filling the void within us is not something that anything external from us can fill, and this is why it can be hard to release our security blanket. We have been trying to fill the void with external things, but the void isn’t satiated by that– if we were to release your addiction, what we have been attempting to fill the void with, what if the void was just larger instead?
The void cannot get larger, the depth of the void is infinite. You can see this when you look about the world, even those who are “rich” seek satisfaction beyond what it is they already have, I’m sure you’ve thought before “if only I had enough money, I could just be happy”. The “rich” are those who have “enough” money, and yet happiness is fleeting to them as well.
How to put it down
We talked about why we pick things up right? Well, based off of that can you guess why (and thus how) we put them down?
We put things down by not needing/wanting them. If you’re surfing on the ocean then you don’t need a screw driver, all you need is your board and swimsuit (maybe).
Picking things up is to fill a void, putting things down is admission that we have no void and thus are full/complete– at least as far it concerns that particular thing anyway.
For there even to have been a void within you, there needed to be the determination that there was a void within you in the first place– and who is the authority of you?
For you to be able to put something down, you need to realize that it is of no benefit to you and does not serve a purpose.
The void within yourself can only be filled from within yourself, it cannot be filled with external things. You are more likely to find a complete/fulfilled man among those who have next to nothing than among those who own mansions (mo’ money, mo’ problems). If we seriously look at anyone who is monetarily rich, we find that as they proceed through their life if they are not fulfilled then they will seek every avenue at their disposal (many many more available compared to the average person) and towards the end of their life (after trying most) they seek out any method they can to prolong their life– either by attempting to undo the damage done to their body through their pursuits or to extend their life using any method available, after all, deep down, they know that they can bring nothing that they’ve procured during this life into the next one– anyway, I digress.
Tell me why
Why waste the time/energy/money in a fruitless pursuit? Especially one that affects you negatively?
Really, only you determine what is or isn’t valuable in the world and I suggest you do some appraisal.
What is the most valuable to you? Is it your health or finances? Is it your future infinitely valuable life?
Or is it these activities you choose to partake in? If you think you may be a parent some day, would you ever want your kid to see you like this or would you ever want them to succumb to what you have?
You will need to make that decision and act accordingly. I can spout that you should quit your addictions and build self-discipline till I’m blue in the face, but if you do not truly have the motivation or have not decided that it is in your best interests to do that, then I’m just wasting my breath.
Would time, health, and money really be worth that much to you? Then how much do you waste of those things to satisfy your addiction?
What do you really want? What is worth the most to you?
Decide accordingly and stand confident and proud in your decision. At least if you continue to carry your addiction, now you know that you are doing what you truly want to do.
You’re taking action and letting go of your addiction then
It’s settled then, we have fulfilled 2/3 of the requirements of taking an action, and in our case letting go of the addiction is the action.
The three requirements of an action are:
- The idea to take an action
- The desire/belief to take an action
- The doing of that action
You don’t want addiction(s) and you’ve thought of getting rid of them.
You want to be rid of them because it will benefit you.
Now it’s time to do it.
As we all know, deciding that a tree should fall does not make it do so (at least not in the initial stages of your growth). First you need an axe, then you gotta swing it a buncha times, hopefully you made sure to cut it in a way where it won’t fall on you, and if we’re being real we have to make sure it’s ok to cut down this tree in the first place. Depending on the thickness of the tree, the sharpness of your axe, the strength of your muscles, and the force of your will this could be an easy or difficult task.
It is not only enough to decide to want to do something, if you want something done then you must do the proper work.
If you’re doing work, you must set yourself up to do the best job. If you were building a house you were going to live in, you’d want to make sure it was done right.
Immediate agreement and release of an addiction is possible and not unheard of, but ultimately naïve– have high hopes but don’t be distraught if the letting go of your addictions doesn’t happen immediately or on the first try. Also, don’t listen to me necessarily, you are certainly capable of letting go of your addictions immediately if that is what you truly wish.
Now, the last thing I would say is that we are on the third requirement for ridding ourselves of addiction at this point. Requirement #3. The number 3 implies a number 1 and 2 preceding it, thus, we cannot have three without one and two– what I am saying here is keep the idea/desire/belief in wanting to take the action at the forefront of your mind, if you lose those then you lose your foundation and the house you are building will not stand.
Setting yourself up for success
Only you know the extent of your addiction and the measures you must take to prevent yourself from falling back into your old habits but there is some general advice I may provide as well as some more specific advice in some of the major categories of addiction.
Cut off your hands and pluck out your eyes
^Easily the best general tip I can give anyone.
Say what you want about the Bible, but there’s a reason this piece of historic literature has made it thus far and that is because it is full of valuable tidbits such as that one:
“So if your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose a part of your body than to have all of it thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell.“
— Matthew 5:29-30 (GW)
Hopefully everyone understands Jesus’ use of hyperbole here and that he was not literally suggesting that we mutilate ourselves to prevent sin. Jesus is essentially suggesting that we remove the problem at its source. The problem isn’t the drugs, the porn, the social media, the food or whatever it is you think ails you– the problem is that continually your hand reaches for it and your eyes continually seek it.
Ultimately addiction is a lack of self-control, you can choose to not partake in it anytime you choose– the problem is, throughout your journey you have chosen not to do that.
BUT of course, in reading this we have since chosen otherwise so now it is a matter of curbing and removing the problem. Which is: your hand and eyes reaching for it.
We’ve established that we’re not removing our hand or eyes and as such, we are left with only one other option: removing what they reach for or seek. The child can not reach for any candy if you don’t hold it out. How many of you never even considered smoking (or doing any drug or any action really) until it was offered to you by a particular person?
Out of sight, out of mind.
You must remove as many opportunities for you to partake in your addiction as you can.
If you’re drinking— avoid bars.
watching porn— delete your stash, turn on the parental controls on your phone, computer, and router too (have a trusted friend set the password if needed), get off of social media (too many opportunities to be tempted, especially if they know what you like.
eating food— stop buying anything you shouldn’t be eating.
phone/social media— delete your apps from your phone, turn on a usage tracking app, make your phone grayscale so it’s not fun to look at (directions on how to do this).
watching tv— remove it from the bedroom, unplug when not in use, cancel subscriptions.
spending money— remove cards from online accounts, remove card from your wallet or take out cash and that’s what you can use to buy the things you want/need.
substances— don’t be around those that use them, don’t buy them– in fact, if you want to go the extra mile then put that money towards something else so you can’t use it on substances like towards your loans or a strict savings account or drop it into stocks to appreciate
You get the point.
Cutting off everything may seem extreme, but you are trying to overcome something that you have previously given control over you. To move on from a lover, you don’t continue to spend time with them for them to give you a reason to stay– not if you have really made up your mind about this being the best path forwards for you.
You have allowed yourself to give into your temptation for so long that now it is your default. If you wish you allow any amount of these things back into your life in a healthy manner then you must loosen their strings of power over you and build your ability to refuse them.
Porn Advice
For those of you who are addicted to porn, I highly suggest reading up on NoFap.
Tally up all of the time you think you’ve wasted in viewing this, not to mention the energy lost.
I cannot provide a lot of advice for females, but in regards to men: please realize that your body spends time and energy in producing your sperm. Your sperm has the miracle ability of making another human, it should be held in a high regard– consider it sacred. You’re taking what is essentially your whole inner being, the promise of another human and squirting that down the drain, in a napkin, and old sock, or God forbid a shoe box..
Porn is a particularly ensnaring addiction as it rewires your brain not just to be looking for that next hit of hormones, but it also affects your relationships with the opposite sex. You sexualize every woman and reduce them to their body and what you would like to do with it (total turn off for women.. unless it’s a healthy kink I suppose..). Your performance in bed also suffers if you are so used to instant gratification from yourself and/or have a particularly firm grip on your member when you partake.
Which on the member grip, you can actually very easily destroy your member and have lasting negative effects on it if you’re not careful; read about these in the NoFap materials, it just may scare you straight.
Remove all social media as it will entice you. Social media serves you content that it knows(thinks) you will like and will eventually serve you something that triggers the urge.
Eating Food
Research food and how it’s made. Look up its ingredients. Do not go to the store hungry. The best piece of advice here is, if you don’t want to eat it, don’t buy it.
Eat as little processed foods as possible and eat as naturally as possible.
Maybe make cooking a new hobby of yours and find the things that you’ll actually like to eat.
Social Media/Technology
Delete all your apps, or at the very lest rearrange their locations to trick your muscle memory. Turn off your notifications to where you only get the important ones and not the ones designed to pull you back into the app. If you must login to social media for some reason, then login through the internet browser, do NOT use the apps.
Unplug what you’re not using if it’s something like tv or video games– give these things to someone you can trust to hold onto them until you have control of yourself.
Read up on the tactics used by the media to entice you and sell you a story, you’ll be less likely to be sucked in if you see their tricks. Let me tell you, the tricks are many and a good portion of them are designed to overcome any mental barrier you have placed either overtly or covertly (subliminally).
Turn your phone back in white to remove all of the fun colors.
Get a Light Phone maybe.
Track your usage with an app– iphones have this built in, not sure about androids.
Substances
Throw away anything related to them, delete your dealer’s number. Go get a physical to make sure you’re healthy and see where you could improve.
Avoid those who partake in them, or at least let them know that you’re trying to actively avoid those substance, if they’re a true friend then they will support you.
Tally the money you spend on this and the time you waste under the influence. Take your time to do the math and convince yourself so you can really see the damage.
Think about what you want and your future, will this prematurely end you or throw you off course?
A couple other helpful tips:
Again accept your inheritance— you are human and thus you are fallible, but you are also capable of learning from your mistakes and more than capable of shaping your world to your will. YOU ARE CAPABLE OF AND WILL DO ANYTING YOU PUT YOUR MIND TO SO LONG AS YOU PUT IN THE WORK.
Remember the nature of addiction: want of distraction or fulfillment— when the urge hits, fulfill it with something else more productive and healthy for yourself. For example, if your blanket is video games then you could get a game like Rocksmith to both satisfy your want of video games AND learn a new skill. Similarly, instead of hopping onto social media to pass idle time, you could launch another app like I Love Hue to learn colors and build your perception. Perhaps the gym, a book club, volunteering, learning a new hobby, entering a contest, enrolling in classes. Make yourself too busy to participate in your addiction as well as doing something that promotes growth within yourself
Build your discipline— I highly suggest some sort of physical activity for this. Anything else does not have so many overarching benefits. You will build your muscles, you will build your tolerance for pain, you will build your mind, your confidence will increase, your skin will clear, your will clear your bowels easier, and you will surpass your limits.
