Addiction And Recovery

The priority of any addict is to anaesthetize

The pain of living to ease the passage

Of day with some purchased relief,

This stuff, this Mexican sludge,

Just grabbed you by the f–king heartstrings

And tore me apart,

All those years of snorting coke,

I accidentally get involved in heroin

After smoking crack for the first time,

It finally tied my shoelaces together.

 

Quitting smoking is easy,

I’ve done it a hundred times,

Addiction is just a way of trying to get at something else,

Something bigger,

Call it transcendence if you want,

But it’s a rat in a maze,

We all want the same thing,

We all have this hole,

The thing you want offers relief,

But it’s a trap.

 

You just have to take it one day at a time,

Some days are easier than others,

Some days you forget about drinking

And using, but for me,

I work on my physical health which is important,

But my mental health as well,

One of the hardest things was learning

That I was worth recovery,

Strength does not come from physical capacity,

It comes from an indomitable will.

That which does not kill us makes us stronger,

Though no one can go back

And make a brand new start,

Anyone can start from now

And make a brand new ending.

 

Character cannot be developed in ease and quiet,

Only through experience of trial

And suffering can the soul be strengthened,

Ambition inspired, and success achieved,

I understood, through rehab,

Things about creating characters,

I understood that creating whole people

Means knowing where we come from,

How we can make a mistake,

How we overcome things to make ourselves stronger,

If you can quit for a day,

You can quit for a lifetime.

 

Fall seven times, stand up eight,

The initial journey towards sobriety is a delicate balance

Between insight into one’s desire for escape

And abstinence from one’s addiction,

What is addiction, really?

It is a sign, a signal, a symptom of distress,

It is a language that tells us

About a plight that must be understood,

Nobody stays recovered unless the life

They have created is more rewarding

And satisfying than the one they left behind.

 

You can come out of the furnace of trouble two ways:

If you let it consume you,

You come out a cinder,

But there is a kind of metal which refuses

To be consumed and comes out a star,

You can get the monkey off your back,

But the circus never leaves town,

Addiction is an adaptation,

It’s not you–it’s the cage you live in.

 

When everything seems to be going against you,

Remember that the airplane

Takes off against the wind, not with it,

Drugs are a waste of time,

They destroy your memory

And your self-respect

And everything that goes along with your self-esteem,

Once you learn to quit,

It becomes a habit,

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago,

The second best time is now.

 

It always seems impossible until it’s done,

Whether you think you can

Or you think you can’t, you’re right,

The only person you are destined

To become is the person you decide to be,

If we are facing in the right direction,

All we have to do is keep on walking,

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street,

At first, addiction is maintained by pleasure,

But the intensity of the pleasure gradually diminishes,

And the addiction is then

Maintained by the avoidance of pain.

 

First you take a drink,

Then the drink takes a drink,

Then the drink takes you,

We don’t choose to be addicted,

What we choose to do is deny our pain,

Remember just because you hit bottom

Doesn’t mean you have to stay there,

It was the hardest boyfriend

I ever had to break up with.

 

Recovery is an acceptance that your life is in shambles,

You have to change it,

Recovery is not for people who need it,

It’s for people who want it,

Recovery is a process,

It takes time,

It takes patience,

It takes everything you’ve got,

Be stronger than your strongest excuse.

 

It’s a beautiful day to be sober,

If you chased your recovery like you chased your high,

You would never relapse again,

Hardships often prepare

Ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny,

It is often in the darkest skies

That we see the brightest stars,

No matter how dark the moment,

Love and hope are always possible.

 

The best way out is always through,

One step at a time,

One day at a time,

One hour at a time,

There’s not a drug on earth that can make life meaningful,

Never underestimate a recovering addict,

We fight for our lives every day in ways

Most people will never understand,

Be stronger than your strongest excuse.

 

Recovery is about progression, not perfection,

I am not defined by my relapses,

But in my decision to remain in recovery despite them,

I understood myself only after I destroyed myself,

And only in the process of fixing myself,

Did I know who I really was?