Addiction

Do you feel like your life is getting out of control, that you are going to lose your relationship, job, family or friends? Knowledge is power so the first thing to do is to get some clarity on why you feel like that, or why you feel depressed, anxious, suicidal or moody, and then get instructions on how to get your health and life back in control.

Start with a different attitude. If you’ve been using drugs to celebrate your individuality, enhance your performance, manage your stress, explore your boundaries, or even to just have a laugh, that’s all good. You were on the right path, just using an unreliable method because all recreational drugs, even marijuana, will eventually take you into ‘out of control’ territory, it’s just a matter of when. The stronger the drug the faster this happens.

If you’re in that territory now don’t waste of time trying to resolve anything or work out what went wrong. This is what always happens in addiction recovery, the focus is negativity, hopelessness, disease and brain damage. This is not helpful. Drugs don’t cause brain damage, addiction is not a disease, and all situations can change for the better. So change your mindset.

We are all individuals and we are meant to be adventurous and to explore heightened states. We are not meant to fit in and be like everyone else. So focus on what you got right, on the desire for the heightened state, and set a goal to get what you wanted from drugs back again, but without the drugs.

I worked out a system for this by ‘reverse-engineering’ drug highs (using Chinese medicine). It’s not the drug that gets you high, it’s what it does to your body. If you take methamphetamine (ice, crystal meth) or cocaine, for example, that instant fantastic elated high, is chi roaring through your body and amping everything – love, happiness, bliss, bonding, excitement, action – up to maximum.

Chi is an awesome combination of energy, consciousness and information. This is  why you hit peak performance states, why you get incredible insights or ideas on drugs, or even why psychedelic trips defy the physical laws. Lack of chi accounts for all the side effects. Recreational drugs create highs by using up your own internal resources. The stronger the drug the faster it chews up your energy, willpower, drive and happiness and the faster your life runs out of control.

But all this can be corrected. If you’re feeling suicidal, depressed, anxious, or out of control, you’re like a car that’s run out of petrol. If that happens you don’t take the car to a shrink to talk about what went wrong, you just fill it up again. So forget about disease and emotionality, and focus on filling up again. Chi is the key. Acupuncture, Chinese herbs, nutritional supplements, therapeutic exercise, lifestyle changes and diet can all build chi and make it flow.

Change your terminology. Don’t have ‘sobriety’ as your goal. It sounds dull and lifeless. If that’s all you have to look forward to its no wonder people relapse. Try ‘extraordinary’ as the state you want to achieve after quitting drugs or alcohol. Don’t use ‘clean’ – meaning being off drugs – either. Saying you are ‘clean’ suggests that what you did before was unclean, this is another outdated concept. You may have had some profound life-altering experiences on drugs and this is an asset if you use those experiences as a template for something you want to achieve again without drugs.

For example, in the early days of drug use, when you were high you loved everyone, and were not critical or judgmental. You experienced just ‘being’, you knew who you were, what you wanted and were truly yourself. This is high value experience. There are an estimated one billion drug-users on the planet now, if all of them recaptured those states without the drugs the world would change. Join the recovery revolution now and make it happen.