Nobody wants to workout, and many like to claim they “don’t have the time”– to anyone that makes that claim I say, “FUCKING BULLSHIT”. I dislike being harsh, but if you don’t want me to call out “bullshit!” then don’t hand me bullshit, I just call it as I see it. Look, I don’t know your schedule but what I do know is that just about everyone can go to bed an hour earlier and wake up an hour earlier. You don’t need a lot of time to workout and get benefits– you can do a TON of pushups in 30 minutes and still have 30 minutes to go take a shower, you can run a mile in 12 minutes if you’re taking your time; do either of those activities every day and you will quickly morph your body into something new and you will be doing more activity than probably at least 50% of Americans (more than one hundred sixty-four million seven hundred fifty thousand people according to the 2020 census),. Can’t lose an hour of sleep for some reason? Do you have a lunchbreak? hm? You can’t tell me you don’t have five minutes a day to do as many pushups as possible…. think on it…
Don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.
I believe discipline to be one of the key foundational aspects of a person that determines whether or not that person will succeed in their pursuits. I hate to point it out, but there seems to be an evermore increasing shortage of discipline in the world currently, especially among men. If you wish to beat your addiction, you MUST have strength in the area that was weak enough to succumb to an addiction in the first place– your discipline. Whatever addiction you suffer from, you suffer from because you never controlled yourself; that seed flew in, took root, sprouted, and was actively/inactively allowed to flourish in the garden of your mind.
In order to build discipline you need to do the things you don’t want to do. You need to tell yourself “no” and stick to your word when you think about indulging yourself, you need to workout/do pushups, you need to read, you need to take cold showers, you need to do your chores, you need to practice your work and hobbies to stay at the top of your game. It’s much easier to sit and stream some television/movies at the end of a long day and turn off our brain, touch ourselves a little, do some drugs, or any number of unproductive things for ourselves. But are the results of those actions something you want, are they helping you to get the life that you would like for yourself?
That last question I typed there is pretty important, I think it’s something that you should consider holding onto… from how I can see it, that’s actually the secret to self-discipline. Earlier I said to build self-discipline you need to do the things that you don’t want to do and while this is correct, this is not the most optimal way of thinking of it in a way that sets you up for success.
To think in the most optimal way that sets you up for success you need to realize that you are not depriving yourself, but, rather, you are enabling yourself. Not, “I’m doing things I don’t want to do”, but, “I’m doing the things that I need to in order for me to succeed.”, and/or, “my future in following this path is what I want, and not the alternative”. Do you see that in order to follow this accord you will need to think ahead from where you are to where you would like to be? Just making sure we all see that so we may make the proper decision for ourselves when the time comes.
Get support—
This section still falls under “a couple other helpful tips” but I wanted to give it a big heading because I will be expanding a bit more into a side-path on this subject.
Let me first say, you don’t need anybody to help you kick you addiction– kicking your addiction comes down to you and only you. If you cannot find the proper support you do not need it so don’t fret, though you may need to reconsider the people that you consider “friends”.
Any true friend to you will be proud of you and support you in any endeavor you choose to pursue (so long as it does not infringe on any other individual’s life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness of course). They will be there for you for what you need.
Now, in seeking out support I must warn you that it is very possible that you that you are in for a rude awakening– you will find that at least one friend of yours whom you may be surprised to find out takes the news of your walk to rid yourself of addiction(s) negatively, let me tell you a common reason why people take someone else ridding themselves of addiction(s) negatively.
As you announce you are ridding yourself of your addiction(s) what you are saying is “I don’t want this anymore, it doesn’t benefit me”. What do people do when someone else says something about themselves? Not always, but they usually find a way to interject themselves and their own views into the conversation to make it about themselves.
For example, you could say, “I don’t like grapes” in a room full of people and you will have a portion of those people say “WHAT?! You’re crazy!! How can you not like grapes?? I love grapes, they’re the BEST!!! How dare you talk down grapes”. This is a somewhat silly example, but do you see where I’m going with it?
Let me make it more serious, how do you think the average gamer would take it if you were to say “I have to quit video games, I waste too much time playing them.” Even though you spoke concerning only yourself what they would essentially hear is, “video games are a waste of time”– you didn’t say those words, but that is what they would latch onto. Their next stop on the train of thought is “I love and play video games, and you’re saying they’re a waste of time. You’re saying I waste my time playing video games”. Now any self-actualized person would realize that you were speaking for yourself and not for anyone else and they wouldn’t take any offense, but that’s just it, many people just do that. They take what you say about yourself as an attack towards their preference/lifestyle and feel the need to be on the defense against you.
I have encountered this in my own personal journey with NoFap (which we’ll get too in a bit) but the highlights relevant to this conversation is that porn consumption has quickly become a largely non-stigmatized and accepted activity. To my male friends that I said I was doing this, they said “every guy does it, who cares?” Essentially they thought that I was the crazy one to choose to attempt to no longer partake in it. I also had a very sex-forwards girlfriend for a time (sex parties and the like, no judgement, I bet they were a lovely time and they’re a much better alternative to porn so long as everyone is safe and respects the boundaries of others), she couldn’t really understand it. When I told this girlfriend what I was doing and showed her my day counter she eventually said something to the effect of, “I don’t know how you resist and the longer your streak the more I’m intimidated”. Why should she be intimidated? I’m not sure, I never ended up diving any deeper into that, perhaps it was the realization that her self-control in this department seemed to be lacking.
That is the warning and way of the world I want you to realize; so if you reach out for support, think carefully about who you tell and if they are the type of person who won’t take it as an affront to their own personal lifestyle choices. It hurts when you find those who aren’t able to separate what you are personally doing for your own benefit from their own insecurities; and they are insecurities, if they were secure in themselves, they wouldn’t have the reaction I’m warning you about.
Additionally, there is something else you must be aware of before you announce what you’re going to be doing– you must be aware that if/when you announce this that at that point you are in the spotlight. People will be watching you very carefully to see if you’re actually going to do what you say, they’re invested; when a show is announced, people come to watch and see what happens.
There will be a close eye on you at that point and, not that it should really matter to you, but you will be judged. Those who partake in the same thing you wish to be rid of will be hedging their bets on your failure to justify their own lifestyle. We already touched on that for the most part though. One thing I want you to realize about choosing to announce what you’re doing to others is that now you’re in the spotlight, can you perform under pressure? I’m not sure how often you’ve performed, if ever, but coming from a person who has performed for the majority of their life, the pressure can be tough to overcome and give a successful performance. In fact, if you’ve never performed before, you’ll be much more likely to cave under the pressure until you have performed many a time– it takes training like anything else. There is a reason musical ensembles have dress rehearsals or a smaller show before the actual show, even if they’ve practiced together every day of the month– performing under pressure is something else.
Lastly, if you’re performing in the spotlight I can tell you from experience that any failure in the spotlight hurts more than a plethora of secret failures anyone can see.
While seeking and finding support can be very beneficial and maybe even needed for certain individuals, the above reasons are while I personally lean more on the side of not announcing what I’m doing and just doing it. This way you avoid the haters and the naysayers and even though you shouldn’t give a damn what they think anyway, it’s much easier to focus and succeed without people heckling you. You don’t need to ever announce to the world what you’re doing. Did Steve Jobs stand up and say “Hey! I’m about to go an make one of the leading consumer computer brands!” or did he just sit down, do it, and let the results show themselves? I believe, unless you need other eyeballs on you because you are incapable of restraining yourself of your own accord, that this is the most beneficial method.
So long as you properly continue down the road of kicking your addiction, you will begin to reap the benefits, you may not immediately notice the difference in yourself since you see yourself every day but others will and they will tell you so– getting a compliment that your physique is looking good from kicking the junk food goes miles for personal encouragement a justification that you made the proper decision in your life. Let your own personal transformation speak for itself once you emerge as the butterfly I know you can be.
It’s your move now
I believe I have laid out as many of the tools and advice possible for me to give you without knowing you personally. Before I continue on to the last section of the article I would like to let you know that the ball is now in your court, you should have everything you need for your journey.
If you have made it this far in the article then I know this is true, hardly anyone is capable of holding their attention on a subject like this if they’re not determined and if you made it here then that is what you are. All you need is the proper determination to succeed, it is not necessarily as simple as that but if we forego the semantics then yeah it actually is that freakin’ simple. If you don’t believe that, then you’re only holding yourself back, but if you’ve read this far then I believe that you believe what I’m telling you is worth its salt.
Not only determined YOU ARE CAPABLE. You CAN do this, I know you can, I believe in you; believe in yourself, you’re not special, neither is anyone else in the world who has kicked an addiction so you’ve got that in common and if they can do it then you can do it.
Again, you’ve got to decide what you want, you’ve got to make a plan, you’ve got to take steps that you can measure, you’ve got to want it and hold yourself accountable, and you’ve got to put in the work.
There is one last thing you’ve got to do– DO NOT GIVE UP!!!!!
NEVER GIVE UP!!!!
You only lose a fight when you can no longer stand. Failure is only failure when you stop trying friends, NEVER FORGET THIS. If you get knocked down 22 times get up 23 times, if you get knocked down 1378 times, get up 1379 times.
Imagine if you never learned to ride a bike because of the few times you fell, if you never learned how to ride a bike then [INSERT X HOBBY HERE].
It’s easy to quit addictions, I must’ve quit all of my addictions at least 7863 times in the last 15 years. To conquer the addiction you need to not pick it up again, which is as easy as you let it be though it can truly be hard.
It’s your move friend, what will you do? Is now the time or will you continue living in the way you have been, holding yourself back and not realize your best self and fly high?
My own struggles with addiction
I share this with you in solidarity, I share this with you to show you that you’re not alone, and I share this with you to show you that I am not above you but stand on the same ground that you do.
I am also currently human as I type this and I fall prey to the same things you do. Anything can take hold of anyone at any time if they’re not careful.
I share this with you to show you I speak from experience.
I am not proud of what I have done and I would rather not share these things with anyone else. I would like you to trust me though and as such I am making myself vulnerable– I am an open book and here is my relevant chapter for you to peruse and take what you will from it.
Life/Experience
My very first addiction.
My father died when I was seven months old. This has many profound effects on me that I will share in the future for now, but in the end the death of my father led me to have a lust for life which was not necessarily bad overall but left me susceptible to a certain mindset.
You can die at any time, in a random instant you could be gone from the Earth and your physical existence cease.
For that to be one of the first things I learned was very valuable, but left me wanting.
It left me wanting to try and do everything possible before I must greet death at some unbeknownst time.
