Addiction – A collapsed Perspective on Life
In this blog I have decided to share with you part of the forward to my book Spirit On Fire The Journey Back From Addiction that I am currently writing. I have done this to hopefully inspire you into taking the first mighty step towards understanding addiction and recovery from addiction. Below is a quick video I shot to explain why families and loved one’s struggle to reach and make sense of the chaos in an addicts mind.
Below is the excerpt from my soon to be published book Spirit On Fire The Journey Back From Addiction. I hope you enjoy!
This book is dedicated to the ones who suffer from the incomprehensible loneliness that only an alcoholic or addict can know. The ones who wish for the end like I once did.
Forward
“There is science and there is medicine…….and then there is something called heart! There are some things in life that science and medicine just don’t have the answers to, but the heart given the power and right direction can make the impossible possible” – Paul Nobes
I wrote this book to help separate you the reader from your suffering. Every chapter I write is designed as a mechanism of healing, a deep and rich experience of reverse engineering your perspective from dark and grey to a light and warm place in the sunlight.
I love stories. I love listening, reading, watching and telling stories. Stories bring the written and spoken word alive. Recovery from addiction is a live event. Recovery is an experience with a live event called healing. Stories are not an academic exercise. Recovery is not an academic exercise. I write my stories to entertain you and pull you through a profound experience called recovery from your addiction whatever that addiction may be. We all suffer from some kind of addiction. Each and every human being has developed some form of dependency whether it be dependency on a chemical, a person, or a type of behavior, no one is immune to this fact.
The global ignorance of what addiction really is fascinates me and distresses me at the same time. In the case of addiction, ignorance does kill. But what really blows my mind beyond belief, is the ignorance towards recovery from addiction. Just like cancer and diabetes, addiction is a primary disorder. There is no cure to addiction that I am aware of. I am not even going to consider going down the rabbit hole of argument and debate about who is wrong or right, what works and what does not work as far as addiction and recovery goes. What I will do is share with you a very powerful solution that has worked for me for 17 years, and has worked for millions of others around the world. I will leave it up to you the reader to take or leave what I have to offer. I am an extremely practical person, who detests time wasting. I would not have wasted my time writing this book if I thought I was wasting your time. That is the fact of my simplistic attitude towards recovery and life itself.
I have a story to tell the world about my addiction and my recovery from addiction. But first I need to share with you what kind of person I used to be. I do this so as not to waste your time. Once you know what kind of person I was and what kind of person I am now, Then only you can decide whether to read this book or not.
Through my addiction I have done the following:
I have broken the hearts of nearly every person that ever cared about me. Stolen from my employers, loved ones, my children, my parents, my creditors, my friends, whether it was money, time, emotional security or their trust, the list is endless.
I have lied to just about every person who has come in close contact with me. I lied because I was afraid. Afraid of being found out, afraid of consequences and above all afraid of anyone finding out the real me, the ‘me’ that I detested with a passion.
I have driven drunk or high or both, many times in a state of functional black-out more than I dare to mention.
I have put alcohol and drugs before my family, my work and all the decent people who came in and out of my life.
I have manipulated sympathy and charity out of innocent people who had no idea of the morally corrupt individual they were dealing with and cared so much about.
I have on many occasions abandoned my children, family, and partners in far too many ways to mention just to get my next high, drunk or instant ease and comfort from a chemical.
For many years I behaved in such a selfish and self-centred manner, that people close to me had no option but to distance themselves entirely, and all I could do was blame them for my problems. I used to retreat into resentment and anger whilst plotting and carrying out revenge in subtle and manipulative ways. As far as I was concerned my problems were usually of other peoples making, and if it was not them, it was always circumstance, anything but me was the root of my problems.
I was a brooding perfectionist with psychopathic and narcissistic tendencies, and would take no prisoners in order to hold loved ones as emotional hostages I desperately needed to validate my existence as a human being. I would seek approval and acceptance from just about anyone who entered the arena of my life, and devour in some form or manner those who did not give me what I wanted.
I am an alcoholic and addict of the chronic type. A real alcoholic who was once a hopeless case.
What kind of person am I now? I am still an alcoholic and addict of the chronic type. However I have been sober and clean for 17 years as I write this book. I am an alcoholic who has recovered from the seemingly hopeless state of mind and body.
So what does this mean. It means that by nature I am no longer selfish and self-centred to the extreme. As a result I live my life based on principles directly opposed to my behaviour whilst I was drinking and using drugs. The man I have described previously no longer exists as long as I continue to put into action certain principles of integrity and honesty in my life.
I have had a complete change of perspective on life and my view of the world.
I would like to share with you how I have achieved this. I have written this book to serve you and the many who still suffer from intolerable pain.
For those of you who have been following my blogs, you would have been introduced to the solution to the primary disorder called addiction. I will continue to write and share more about addiction and the solution to addiction – my passion!
Paul Nobes – Author and Addictions Specialist