Tip From The Pro: Opening up to sobriety …

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Tip From The Pro: Opening up to sobriety …

Unread postby Douglas Bodaczewski » Sat May 04, 2013 9:54 am

I’m a t-shirt and jeans guy that graduated to wearing long-sleeves and I’m also a little bit of an expert on addiction. My name is Douglas Bodaczewski, the thing about this country I love is the diversity of culture for my own greedy interests specifically all the options for eating out - any cuisine imaginable. From cooking to restaurants, food is just something I naturally feel like doing, I naturally want it, the reason I mention that is as an addiction expert the main thing I need for people is for their recovery to feel natural and for that to happen they need to learn to change and they need to want it so they are a self-sustaining entity.

After all that’s what I did when I quit smoking 3 ½ packs a day cold turkey years ago (after smoking for over 15 years). I did it by changing (to a pro-sober mentality) and my methods are based on my own experience, not just mere speculation. As a scientifically minded man practicing numerous methods of recovery I’ve come to realize that change really is a gift. It’s what allows us to be fully human and without it life would be a pretty miserable experience, we would never mature and things would never improve etc. For addiction recovery to really happen for people I came to realize that people don’t need to just simply act different or merely believe new things as if being programmed but rather they need to learn their way through the change while being completely honest with themselves so the change is undeniable and genuine. To do this the entire psyche must be addressed and one great way to do that is simply to form new opinions and become an opinionated person, which really is a marker for being thoughtful and aware of an issue. This thought and awareness in recognition of a problem really is the answer and it calls on all the many components of the human psyche, all of which are intertwined and can not really be separated from each other and as much as we may want to divide and define these components they are all part of the greater whole that we as individuals are: human beings not laboratory robots. We have thoughts and they are not separate from our emotions we have dreams and they are not separate from our perspective we have opinions and they are not separate from our beliefs and so on, and I suspect as a scientist, that science will some day (or night I suppose) find proof of the spiritual side of humanity. What is so interesting about this idea that our nature is a unity of many faucets is that we have free will to live it, if a rock does what it does by simply being a rock does it need the will power to do it? The fact is we humans have enormous capacities and we have the will to carry it out. We are gifted above most of creation in this respect.

But… we don’t need a drug to give us our success rather we need to realize our dreams by making real achievements, because we are real people, and we deserve real things. One way to make quitting natural and easy, is to do the hard work that leads to real change. Changing our mentality that our addiction is based on is the only real way of having real recovery. One very simple way to start is by admitting that you have an addiction problem and then say what it is and ask yourself if you are willing to consider quitting. Then if you are willing, try the following technique, this may not cure everything but it will definitely help.

First: This technique draws on multiple aspects of your psyche such as memories, expectations, perspective, feelings, identity issues, how you relate to yourself and the world, opinions, logic and reasoning. Simply speak out loud the following list of affirmations and do so as if you are both being very convincing and while imagining or role-playing that you are actually in the situation where you are realizing these truths very vividly. This is as effective as you are capable of identifying with it. Try and see it as if it is actually happening and get a feel for it (emotionally) as if it is a real situation, play this out regardless of whether or not you actually believe the affirmations. Remember this is not really lying as much as it is a reconnection with material (we probably already have) that we may be neglecting and then renewing and emphasizing this material, we are already trying to change and this role-playing allows us the room to try it on and see how it fits. The actual change happens as the mind compensates to make the words right, the visual perspective right and emotions right. And in this case you will become more predisposed to quitting and quitting will become more natural. You will (eventually) know it is right for you and you will feel like it.

Spend at least 10-30 minutes using and repeating over and over again, the following affirmations (fill in the blanks with the name of your addiction/substance) in the manner described above:

“I remember using ____ being very embarrassing.”
“I can not expect using ____ to work out right.”
“I am no longer looking for a chance to use ____.”
“I feel uncomfortable with using ____.”
“I am not like that anymore. I‘m not the type to use ____.”
“Using ____ does not work out very well and it is bad for you.”
“I really can remember sober times being fairly good.”
“I expect sobriety working out much better.”
“I am always looking to improve my sober lifestyle by doing pro-sober things.”
“I feel great about being sober.”
“I am the type of person that is always sober.”
“Living a pro-sober lifestyle is very healthy among other numerous benefits.”

Second: This may be very subtle but you should be able to get a sense of these affirmations, after you get a feeling for what these affirmations mean to you emotionally and you can see it (the ideas) in your perspective as if it is really happening, try and form some opinions about; what exactly you think about your reasons to quit, your options to quit and how exactly you might do it. The purpose of this is to become opinionated, simply ask yourself these questions: “Why am I going to quit?” and “O.K. I want to quit, what are my options and how might I go about this?” and any other questions that may come to mind. Make sure you write down some of your answers. And remember to practice self honesty with this second part, don‘t just simply lie, instead think through to honest conclusions and remember we are not trying to force anything, we just want to think about things for a while and see what happens. If you don’t quit you’ve at least made progress. And it is important to recognize this, quitting might not happen instantly … but the sooner you start working on progress the sooner you’ll be capable, my final tip would be to work hard changing and give the quitting part time and let that part happen on its own. By doing this exercise we can familiarize ourselves with our goals so we know what we are trying to do. I practice similar belief modifying techniques from time to time myself. I hope this helps.


Take it easy,
Douglas Bodaczewski
Addiction Expert / Author
Founder of www.therealmofdouglas.com
Douglas Bodaczewski
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