The detrimental effects of this were many.
I became a jack-of-all-trades and average all around rather than focusing and becoming an expert in something. I like this and I don’t regret who I am in the slightest, but it left me lacking in any specific skill that I can use to excel and support myself in my life.
I impulsively say yes to many a thing that I don’t have time for and stretch myself very thin, not allowing myself any time for rest or leisure.
When I was a child (and as an adult still) I would hate interrupting what I was doing to go pee/poop/eat. Holding my pee actually hurt me twice as a kid, but did I learn my lesson? No, I just learned my absolute limits and produced a bladder which at this point in time can hold a pee from the time I get the signal for about four and a half hours.
When it comes to women, if I like them I tend to dive in and make my intentions prevalent and known, often coming on too strong and attempting to skip many steps in growing a relationship.
That last one isn’t just limited to women, I regularly jump into many things without even thinking or doing the necessary research. This leads to many things either being unfinished or needing to be re-done or not done to a level that is acceptable.
After just about 27 years I have realized that, odds are I probably won’t be dying anytime soon *knocks on wood* and I have had to hold that at the front of my mind. I have had to learn that there is always (maybe) a tomorrow and there are very few things important enough that they can’t happen at a later date.
I have had to learn to tell myself “no” and I have had to learn to make time for myself.
On the flip side, I have also learned things very quickly and have consumed a plethora of information in the pursuit of knowledge and truth in this reality. My gluttony for knowledge/life/experience has been both a blessing as well as a curse, it treads a fine line if left unchecked.
Stealing/Vandalism/Lying
I’m not exactly sure how these things came about, but regardless I succumbed to their temptation.
I think it was mainly due to me being lonely as a child and while we can’t really hold a child at fault for the things that they do (thus in law trying kids as kids and adults as adults), but I’m not sure it was much of an excuse.
I was lonely and I wanted attention, and since I was alone I had nobody to hold me responsible.
Stealing
I remember the first time I stole, I was somewhere in elementary school. My mom took me to a grocery store and I wanted those mesmerizing tasty orange tic-tacs, but my mom said no. I didn’t really know how a store worked exactly at that point but I knew that she said no and I still wanted them. I ended up putting them in my waistband (no pockets in those shorts) when nobody was looking. I would’ve gotten away with it but I didn’t think it through and make sure they were secure so by the time we got to my mom’s car, the pack of tic-tacs slid out of my waistband and clattered to the ground right next to my mom.
She then took me, a bawling mess, in to apologize to the manager. If only that was enough to scare me straight.
As I grew up, my friends and I often went on our bikes to the convenience store and while our parents gave us money, every now and again I would just take something extra. The item that stands out most in my mind was a butane lighter in the shape of the number one with an American flag embroidered on it (the top of the 1 the stars, and the long part of the 1 the stripes) that would light up red, white, and blue when opened. I remember burning myself with it from time to time to see how it felt.
From there I got older and still being lonely and not popular (in my mind) I was seeking ways to gain my peers approval. I’m not sure how it was in your middle school, but my middle school was obsessed with chewing gum. Everyone was always asking others for gum and if you pulled out the pack suddenly you were the most popular person in the room.
I had this dog I used to walk around the neighborhood and there was a convenience store within walking distance. I would walk there and I would tie her up outside. I would then take an exceptional time to look around “deciding” what I wanted, inspecting everything available in the store. During this period of “deliberation” I would steal many different flavors and brands of gum by picking them up and sliding them into my pockets while walking around in the summer. I would slide the packs down my sleeves when it was fall/winter. Sometimes I would buy things if I had the money and sometimes I wouldn’t if I didn’t have it (a middle schooler at that point in history was not likely to have a source of income, unlike today). In retrospect, I’m not sure how I didn’t get caught; it was either the sheer laziness/non-vigilance of the worker, or a purposeful blind eye, either way I was undeserving of that grace but I’m grateful for it because if I had been caught it’s very possible my life would’ve went on a very different track than it it.
The gum was the height of my stealing, but not the end. I stole from my local bookstore/video rental store when I was in high school (and ironically got a job in it shortly after I put stealing down almost for good), it was small things, things I wanted but didn’t have the money for despite having an official minimum wage job from the age of 15 (I worked under minimum wage doing odd jobs around the neighborhood before that). There was another time my best friend and I stole some Ferrari red rayband-esque sunglasses as a bonding and “sticking it to the man” moment. I don’t know what caused me to think that this was acceptable, perhaps it was my ego, or the fact that I was very smart about how I stole and knew I could get away with it, maybe it was just to get a fix, it could’ve also been because I was scared of nothing but death or any combination of the above. I can’t even think about stealing these days, the last time I stole I ruined a friendship; I’ll share that story in another section below.
Vandalism
I was a big fan of graffiti back in the day, not actual graffiti (except for once kind of) but I would mark places I’ve been by writing “[name] was here”.
I would break things as I was able and if they weren’t mine, never something of someone I knew of course.
I remember walking back to my friend’s house from the convenience store when I was a middle schooler. I was walking back with a coke in my hand and we were walking through the cars parked under the covered parking and as I past a convertible with its top down I poured some of my coke onto the driver’s seat just because I thought it was funny.
Once when I was working under some contractors as a helper (6th or 7th grade) they asked me to throw some things away and within that heap of junk was a paint spray gun. Out of curiosity I pulled the trigger and sure enough there was still a bit of pressure to shoot a stream of paint. Of course as a kid I didn’t think this through properly, but I squeezed the gun and sprayed the side of the dumpster and wrote the name of another kid in town I knew people didn’t like too much. Cruel, I know, again, I don’t know what brought me to think of an do that. There was very much no foresight because it was obvious that it was me, the kid whose name I wrote was not blamed. I don’t know why I thought I wouldn’t be found out, it was purely just me acting on impulse and not thinking. I couldn’t show my face around there out of embarrassment and never faced any consequences for my actions which makes me feel shame as I recount this memory. I didn’t feel shame at the time, but I knew what I did was wrong to the point that I snuck into the house (it was under construction so it was wide open) to grab my last “paycheck” (I was paid $5/hr for my work).
Additionally, there was one time where I forced open a window to break into the house because nobody was home and I left my bag pack with my homework in it and needed it for the next day. I didn’t want my assignment to be late or to bother anyone to get it to me. Overall I promise I was a good kid, I had my priorities straight, I just had some faulty logic and selfishness– but this is what happens when you spend the majority of your childhood alone and feeling like an outcast, you don’t learn to think of others this way, especially if you realize that you only get into trouble if you actually get caught.
Lying
Yet another activity that I did without concern for others. You can bet if I thought I could tell a lie or spin a story and not get caught in doing so I took that chance, this mostly continued throughout my life because again, somehow someway I was just never caught. Like I said before I was an overall good kid, I went to church, had straight A’s, was a leader in orchestra/football, and had a perceived clean track record– I had never really given anyone a reason to not believe me.
I was careful with my lies like everything else but I did have rules, I didn’t do it all willy-nilly all the time. I knew as well as anyone else that lies are liable to get out of control if you’re not careful and you need to keep your story straight, not only that, but you have to completely act the part. My rules with lying were to avoid it when possible, never tell a lie that concerned anyone else but myself, and only tell lies about things that I considered inconsequential. Inconsequential things being those that didn’t really matter like saying “just relaxed” when someone asks what you did that day, excuses for why I was late that didn’t really exist, “just hung out with [insert buddy’s name]” when my mom asks me what I did when I actually went on a date but the girl isn’t important yet so I don’t want to talk about her just yet… things like that, lies that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things.
This was a habit that I was not really able to break until about five years ago when I got my first professional job in NYC. I was managing a music library and it was my job to get it out to all of our sub-publishing services for distribution. There was a new sub-publisher that we got on board with and we needed to set up a special way to upload and the sub-publisher asked if we had that capability already. I asked my boss if I should tell them… I can’t remember now… something to the effect of that we did have the capability but not quite so I could have time to figure it out and set it up and then my boss said, “why not just say that we don’t have that?” and blew my mind, that was when I got a slap in the face about my “small” lies. Why did I feel the need to fake it and say that? Why wasn’t I just honest so we could be set up with that new service or so they could offer us an alternative method? My boss thought nothing of it, but that was when I became resolute in being completely honest with everyone unless it was completely justifiable from all perspectives. If you ever read this bossman, you may not even remember that conversation, but thank you very much for triggering my realization.
Now, don’t get me wrong here, I’m not a compulsive liar. I lied mostly when it was inconsequential do
Books/Video Games/TV
Let me first say that the consumption of each of these things is not necessarily detrimental. Books expand your mind so long as you’re not reading “brain candy” and “mentally masturbating” yourself. Video games teach hand-eye coordination, logic/strategy, and have the same teaching abilities as books. TV is also the same. Ultimately, it all comes down to what you consume and how you consume it.
Books
Again, I was a lonely child. My biological father was dead, my mom had to raise me on her own for the first six years of my life and when she married my step-father he was a hard/strict man who I knew wasn’t my father and we never really tried to bond with each other.
Books were my escape. You would not believe the number of books I read as I child and due to this I was reading at a level far above the majority of my peers, at least three years above where I was “supposed” to be.
I would have a new book checked out from the school library every week and during the summer I would read six or more large books in a month from the public library.
This addiction hurt my social skills, don’t get me wrong, I was very charismatic and social, but I didn’t have (and still don’t quite have) the natural eloquence that many others did who spent their time playing on the playground rather than reading.
I continually got in trouble for reading in every class (even English) when I wasn’t supposed to. I chalk this up mainly to the fact that school was just too easy for me. I never got a C till high school, but that was an online World Geography class I took through a university in order to still get my credit and maintain all my extracurriculars without having to drop one (the next C was in calculus where I barely passed the class with a 69.75 that rounded up luckily enough for me [I retook calculus in college as a music major to not let it best me and walked out with an a the second time 😉 ]). I also attribute this to teachers not policing this habit more than they did, how can a teacher truly be mad at a student who possesses a lust for a scholarly activity, has exceptional marks, and finishes their homework assignments in class so they wouldn’t be beholden to them later? Hard to do as a teacher, I probably wouldn’t seriously police it either in that situation.
Video Games/TV
This addiction comes from me being the youngest of my cousins. While I was still a child, they were budding teenagers and they would play video games when I was around and we hung out. They would be focused on that, I was always wondering what they were doing and butting in and I’m sure they found me annoying since they continually shrugged me off when they could. I was the lame kid cousin who was too young to really hang out with.
