Soon To Be Released
Overcoming the Pitfalls of Addiction
For thousands of years, as long as humans have been around, men and women have tried in various ways – whether through drugs or meditation – to change their mental states. The human brain is designed to make us feel good.
Each and every time we perform a positive, productive, or prosocial act (the cause), our brains reward us with a small squirt of dopamine, a feel-good chemical produced in the brain (the effect).
The effect of that dopamine is an almost instant feeling of well-being or happiness. But the effect must have a cause. To feel good, we must create our own cause, by first accomplishing something for ourselves, or our fellow man.
Yes, the human brain is designed to be rewarded – to feel good – but we must earn that reward. Maybe we’ve performed to perfection a task we’ve practiced for months, we’ve made an A on our math exam, finished a difficult and daunting project, even something as simple as patting someone on the back, or helping an old woman across the street.
We are therefore rewarded because we’ve done something worthy of feeling good about ourselves.
But when we take drugs to feel good, we short-circuit that process. Taking drugs produces an un-caused effect – an unearned reward so to speak. We could sit around all day, feeling good by taking drugs, while doing absolutely nothing beneficial for ourselves or humanity.
Even worse, we could actually be harming ourselves and everyone around us, yet still feel good because we’ve taken drugs. With drugs it is possible to feel good despite our negative, unsocial behavior.
And that my friends, is called living a lie.
But when we choose sobriety, we choose to forsake the lies and illusions that addiction brings in its wake. We choose instead to walk in the path of truth.
By choosing sobriety we choose freedom over bondage, wisdom over foolishness, and life over death.
When we choose to be sober, we choose to be the best person we can possibly be.
When we possess clarity of thought, self-respect, and the respect of others around us, we earn that shot of dopamine that tells us we’ve accomplished something, a job well-done.
We choose sobriety so that we may better serve society. And over time, the clarity of thought that comes through sobriety will lead us to act in accord with our highest aspirations, making us more useful not only to ourselves, but to our families and humanity in general.
By choosing sobriety, we’re choosing to contribute something useful to society.
Released from the bondage of addiction, we are free to make better, wiser choices in all facets of our lives.
Free from addiction, our eyes are opened wide, and we begin to see clearly the harm addiction causes to ourselves and society. We begin to see each day as a gift that we accept with loving gratitude, an opportunity to change for the better, and grow.
Through years of their disease, many addicts have come to believe that they need to be high just to make it through the day.
This is of course a lie.
For most addicts, it will take time for their brains reward centers to readjust. Years of drugs and alcohol have disrupted the brain’s delicate balance of neurotransmitters which serves to regulate your moods and emotions.
It may take time, but it will happen.
Be patient.
The magic of life hasn’t gone away.
In time, the beauty of life will bloom again in all its glory.