My very first game was Sonic on the Sega Genesis and one of my earliest memories with it was the last time I saw my half brother before he walked out of my life for over 15 years. I was playing and he was something like 16 or 18. He came to say hi to my mom (his step-mom) and I was laser focused on beating the level I was on. Then as he was leaving he input the cheat code for God mode which allowed you to pick any level and have a permanent golden Sonic that would take no damage. Surely this affected me somewhat, though at the time of me having a Sega Genesis it was in the living room and my mom was good about policing my playing until I had my chores and homework done. (There’s a secret to the world there, all it takes is the right “secret”[not-so-secret] combination of moved to invoke God mode)
As I continued to age, the technology for video games developed as well (as it does), and eventually I had my first GameBoy and Pokémon Yellow. Like many a kid at the time I was obsessed with the Pokémon cartoon and the Pokémon 2000 movie. I loved collecting the different creatures and sparring them against other trainers. Pokémon is (or at least was at it’s inception) a hypnotic show for a child. A 10 year old boy growing and setting out into the world on his own with his friends to become the greatest Pokémon trainer that ever lived? What’s not to like? To realize that all you have to do is put in the work, train, and use the right Pokémon to become the best? Anyone could do that, or at least any kid could still dream of doing that when they believe anything is possible like Santa and whatnot.
Anywho, with the GameBoy my mom could not longer police my video gaming. I could do it whenever and wherever and unbeknownst to her too after I went to bed (this would happen with reading as well once I got a book light from the book fair one time).
It also didn’t help that around that same time, my parents allowed me to have a TV in my room and also a video game console in there.
This contributed further to my loneliness and the slower development of my social skills for, why hang out with friends when you could play a video game and go on adventures? I would often be glued to the screen and had to finally be forced outside by my father when he couldn’t stand it anymore. I would tune everyone out, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere or do anything else, just do what I wanted to do. I could’ve spent more time with my parents or friends (I did spend a lot of time with my friends but we spent more time inside on games rather than outside).
A TV with cable in the room also wasn’t helpful, I was always watching cartoons (easily the best “genre” TV, it’s where all the secrets of the world live hidden in plain sight). I stayed up late and on weekends I woke up early and went straight to watching (or playing video games) from the time my eyes opened.
Cartoon network was the show to see, and there were so many shows. That was also the period of time in history where you had to wait a week in-between episodes to see what happened next, not to fret though because there were different shows every day of the week to keep you occupied! Some of the weekly shows on Cartoon Network were particularly addictive though due to the creators designing the episodes in such a way to keep you hooked and needing to know what happens next.
It wasn’t all bad. Shows like Inuyasha, Dragon Ball Z, Yu Yu Hakusho, Naruto, One Piece and all the cartoons/animes of the like teach children very very valuable lessons. I was younger than the target demographic as these shows only showed on the Adult Swim section of Cartoon Network, but I have always been mature/ahead of my biological age in mind. Nickelodeon and Disney chennel had great shows/lessons/themes (when they weren’t overly cheesy).
However, I wonder what I could’ve done if I had spent that time more productively? It wasn’t a waste and I don’t regret it, but maybe I would’ve had more girlfriends or spent more time outside to kick off the extra weight I had back in the day?
I would probably be worse off, I’ve watched quite a lot of cartoons in my time and it’s my belief that they hide the secrets to the universe in plain sight and without their influence on my outlook of life I wouldn’t be able to see what it is I see today.
Food/Beverages
I was not a healthy child. I ate junk pretty constantly. It didn’t help that my mom always kept the house stocked with sugary drinks/soda and sugary/processed foods and not only that but she never policed my habits and let me have whatever I wanted. (Mostly out of a “Your father died and all I have left is you and I love you more than anything else in the world and you can have whatever you want in the world that would make you happy” kind of mindset)
There was a time where I probably drank 3-6 sodas daily if not more (definitely more). Oreos, chips, little debbie snacks and the like were always available.
I was a chubby kid and I knew it, I did have enough shame to sneak the amount of snacks that I was eating so nobody really knew how much I ate. I didn’t really have any bodily shame about it per se, but at some point I considered it to be a factor as to why I had a hard time with the girls I liked. All the popular kids were in some sort of sport and as such all had athletic type bodies.
This was my main motivation for joining football as a kid despite never having an interest in any sports (other than bowling, I was in a league for about seven years or so). Part of my disinterest in sports was the fact that I had asthma and physical activity would trigger it, hell, it’s so dusty in my home town that the wind blowing even a little could set it off and I would be gasping for air. There were several times as a small child when I thought I was going to die because I couldn’t breathe.
Despite my particular lungs not being privy to physical activity, I was determined to have people like me and show people what I was made of and lose weight.
One thing that did not happen was me controlling what I ate, my body still had constant gunk in it from my food choices but I did lose weight because I was working out more than I was eating.
I can’t imagine the amount of money I spent on fast food once I had the ability to get it, it didn’t help that my first official job was as a carhop at Sonic Drive-In. I continually ate junk mostly for the first 21 years of my life. After freshman year I had to drop football because I wasn’t aiming to be a professional football player and I didn’t have the room in my schedule for everything that I wanted to do. Once football was dropped I pugged up quite a bit.
Also, I would often sneak food from other people without asking, but only if I thought the amount I took wouldn’t be missed. I was caught a few times, felt like a dick, don’t do that anymore.
Luckily for me, by the time high school hit, I was on the search for all of the secrets of the universe and seeking that in the dark depths of the wild west internet at the time (not indexed and curated like today’s internet where they show you what they want you to see). Due to this pursuit I realized that I needed to take better care of my body. I dropped all junk food cold turkey, beyond that I actually went vegan for a year. The desire here was two-fold: lose weight, and also prove to myself that I had the self-discipline to control myself. I did it, but let me tell you it was not an easy thing to do in a small town in Texas back in the day. These days restaurants and grocery stores have caught up to the variety of dietary restrictions that exist, but back then it was hard to do and while I did my very best to avoid everything, something likely slipped through here or there. I still count it though because it was unbeknownst to me and I did everything in my power to be as vegan as possible, “Praise be!!” I thought at the time once I learned that all Oreos that existed at the time were Vegan.
The day I quit being Vegan was amazing, my best friend made me a meatloaf cake and I ate the whole thing, and no detrimental effects either. Personally, I feel like that’s all in the mind unless you do it for a long time, but even then you would be able to make the switch after a month once your intestinal fauna has adjusted.
After this it was either one year later or a few months later when I finally moved out of my parents house for the first time to go to school in Phoenix. Once out of their house I was finally able to have the free agency to do what I liked and not be inadvertently enabled by what they chose to keep around the house. I lived with two roommates in Phoenix, a couple, and they definitely did not eat so well either BUT it’s much easier to resist eating food I shouldn’t eat when it wasn’t mine.
It was in Phoenix when I tried my hand at the Carnivore aka ZeroCarb diet. I will not dive into it in this particular article but essentially it is a ZeroCarb (zero doesn’t mean none in this case, it means as little as possible) high fat and medium protein diet. My daily food intake for at least nine months consisted of: 1 protein shake, 4 bananas, 2 pieces of toast, one dozen eggs, and 2lbs of chuck steak a day which was drenched in butter and split up between two meals. I ate very little of anything else. When I felt compelled I cheated with junk food once a week, to satisfy a sugar craving as well as to give a little to my body so it would continue to know how to process the slow poison that is processed food (an activity called mithridatism).
If you would like to know more about the Carnivore aka ZeroCarb diet, I have written a bit on this previously in my article “Do You Want to Know me?” and I’ve linked to materials on the subject in my “Books” recommendations. I also plan to further expand on the subject in the future.
Ever since switching to that diet and having done it a step down from religiously (after a while I noticed this diet inhibited my life experiences and I didn’t want it ruling over my life so I laxed the rules a tad) sugary things have become unbearable, plants hurt my gut (see oxalic acid which is present in a majority of plants and also consider that fiber doesn’t digest within the body and mine has very little rough materials like that so my insides were tender/soft). Additionally my face now breaks out when I eat anything too salty/sugary, I feel like crap compared to excelling, I fart a lot more, and lastly I have done it for so long now (6+ years) that processed foods now leave my tongue raw like I’ve brushed it with sandpaper. For the most part, through discipline and power of mind, I allowed my body enough time to desensitize itself from the mountains of junk I would shovel into myself and my senses/body reset to give me visible perspective as to what I was doing and how I was really feeling. If you eat like this regularly then you will regularly feel like crap and feeling like crap regularly will become your “normal” and you will have no perspective as to the possible difference/how crappy you’re really feeling. This is the equivalent of a “T break” if you’re a pot smoker.
It took approximately 4ish, almost 5 years to undo all of the mental/physical damage that I had done to my body in the first 21 years of having it. Which is unsurprising when you consider how, it takes up to 12 months for your lungs to return to normal after putting down a smoking habit depending on how your personal habits with it are– it takes up to 15 years for your body to return completely normal, once again depending on your habits (stats pulled from the the American Cancer Society website). It took me 4ish almost 5 years for my body to return to normal, but luckily I made that move as a young healthy lad with only one fifth of my life behind me and with very little other other body damaging cruxes. So my body was able to heal faster than it would have had I made the decision to eat right later in my life or under other circumstances.
Just about everyone I know calls me crazy for this diet and claims that I am destroying my body– these people eat many things freely and without high regard for their own body. If they don’t say that I’m destroying by body, they say that I’m destroying the planet. Both of which are very much false. I say, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. It is no person’s concern as to what another individual decides to consume and yet very few can resist interjecting their nose/opinion where it was unasked for and doesn’t belong.
You don’t have to do what I did and follow in my footsteps, I personally believe that the Carnivore/ZeroCarb diet is the best diet for any human being to follow, but to each their own. The only diet I ever advocate is one that is as natural and unprocessed as possible (90% of most grocery stores are processed btw. Stick to the produce, meat, and dairy [if you can handle it] sections) and the diet that makes YOU feel good mentally/physically. You could be Vegan or eat only potatoes for the rest of your life. What you decide to eat is none of my business unless you ask me and thus completely up to you.
Porn/Masturbation/Orgasm
I was first introduced to porn when I was in middle school, I don’t know exactly when it was, but it very well may have been in 6th grade, heck it may have even been 5th grade.
I wasn’t really friends with anyone my own age when I was so young. There was a kid across the street that was my age but he came later. Before him there were a couple of kids that lived in my neighborhood that were older than me, I’m pretty sure at least three years if not more. As we all know, the difference in maturity between each year up until 20 is significantly larger than the difference in maturity between years after you turn 21 and as you get older.
Not only was the difference in maturity larger, but also one of these friends had older brother that were even older than they were. So, by association, it was indirectly/directly as if I had brothers that were 6+ years older than me. and we all know that the teenage years are the years that we all start discovering sexuality. I managed to start a year earlier, if not more. It doesn’t sound like such a big deal at first thought, but we have to remember, each year before 21 the difference in maturity gets exponentially larger.
I remember in late elementary school starting to be interested in girls.
I also remember when I was hanging with my friends (one of which had a parent that left them to their own devices) who had a very private room in the back of their house. One way or another, we (three of us) were hanging out and the subject of porn and masturbation came up. I wanted to be a part of the crowd, I wanted to be included and not just a little kid. I wish I had more specifics leading up to the happening, but all I remember is that the subject of porn came up and a DVD came out (that they were given or had taken from their brothers).
Then they asked me if I knew what masturbation was, it was a test to see if I was in a place where I could watch this with them.
I’m not sure how I did it. Really, but when they asked me, “Do you even know what masturbation is?” I said, “Yeah, of course!”
But of course they would not be fooled so easily (I keep good company after all) so next they asked, “Ok, how do you do it?”
This question was really smart of them, because, as far as I remember, I was lying and I had no idea what this ‘masturbation’ was, yet alone how to do it.
Yet, I doubled down. I’m not sure how I knew, or at least how I figured out the context clues, or at the very least how I knew the best guess (I believe in the “supernatural” and that anything is possible [so supernatural isn’t supernatural, but just natural {even though “supernatural” is actually more natural than natural because another way of understanding “supernatural” is just as “very natural} so I actually believe that I somehow read their mind [of course it’s entirely possible that I somehow managed to get a hint from something that I saw or heard at one point or another])
So what did I (convincingly and in a timely manner) come up with in answer to “Ok, how do you masturbate then?”
“With your hand”
And man, let me tell you, my friends are freaking smart, because they didn’t stop checking me there., The next question that they asked me was, “Ok and what else?”
And in my head I thought, “What really? What else could there be??”
But I knew I had to answer their question if I wanted to see what the older kids saw. My friends of three years older I didn’t really see as the older kids. The brothers of one friend we’re already 18 whereas I was twelve-ish at the time (I may have been younger, it’s difficult to remember).
Somehow I tapped into my future knowledge because I really have no idea how I knew the next thing. I hadn’t started doing that yet and I remember in my mind I just guessed.
I said, “lotion, duh!”. Maybe I saw Something on tv/movies? I’m not sure I had health class yet and if I remember right we didn’t talk about it when I was in health class. Remembering some things, but not others, always fun. Gotta love the human experience.
So I passed their test. The reward, getting to watch the prono they had got from one friend’s older brother. It was pretty great, not gonna lie. I don’t remember a lot of it, but I remember the part I liked best was a lady in some black chapos on a farm, she had what looked to be grill marks (in the shape of this pattern on the bench) on her right sourthern cheek. I’m not proud I know that still, demonstrates the effect of porn on the brain. I am pretty confident in he power of random strangers though and as time goes on I bet someone will suggest it and find it some day. The colors on the disk were blue and yellow.
I became overly fascinated by the disk, like Gollum for the ring. To the point where my friends ended up giving me the disk, which was not a good idea in hindsight, but there was no stopping me, I was hooked.
My parents had to work, it was easy to watch unattended. It didn’t help that around that time I also found my parents two foot tall stack of playboys (no lie), it’s a shame that they were stored next to the water heater and that the water heater happened to bust one year.. that stack, had it made it, would’ve been worth a good amount of skrilla.
Anywho, that disk was a lot and once I knew that I could look this stuff up on my home computer I was set on a path of self-destruction, then came along the ipod itouch and I was lost forever.
This stuff was a secret obsession, one that I never thought was so bad until I had the hindsight to see. So what if I wanted to rub one out? It’s my body and it feels good and they say it may prevent prostate cancer.
I didn’t think it was bad when I did it once a day. I didn’t think it was bad when I did it twice a day. I didn’t think it was bad that one time I did it at least 8 times in a row.
I didn’t think it was bad when I was doing it and I heard my mom walking towards my room at a pace that indicated she was going to come in and talk to me so I jumped in front of my closet to pretend to be looking for pants (some of my greatest ideas are had in the moment and without thinking). This plan would’ve worked perfectly if there hadn’t happened to have been a broom right next to my closet that I bumped into, it started to fall behind me, so I reached my arm around to catch it… and caught it JUST IN TIME for my mom to open the door, come in and see me pantsless and holding a broom behind me with the end of it at about ass-level and obviously very startled, flustered, and red.
Needless to say my mother never believed I wasn’t experimenting with the family broom, especially because I never told her what really happened. Teenage boys are weird, we’d rather defend our story that makes it look like we’re lying about not actually shoving a broom up our butt than admit we were jackin it… at least to our mother…. I can only speak for myself, but where there’s one, there’s many, I certainly speak for some size sect of men.
This habit was particularly damaging to my psyche, I fell in lust with the female form. I could certainly see the unsexualized beauty of a woman, but any woman I liked, I couldn’t help but have fantasies about. In retrospect I see how it was so easy that I fell into this hole. I believed that God didn’t exist, or at least had no interest in us. My biological father passed before he could tell me the dangers of this stuff, my mom never talked with me and my (step) dad didn’t either. For some reason I just always thought that nobody could ever like me, that I always did things to annoy people or I wasn’t someone worth loving. I know I had friends and those that didn’t think that (even though I definitely was annoying to everyone at times. I like to push buttons…) or even if they did that they loved me anyway, but we all understand the dark thoughts, the ones we have no credible basis yet we often entertain to our own detriment for no reason.
I can’t help but think that I would have dated more girls if I never succumbed to this particular addiction, or at least would’ve not been so hard on myself in the above regard.
It’s at this point that I wonder if someone I know won’t cringe when they stumble upon this particular writing. I don’t know what to say other than I was a kid with some very unique troubles and without the sight to have addressed them myself. You can’t expect that level of responsibility from a kid though, they don’t have the wherewithal. I don’t know what to say or how to address this to those of you who wonder, just know that I was largely able to keep this separate and private to myself. They say compartmentalization is bad but in this case it was the right thing to do, I knew this was wrong, and yet I couldn’t help myself… adding further shame to my constant clouds.
It wasn’t till just this year that I kicked PMO. 15ish years of my life. I’m not proud to say that. I know some people out there would say that that’s just normal, but I truly don’t think that it is. I disagree with that prevalent mindset on this. I don’t think it’s good so have such freely accessible objectification of others constantly within arms reach. But I know that it can be empowering for some and normal for others. Sexy is sexy and I get it, you can say all you want normally, but when you’re right in front of it it’s difficult to restrain yourself. What’s so wrong in feeling goo? Two people feeling good together. Having fun. Two people having a thoroughly good time and giving each other such enveloping erotic pleasure… there’s nothing more arousing than giving someone a sexual gift that you want to give them and they taking such pleasure themselves in it… that exchange is basically the foundation of reality for humanity, for without it, we wouldn’t have lasted this long.
Substances
I have a long track record of substances. It started slow but then quickly snowballed as time went on. There is only one life we have for experiencing things and I believe that experiencing alternative states of mind is an activity that should be pursued at least two times in each possibility (minus heroin and other drugs you should obviously not try no matter what) while you still have a mind. Imagine you never drove your car up to 120mph, yeah it’s illegal in most places, but here are some places to do it and there are some places where it’s illegal but you can experience it safely anyhow without getting caught or endangering others/yourself.
As long as you know what you’re doing and don’t have an addictive personality, then substances are something that aren’t necessarily so dangerous. The danger is, if you are slipping, you’re likely to be doing what you’re doing on purpose or without realizing. You know what that action does to you and yet you do it anyway. Some might say that’s the nature of addiction, and sure, but that also indicated weakness of mind. Being weak-minded isn’t something anyone should take offense to, especially those who suffer from addiction– your mind is weak, otherwise you wouldn’t let yourself partake. You’re not doing smart things to stop doing what you don’t want to do. This is just pointing out the obvious and thus giving you the solution because if you know that you have a weak mind then that means you already know the solution to solve your problem, which is building a strong mind. Like building anything else strong, it’s easy, it just takes doing it the right way and a certain amount of time doing it, both the difficulty of doing things correctly and the amount of time it takes depending on project of course.
Anywho, last thing, I also belong in this category of weak-minded person because I have fell prey to these things, so I just speak from my own experience.
My mom tried to do me right for my first introduction with drugs.
What happened was, one day, sometime in elementary school, my mom sat me down. She had a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other. She says, “FCP, this is a cigarette, try it, take a puff”, so I did. She says, “How was that?”, I said, “yucky”. Next she opens the beer, she holds it up to me and says, “take a drink”. I take a drink and she asks me, “how was that?”, I say “gross”. She nodded her head in approval and said, “ok, so are you ever going to do either of these?” I say, “no never!”. She says “good”, and that’s about all of the memory I can pull. What else I remember about that is, I knew what she was going to do before she did it, I mean, when she sat me down I knew what she was going to ask and I knew what she hoped/expected the answer to be. Not in a psychic sort of way, but in a “I’ve seen this sort of thing on TV before” kinda way.
To her credit, I did avoid these things for a few years after that, it’s just a shame it wasn’t forever. I’m a curious little devil.
Weed
The early days of weed
I had an interesting relationship with weed. See, I grew up with asthma and until I was just about 21 it had always been a concern for me. I had largely outgrown it by 17, but the fear was still there, those of you who have experienced asthma and asthma attacks know what I mean.
I can’t remember when exactly my first time smoking was, it was definitely in high school. Sophomore or junior year. My best friend and I decided we wanted to try weed. We were both in similar crowds and only knew one person that smoked weed pretty often and was close enough to the two of us to introduce us to Mary Jane. Pretty good excuse to hang with a girl I had a crush on too.
So we all get together at a park, we all get into one vehicle. Now, any amount of weed is a misdemeanor, it was a Friday and our town is small enough that there are cops out and about. We also can’t do this at any one of our houses so we ended up deciding to drive around and have people switch in and out of the trunk to hotbox from time to time. Stupid idea, but it’s what we did.
We didn’t have actual weed, but hashish. Which was pretty dang weird, it’s hard to light the way that we were doing it.
We all took our turns and had a good time. I didn’t really smoke too much or I just didn’t know how to inhale it in.
After we all smoked me and my buddy both went back to his place to play MTG.
We drove back to his place from a park that was pretty close by. Like I said, I’m not sure I got high, idk if he did or not, we were never in the trunk at the same time. We were asking each other how we felt and what we thought and over all we summed it up to be a pretty subpar experience.
I didn’t exactly know what it meant to be high, but if my mind was altered, it was very minimally. If you ask my friend though, he would disagree. When we were driving to his place I was blinking rapidly on purpose while I drove (not sure why I did it, I guess I was just being weird or wanting to mess with him) and he still to this day does not believe I was doing it on purpose but that I was doing it because I was high. Sucks when friends don’t trust you about what’s happening in your own experience, but I get it, some people would deny even getting high for a variety of reasons.
That was the last time I smoked weed for a good four to five years, but it wasn’t out of my life.
I was never well off. I was taken care of, luckily being the only child, but I would call us lower middle class. Life was good while I was young because of my biological father’s social security checks and the income of two parents. Even with that, my parents were not so fiscally responsible with money. Don’t get me wrong, we were never for want or ever totally broke, but they could have grown out of debt rather than letting it pile on. Strong words to say as a child to a parent when I have no idea of their actual situation from my point of view, and I very well could be wrong, but I do know my parents, I know them better than anyone else. These are not harsh or judgemental words, they are just a-matter-of-fact.
All that to say, I got my first “official” job at 14, I had some under-the-table cash jobs before that. My parents didn’t buy my car or any of the other expenses, and they told/taught me that if I wanted something, I’d have to work for it myself. This was to instill a good work ethic in me, but also was just done out of necessity because they couldn’t afford to help anymore than they were actually doing (which was good for me).
I slowly, got better jobs over the years and there came a point where I was working two jobs officially but I had a third secret job. Can you already see where I’m going?
I found a supplier for bulk weed and began selling for some extra cash. It was pretty lucrative. I was making about an extra $200-400 a month, which ain’t nothin. I called my business “crown royal” and I had little royal blue bags with golden crowns stamped on them. I did well and it was nice.
I didn’t move out till I left for tech school so while I was flipping weed, I was still living at my parents. You may be able to guess why I bring that up…
Well I kept my stash inside an old hoodie in my closet, and of course, my mother being the angel that she is, was hanging up my laundry for me (I definitely did my own laundry, anytime she did my laundry was of her own accord and unrequested by me– c’mon, there are secret drugs in my closet, I was more than willing to do my own laundry). Lo’ and behold, she just happened to knock that one particular hoodie down, pick it up, and think, “wow, this sure is one heavy hoodie!”. And with a thought like that, curiosity couldn’t help but kill the cat.
The next day after her discovery, I was home earlier than her and was getting to work on my classwork. She knocks on my door very timidly and says, “hey can we talk?” and I say, “Can we do it later? I’m in the middle of classwork”, and she says, “Sure, let me know when you’re finished”. It was at this point that I should’ve realized that something was wrong, my mom is the type to say “just really quick, please? please? I’ll be fast” when she actually needs something.
So I finish up my homework and I call for her to come in and she sits down on my piano bench, pulls out my weed jar, and says, “what is this?”
I am immediately pretty startled, but ultimately unphased, I just decided to own it because I wasn’t doing anything “bad” per se. “You know what it is mother”, I replied. She goes, “why do you have it?”. I say, “to make money”, which confused her a little bit, she was unprepared for that response.
She goes, “what do you mean?”, I reply, “I need money, so I sell it, I don’t smoke it”. Which was true at the time, I didn’t even own a pipe. In fact, my first three actual pipes and my first grinder were gifts.
She asks, “why?”, I say, “why does one need money? To stay on top of finances and live”.
That was about the extent of the conversation, she ended it on “well be careful and don’t do anything stupid”. My mom knows me, she knows I’m a good person/kid and that my heart is always in the right place. I think she would’ve been more concerned if I was actually smoking and making bad decisions, but I wasn’t… well.. a not-so-bad decision in the grand scheme of things but I do believe all that I did probably amounted to a felony in the eyes of a government, but hey, my money went straight back into the local US economy and to support a citizen who has done his best to give back when it’s within his ability to do so.
Weed as a regular thing
It was my last year of college, 2014-15 when I finally started smoking my own stash. I didn’t smoke a lot, I really didn’t want to damage my lungs at the time. Not having a piece was what I did to keep from smoking but then the girl I was seeing ended up giving me one as a gift. It was a gorgeous clear base with whisps of electric yellow and royal blue (MSU colors) spun and floating throughout it. RIP that pipe, it took a good ten drops, but I finally dropped it one too many times. It made it all the way from Amarillo, to Arizona, to New York. My second pipe was also a birthday gift, a close friend of mine gave it to me in Arizona, that pipe ended up breaking from a drop as well. Gravity is my worst enemy. Aside from that, I’ve bought 3-5 pinch hitters. I’ve always wanted a bong but have never pulled the trigger. I bought a pax and that was such a waste of money (I wanted there to be no smell whatsoever). I shifted over to oil cartridges for awhile for their convenience, but considering I was buying them through back illegal channels and couldn’t verify their ingredients or authenticity I switched back to regular flower to know it was mostly ok (still can’t confirm things like pesticides on the crop). These days my choice is edibles over smoking (must save the lungs).
But yeah, once I had a pipe, the game was over. I didn’t smoke often back then, just on the nights when I was coming home
Now, once I moved to Arizona I still smoked, but I was very productive with it. Weed alters your mind and your physiology and in Arizona I was driving all of the time. I was not a high driver. Though I did smoke every day, I mostly only smoked once a day and that was specifically before the gym (luckily my apt complex had a gym). Weed has a lot of potential benefits for the athletes out there and as someone who was attempting to forge a new body/life for myself now that I was away and find myself. If I wasn’t smoking before the gym I smoked at night and only left once I was sober.
During my time in AZ I also started making and distributing edibles on the side, I’ve got a bomb recipe and I did pretty well for myself. I liked making white and chocolate chip cookies the best. I would always try one whole cookie from the batch myself so I could advise someone else the right amount of cookie to eat and woof, there is one time in my head that sticks out where I couldn’t get off of the couch for 8hrs.
Weed in NYC
After Arizona I moved to NYC with just a suitcase, $3,000, and a dream. No really, that was it. I was lucky enough to have a friend of the family take me in for SUPER cheap rent. There’s really a lot to tell in my life story, but I’ll keep it to weed since that’s the subject.
Initially I only had an unpaid internship, and that was after one month in NYC. Don’t ask me why I didn’t get an actual job while I was interning, I just knew that one way or another I was getting hired and there was nothing anyone could do to prevent it. Which is exactly at happened and just in the nick of time. They hired me when I was two weeks away from being out of money and would need to buy a plane ticket home (well someone else would’ve had to buy my ticket actually).
Once I got money, it was a little later when I started buying oil cartridges from a person with one degree of separation from me. Someone you would be only a little surprised that they dealt drugs.
I didn’t have a lot of money for things, but you best bet that I had money for weed, especially oil cartridges, you can smoke those things anywhere.
Typing this up and pondering back now, I wonder how much I held myself back by smoking weed at this period of time. I am a pretty high functioning stoner, but there is no question that weed inhibits your interactions after a point which is not too many puffs away from the first one. I can’t help but think if I had been at the top of my wits in more interactions that I might’ve made it further along in my career and in my own personal growth…. not to mention all of the money I may have saved/invested!!
Alcohol
Alcohol hasn’t really been so much of a problem addiction for me for the most part, but when it does rear its ugly head, it’s incredibly ugly. I’m not much of a drinker, I like to get tipsy, but I don’t like to get hungover.
My biggest mistake is usually that I keep drinking after I feel good to chase the good feelings, but that’s not how the metabolization of alcohol works. It takes proper pacing and not just one drink after another.
It was difficult for me to get tipsy/drunk back in the day, just the nature of the beast. Very difficult for me to brown or black out. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve actually browned or blacked out, only twice.
The first time was a very shameful one. There was a party at a town thirty minutes away from my own, I partied a little too hard and I drove home. I’ll spare you the details but just know I’ve berated myself plenty and continue to berate myself when the thought pops back up in my mind. There are plenty of thoughts I have like that, I’m sure you have some too, where you remember an instance when you wish you could’ve made a different decision than the one that you did and you sort of cringe at the thought and wish you could blink out of existence in shame/embarrassment– or perhaps wish that karma would go ahead and payback the actions so we could go forwards knowing everything was properly resolved.
The second time was sheer stupidity hi-jinks. It was Friday, work finished up, we didn’t eat dinner we just went straight to drinking and I made the mistake of trying to keep up with my Ukranian best friend. Idk what the occasion was but that was just the course of the evening– (shitty) coke and tequila, luckily this was a little bit before the fentanyl craze, also I trusted my source.
I don’t know exactly how it happened, it was fall when things were starting to get cold, must’ve been early November by my guess, if not mid-October. We just went around Bleeker street, locals know the jive. I wish I had more to report for you from that evening, but we all know what happens to memories sober, let alone when alcohol (on an empty stomach) is involved.
We were just up-and-down Bleeker street. Coke, tequila, e-weed fueled. We ended up at the Red Lion blasted, dancing, and finishing the last of our coke. I went in and out of the place a couple times, I personally need frequent breaks from the cacophony that is “going out”. I ended up hanging out side for a bit by the front and was fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of Sean/Chris. I regret I don’t remember his name because he was actually pretty cool/respectful to me. Turns out though, he runs that street, or at least did when I was there.
I went outside a couple times and had some talks with him. I remember getting the feeling he was feeling me out and him being intrigued by my mannerisms, maybe I was wrong and making that up, but I don’t think so. We talked a bit then he told me who he was and asked if I needed anything. I of course told him that I appreciate his looking out, but I was already set.
My third time going outside was not of my own accord entirely. I was drinking water (smart) and trying to regain my bearings. I don’t remember exactly how it happened, but I ended up dropping my glass and I just happened to be in-view of the bouncer at the door who quickly informed me that the glass hitting the floor was the sign that I was quickly turning back into a pumpkin and needed to leave immediately.
I don’t remember if my phone was dead or if I just didn’t communicate with my friends properly but I remember I ended up sitting in a corner right next to the door. I had it in my head that I was waiting for them to come outside and see me, but to my surprise when I woke up with a crick in my neck on the ground they never did.
Yes friends, I’m saying I spent a cold fall evening passed out on the street next to the Red Lion. I was very fortunate (or maybe not so much) that no cops were called on me, not only that but nobody robbed me. Luckily I was wearing a thicker winter jacket than was needed that day which kept me warm through the night. It’s funny I can say “lucky” and “fortunate” in a situation where I unintentionally fell asleep inebriated in the streets of NYC, especially when I consider that I may have been left alone just because I was a guy. I dread to think what would’ve happened to a woman in that situation. Though, if we think about it, would a woman have ever gotten in that situation? I feel like people wouldn’t be so apt to just leave a woman sleeping in a corner on a cold NYC fall evening, though I suppose that depends on the context clues that are available… in this case let’s say not so apt to leave a woman sleeping on the street who didn’t look like that was their normal place to sleep.
Sleeping on the ground wasn’t so bad as you might think, at least if you pass out due to inebriation. It was definitely hard on my back but not for long as a young… I was 23-24ish… kiddo.
Such a weird experience, to be waiting for your friends one moment and then waking up, thinking it’s way colder than usual in your bedroom, then notice you hear the traffic more clearly than usual, finally you succumb to full consciousness to see what’s going on and are very confused to see the street. That confusion coupled with a big neck crick and back crick is really something for your first experience of the day.
I figured it out pretty quickly and hobbled to the train to take me home. I was still pretty exhausted and passed out on the train missing my stop and having to walk home from two stops after! (At that time in the morning it felt like walking was the better move rather than wait for another train.)
Alcohol wasn’t a problem for me so much until the move to NYC, there’s just something about that city that makes you want a drink every day and I know that’s largely anecdotal but I’m also far from the only one.
There was another embarrassing moment I had with alcohol when I first moved to NYC. I was riding the subway and made some fun eye contact with a lady nearby. She saw something in me and it was reciprocal. As I talked about above, I’m addicted to the idea of life and life could end at any moment, life is completely fleeting, so when this woman got off before the stop I was aiming to get off on, I followed her off. RED FLAG CREEPY STALKER!!!! I know, I know how it could possibly seem but you’ll have to give me the benefit of the doubt here that I was not being a creep and was acting on very obvious context clues.
Thank goodness I know how to read people because, while slightly startled, she was definitely welcoming to my approach. So welcoming in fact that she asked me to follow her to the grocery store and her apartment. Maybe that’s baffling or sounds like a tall tale, but just think of those times you’ve connected with someone and you just hit it off from the get go and you could tell they were genuine– this was that type of interaction.
We ended up going on a date (a couple actually), my very first time hearing of and experiencing a speakeasy. I was new in the city and still no job, I was also very nervous because this was one hell of a woman, not only that but a NEW YORK WOMAN. So what did I do with excellent intention but horrible execution? I decided it would be a great idea to pregame the date with rum! Not only would I save some money on drinks, but I would lose my edge. This was a horrible idea on an empty stomach. I essentially showed up to the date drunk. I must be able to hold myself exceptionally well because I still sit here and wonder why she not only didn’t ditch me, but also why she decided to end up taking me home?? I never got to ask her, maybe she was one of the women who had learned through her experiences that it’s safer to not say no… I sure hope not, but I’ll never know. I could ask her still, but I think she probably forgot about it and also doesn’t want me to randomly come out of the woodwork and approach her.
Nicotine
My journey with nicotine was an interesting one. Cigarettes and the like never really spoke to me, mostly because I grew up with asthma (I had a pretty close call with it when the wind blew the wrong way once and I didn’t have my inhaler) and they stunk. I never thought anyone looked cool smoking a cigarette and though adults around me smoked from time to time, including my step-dad (a pack-a-day at least smoker since he was 14), I was still never allured.
My mom sat me down as a kid and gave me a puff of a cigarette when I was really young and said, “that’s gross isn’t it.” I didn’t inhale it into my lungs (didn’t know to pull all the way) but it sure did taste bad. I coughed and said, ” yeah it is,” because I knew that was the reaction she was expecting.
I knew this because this wasn’t the first time I had seen this scene played out I definitely saw it in some of TV show where the kid snuck some sort of drug, but usually alcohol/cigarettes and their parents made them do so much of it that it made them sick so they wouldn’t want to do it anymore. Good move on the parents in my mind, I may consider doing that. Kids don’t really learn not to touch a fire by us telling them that touching fire is bad for them, they learn it by touching it or at least seeing someone else touch it… but if it’s someone else they still don’t learn because somewhere in their mind they’re thinking, “but really, how hard could it be?”
My first cigarette
The first cigarette I smoked, I in maybe the 6th grade, maybe not even. I was staying the night at a friend’s house. His parents both smoked and that night we got the bright idea to be rebels, we were already rebels as we had stolen some things from the convenience store from time to time. Small things. We also spent a lot of money there, mostly on chips, candy, and soda/energy drinks, as kids tend to do.
Earlier that day, if not the weekend before, I had managed to steal a lighter. It was a butane lighter, it was in the shape of a number 1 and had an American flag design with the top of the one being the stars and the column of the 1 being the stripes (which is against the flag code I might add 4 U.S.C. § 8i). This lighter also lit up red white and blue flashing LEDs when it was opened, it was pretty dang cool.
Now obviously, if you’re a kid and you have a lighter, naturally you’re going to want to use it. So we did, we burned twigs and trash and stuff, some paper. These things got old rather quickly though and we went in to play video games. With a child’s attention span, we were bored again and came up with the bright idea to take and smoke a cigarette from the host’s mom’s purse.
So we did, she was asleep upstairs, made for easy pick-ins. We got the goods and snuck outside into this little treehouse that was actually on the ground (I don’t know what else to call it). We lit it up and took turns. I again didn’t breathe into my lungs (still didn’t know to inhale all the way). Eventually one of the parents (can’t remember which) must have heard us outside and asked what we were doing and told us to come in. We were nervous about the smell but lucked out because they didn’t even wait for us inside, they went right back upstairs.
My next smoke
The next smoke was when I turned 18. I figured I might as well exercise my new rights and bought some lotto and apple cigarillos, bad idea. Lost on the lotto and those apple cigarillos tasted horrible. I should’ve got an actual cigar, but I didn’t know the difference at the time.
After that I would just bum cigarettes every now and again at parties or when drinking, especially if they were menthols.
I didn’t become addicted to nicotine until some smarty pants came out with the Juul. My main qualm with cigarettes was the smoke and the smell. This device solved both of those things. I was introduced to the Juul by a coworker at my first gig in NYC. He came in with it one day, we talked about it and he asked me if I wanted to try it. I said sure. The head-rush felt interesting, I felt immediately relaxed. I bummed off of his for while, refusing to go down that road. But then one day, I decided that I should probably quit bumming off of his and I got my own.
Vaping my Juul became my tick. It was just so convenient, I could do it pretty much anywhere and at any time. I don’t know how to explain it, but the nicotine felt.. right. I felt more on it somehow. I did it all the time. I especially did it before the gym and before bed. Now, I know what you’re thinking, why do it before the gym? Especially since nicotine already increases heart-rate. Well I don’t know, but that buzz felt alright to work with and I never suffered any negative effects. Mind you though, my lungs were strong, I was young (22 maybe), and I had only just started doing all of this and so my body had yet to start experiencing the negative effects.
Now let me tell you, I never thought nicotine would be able to ensnare me such as it has. I went into it thinking, “I can stop whenever I want,” and that’s true and still possible, but little did I know that the nicotine would entice me so much where I would find it so difficult to want to stop.
I was addicted. I ended up carrying two different Juuls most of the time. And then, the disposable craze hit and its near-infinite flavors along with it. There were so many flavors to try, and try them I did. For me, I have to have the ice flavors. I just need the feeling of it hitting my throat, otherwise it doesn’t really feel like I’m getting anything. Lychee Ice, it still floats in my dream. I was always a fan of trying every combination of thing, I’m a big fan of getting a “suicide” (mixing all the flavors at the soda fountain), so I would have maybe four flavors on me at a time and often hitting more than one at once.
Not only was this the height of my nicotine craze, it was also the height of my weed craze (vaping and/or smoking). Between these two things, I had no idea how much damage I was doing to my lungs until years later. When I started noticing that I couldn’t breath as deeply as I used to, when I was running on the treadmill at the gym. It was also affecting my body because it was affecting my sleep patterns. Smoking before bed made it incredibly hard to wake up, I previously had been able to just naturally wake up with the sun and now it took the most annoying alarms and keeping my phone across the room.
I vaped consistently for a good five years, I had breaks here and there but I could never stick to it.
It wasn’t until I left NYC in 2021 when I finally kicked my inhalation habits. Notice I said inhalation habits and not vaping or nicotine. This was because I did not quit nicotine entirely. I knew I had to stop so my lungs could heal, but again, there is just this thing that nicotine does to my mind. I don’t know how to explain it, but I feel like it somehow enhances my thinking, not to say I think it makes me smarter. I have a sneaking suspicion I may have some sort of undiagnosed attention disorder, but technically I don’t since it’s never been diagnosed.. and it would ever be diagnosed for that matter, only those who think they should go to the psychiatrist should have their head checked ;).
All that to say, somehow it feels to me that this chemical increases my cognitive function. And for that reason mostly, I have yet to abandon it.
So, in lieu of smoking, I began to use those nicotine salt packs that have popped up. They’re basically dip, but are just nicotine crystals in a pouch instead. Not just nicotine crystals, they do have a few other ingredients to help with flavor and delivery.
I am still on these pouches today, but they are next on the list to go. I really only have this addiction to overcome at this time, my other habits are out of the addiction realm.
Psychedelics
Psychedelics is a fun one. I don’t necessarily find these things dangerous or negative inherently. I believe they should be approached with respect, but so long as that is the approach I believe very little can be negative in their utilization.
Shrooms
I first had psychedelics in college, it was shrooms. That’s a really crazy story but so as to not go down a path that is not so relevant at this time, I won’t go into it. I will share one small detail of that trip though and not to spoil anything for you, but the secret to the universe is: cats.
That was a good trip and I wanted to explore that more, however I was not connected to the connect and it never panned out for me to do it again in my hometown.
The next time I had them, I was going to tech school in Arizona, I had them more regularly at this point as I was seeing a girl who had direct connections. These were some of the best nights of my life.
Once I moved to NYC, I was connectionless again and wasn’t able to come across any till I met a buddy about to years into my stint there, but he wasn’t super connected so it wasn’t much until one of the weed dealers I knew said he added mushrooms to the stock. Once that happened, it was a game changer.
Mushroom land… how do I explain it… I can only explain it at the most fun and great feeling one can have. Not to say the other psychedelics are not as good as shrooms, all psychedelics are the most fun feeling, they are all just their own flavor of fun feeling. Shrooms is analogue/heart, LSD is digital/mind, Molly is unconditional love, Ketamine is detachment and flow, DMT is…. like a party where everyone you’ve ever loved and everyone you will ever love is at the greatest party of all time and you just walked in and everyone is so absolutely incredibly happy to see you and now that you’re there the party can really get started.
I personally love shrooms above all, followed by that is LSD purely because of the duration of the trip (I’ll explain in a min), then DMT, Molly, and Ketamine.
There’s just something about psychedelic land that makes me never want to leave, I have never had such a pure happiness without it. The colors have never been brighter, music has never sounded better. I have never seen so much, learned so much. I am in eternal gratitude for the things these substances have given me. I only wish I would stay in that land indefinitely, one day, I just might.
To bring this writing back into the experience of these substances and their relation to my personal journey with addiction– I now had not only the want to do these things as much as possible, but also the means. Shrooms are actually cheaper than weed so that helped.
It got to the point where I was doing shrooms just about every possible weekend I could. It was my ritual to make tea with them and then proceed to the park and the gym, in either order but I would usually go to the gym first. Then I got a connect for LSD and alternated between the two substances.
Ketamine
Then, enter Ketamine. I first tried ketamine from meeting up with strangers at an all-night party, not the smartest move, but.. if you’re like me, you can feel the vibe of people and this type of party doesn’t usually have troublemakers to top it off, everyone is mostly just there to dance and vibe, they can’t sell alcohol after a certain time anyhow.
Ketamine rocked my socks off, I especially enjoyed its time dilation effects, made that one night feel like four days, in a good way. I have a picture with those folks, but I never saw or talked to them after that, I wish we had kept in touch.
Ketamine is a relatively difficult drug to get ahold of, people don’t usually have it as it’s used in the medical industry and well-regulated. I have only ever chanced upon it and the few times my dealer did have it, I wasn’t interested. The next time I ran into it though, it was a doozy and on my list of most embarrassing moments…. I am not proud of this and know that I have grown from my shame in the matter and permanently learned my lesson from this.
I ran into it at a party, I’m pretty sure it may have been someone’s birthday, it was a really great party. Then a BIG ASS bag of ketamine was being passed around. I was offered some, and of course did it. Now, this was either the cleanest ketamine, or I did to much, because not long after taking it, I fell into a k-hole. All of a sudden, reality was whisked away. I was still conscious, but I couldn’t understand what was happening to me. Everything went away, I was seeking some crazy stuff as everything I could see was constantly folding in on itself. Due to the time dilation, this felt like a literal eternity. I knew I was, just I was. I didn’t know what happened to everyone else and it made me really sad because I thought maybe somehow I had died and this was existence now. I was sad in that time for what felt like a period of years, but then, eventually, after mourning the loss of literally everything, I came to accept my new existence. There was no sense in feeling bad about what had already happened, so then I was experimenting with everything I could do in this body-less state. I was mostly only able to observe, I can’t remember being able to do anything, again, I just.. was, and that was it.
Then suddenly, I came out of it, and not in the worst way, there as a gorgeous girl on each side of me holding my hand (and top of it they were cool). I guess people saw me falling out of it and took me to the spare bedroom and these girls stayed with me the whole time. I’m not sure what exactly did it, maybe I was talking while I was out if it, maybe it was the fact I did a shit ton of drugs and that was somehow alluring, but these girls were very turned onto me. I was interested of course, but was of course still extremely out of it. I ended up throwing up a little after waking up, and of course any feelings these girls had for me evaporated as, who wants to do anything with someone who has thrown up? Kinky folks I guess.
It was all for the better though, because I was completely enamored with what had just happened to me. Where did I go, what happened? While scary at first, that trip was essentially bliss. Being one with all, being one with eternity… can you imagine? It was immediately obvious to me what I gained from this accidental trip– my fear of death was dissolved. If this extreme dissociation from my body was death, it was not as bad or scary as it had seemed my entire life up to that point. It was the most valuable experience I had gained in my life thus far. It must be noted that I was still mostly agnostic leaning on atheist at this point in my life, even with all that I had experienced through the other psychedelics up to this point.
I was taken aback, in a good way, by this experience. I was overwhelmed and fixated on it and of course, I wanted to go back for more. Now, the party was still going and it was not my drugs, I didn’t think I could just ask for more to to buy some from the fella who brought it. I had tunnel vision and I wasn’t thinking straight, I had a Gollum-like fixation on ketamine. So what did my dumbass piece of shit self do? I decided to just take more.
I’ll spare you the details, but I got caught… and I have never felt so disgusting and low, especially when all these people were my friends. And of course the only logical thing for them to think is, “oh I never knew he was a thief, what else has he stolen?” To my defense, I was inebriated and I hadn’t stolen anything since high school. However there was no excuse and the folks at the party quit talking and hanging out with me. I should’ve apologized, but I didn’t think to. It wasn’t until years later when one of the few women I’ve fallen in love with brought up to my attention that I was lacking manners and not saying please or thank you or big enough to apologize when I was in the wrong. She was completely right and I’m so glad I learned and she brought it to my attention, I’m an infinitely better person for her reminding me of the way I should be acting. This is truly the nature of addiction as I have laid out above, selfishness and thinking of only yourself and what you want over everything and anyone else. I ruined two meaningful friendships through that action and I won’t forget the lesson learned from that exchange…
Getting high
The last bit of my addictive habits concerns DMT, shrooms, and LSD. Once covid hit, I was able to do a lot more drugs as there was less other things to do. I did DMT so much that eventually the entities told me that they need a break and I can’t have lessons all the time, I did it so much that, at one point, my upperlip somehow started being numb randomly. I continued using shrooms and LSD religiously on the weekends, but after doing DMT my trips changed. I was learning more, seeing more, receiving more.
Not only was I doing psychs every weekend, but I had started doing them when just hanging with friends, at events, going out on the town, or at tango lessons.
There is a reason doing drugs is called “getting high”, I was beginning to float, and I was floating up so much that I was getting better at it and thus becoming less grounded. It came to the point that the DMT entities (who had followed me from DMT land into shroom and LSD land) seemed to be inferring that if I continued down this path, that I would ascend. I believed this so much that I wrote down my phone’s passcode on one of my whiteboards in case I, forgive the pun, slipped up.
I didn’t entirely believe this though, as I continued my habits. Then one day, it happened, or rather almost happened because I didn’t allow it.
I was tripping and then all of a sudden there was a ‘click’, and I was being told it was my time and was being pulled/sucked up and away from my body. I’ll spare you the details, but I held onto this reality with every fiber of my being and to this day I still believe that I would not have been allowed to stay because I said, “please,” when asking not to go. There were things I wanted to do, and I wanted to do them, I could not leave yet, especially without saying goodbye.
The brain doesn’t have pain receptors, and yet after this experience it felt as though my brain had been sunburned. I felt like Icarus, only instead of falling to my “doom”, I narrowly escaped.
From that point I couldn’t do any inebriates without feeling like I would slip up. Nicotine triggered it, weed triggered it, alcohol triggered it, and sometimes it would be triggered without me even having taken anything. The feeling being me opening the door in my mind that would allow me to proceed forward/up and away. That feeling still comes sometimes, but I am much better at grounding myself and since then I have also lost my fear of moving on. If it is my time to go, then it’s my time to go and I’ve done everything that I was meant to while I was here.
All this to say, my addiction with psychedelics shook the foundations of reality and my psyche. I now knew, what I feel, is the truth of all and at the time, I could have slipped up with that knowledge. But now I know it and how to control it. I can feel that feeling of going up all while maintaining my groundedness. It is pretty dizzying at times, but I have no fear of falling in, or at the very least, I’m relatively sure I can bring myself back if I do go. If not, oh well, greater things await (like the whole of infinity).
I’ve touched the fire
All that on the latter half of this article to say, I know addiction. I have touched the fire. I have used and abused without really thinking of what could happen to me if I did and I have dealt with the consequences.
It took some time, I mean come on, playing with fire can be really fun even if you do get burned form time to time… but now I know I don’t need any of those things.
I know what I need to do with my body to maintain my health, my wallet, and my sanity.
It was tough, but I learned to say no (minus nicotine, which is coming). I learned to have discipline in these areas of my life. Escaping myself, that was what I was doing, trying to fill a void within myself. I stuffed as much as I could and almost fell into it before I realized that all these things I was using were not actually working. I learned that the void within myself can only be filled by myself, it does not come from outside me.
The void
That void is my own self-satisfaction of me. I was never satisfied, but now… well I am closer to being satisfied, but it is a daily struggle. It would be so easy to go back, to keep doing these all of these things… but these things are not the solution, so why do them? Why do that? Why run myself into the ground when I have so much more to do in the world and when I can have such a good time experiencing life on this plane of existence to the fullest?
There is no reason, and I know that. And with this knowledge I can’t bring myself back.
I do wish to go back to that era of blissful ignorance, to not have any cares, to not see and feel and understand the negative all of these things have on me… but that is impossible. What has been seen cannot be unseen, and I can’t stop growing. If I regress or stop growing, I am only hurting myself (and potentially others) and I have no need for that anymore.
I have enjoyed all of these crutches and what they have done for me, but now it is time to enjoy life mostly without them and see where I can go without them holding me back with my attention transfixed on them.
It is time to forge ahead, it is time to continue onwards and upwards (on foot) and see where I can take myself to.
What do you want? Go get it.
I cannot make you do anything, I cannot tell you what to do, but I urge you to let go of any addiction that you have a hold of. Most people say let go of addictions that have a hold of you, but addictions can’t actually do that, they have no arms and no mind. We hold onto our addictions, we make the choice to pick them up and carry them, and solely we make the choice to put them down. I urge you to consider making that choice and, if you really need it, I give you permission to do so. You can quit, you can put it down, you have my permission, so do it if you want.
You can put these things down, you can walk on without them, you can do anything and everything you set your mind to. You have the power, you have the power to walk free. Only you can change your life.
Every single instant you could choose to murder someone and change the course of your life negatively forever, but on the other hand, every single instant you also have the ability to choose to make a decision that could change the course of your life positively forever.
You can do it, I hope you will, I am rooting for you and on your team regardless of what you choose. I believe in every individual’s freedom of choice so you can choose do whatever you think is in your best interest and I will support you in your own individual journey in search of happiness and fulfillment because I believe the longer you journey, the more likely you are able to find and do exactly what you need.
You don’t need it so I just ask as a final parting question, “What is it you truly want?”. And once you have decided that, go for it. Whatever it is, go for it– and don’t stop till you have it. You got this.
Wishing you all the best,
FCP 🙃
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