A Journey to Total Human Optimization
Note: None of the subjects I will be covering will be done in chronological order. These are the things I did do which got me from my story of "Painful Beginnings" to right now.
You can find my story of "Painful Beginnings" here :
Journey of Total Human Optimization : Painful Beginnings
Once I came to the realization that my addiction to substance abuse was not only not doing me any good, and that it was literally sucking the life out of me, I decided it was time for definitive change, in my life. To stop abusing drugs and find a better way to live life.
Then came the hard part. I had to figure out what to do. How would I go about makings things better.
These are the 3 most profound changes I made that lead me to halting my negative behaviors and going from a hopelessly depressed drug addict set me on the path to getting to where I am now, living happily without any need to consume any substance, not even alchohol.
#1 : Changing my Habit of Instant Gratification
The most important thing I had to change was to feed my demons when they came calling. The trigger for me, I found, was that when I was feeling saddled down by life, the first thing that always comes to mind is to rectify this pain with getting high.
This let me down one too many times, leaving home, to meet some guy I really didn't want to be around, to spend an exorbitant amount of money, to get high. When I did get high however, it never solved the problem. It rather just pushed the reason that was making me unhappy in the first place even further back and still unresolved to begin with.
What this left me with was a life filled with completely unresolved issues, that was piling up with ever increasing issues, which made me feel overwhelmed and stressed, which led me to seek out relief by getting high. This vicious cycle left me in a perpetual state of suffering which I only wish I could see back then.
The change I made was to understand was that pain or distress is something that had to be dealt with and shouldn't be allowed to be dispelled with getting high. For one, because it doesn't work! I wasn't solving anything that way, I was ismply pushing it back even further till whatever the issue I was running away from because too big to ignore and I am forced to deal with it and spend double the amount of effort solving the problem in desperation.
What I had to learn was that, having a bad day or feeling stress for any reason whatsoever is part of life. That if I wanted to have successful and happy life, that would mean that sometimes, I would feel shitty and just have to deal with it. Because that's life. There's no alternative, the so called 'solution' of getting high when problems arose, was not only not a solution at all, it was a huge reason why my life was in such a mess in the first place!
Once I started dealing with the fact that I would have some shitty days and just have to deal with it, or maybe even double down to solve the problem head on, I started to be able sort out my life and problems, slowly, but surely.
#2 Cutting Ties with Unhealthy Relationships
The cutting of ties with people in my life, this was a hard one for me, and I would imagine, a hard one for virtually anybody.
Especially because they weren't bad people at all! Worse, you actually liked and adored these people! They were almost always good friends! Nonetheless, often times, these relationships were simply too detrimental to me getting over my addictive behaviours, almost always, because these friends were dealing with problems in a similar fashion that I wanted to break away from. Which is to deal with problems by getting high, and I simply couldn't be around them any longer. For if I did, I would inevitably end up falling right back into the vicious cycle again.
As such, I had to make very hard but very necessary decision to distance myself from anyone who were not looking to break out of their own vicious cycle.
However, for those friends that wanted to break ut of their own addictions, those friends would be closer than ever, as we built an even stronger relationship by supporting each other in breaking out of the cycle of addiction.
#3 : Planning and Filling up my day
The biggest trigger to ending up doing drugs again, after you've decided that you won't use it to solve your problems, is usually out of sheer boredom. I found that when you have nothing on the agenda, and you are wondering what to do with your time, that your mind wanders back to doing drugs.
As such, I made it a point to filling up my days with acitivities to keep myself occupied. I found it profoundly easier to break out of an unhealthy cycle by replacing it with a new and more productive one.
It is was very important that I have a full day of activity scheduled the day before, there can be no room for guessing what I was to do with my day on the day itself. What I found is that if I made my schedule the day before, I would never put down, "do drugs" on my schedule. Leave it to the day itself to decide however, and it's a whole different story.
The easiest way I found to fill up my time was by getting a full-time job. It's really hard to innovate new activities to do everyday, but it isn't hard at all when you have someone paying you to do things on their schedule. I found that getting a job and keeping focused on working, which took up a big chunk of my time, leaving me with only a little time to plan for myself to be profoundly helpful.
The amazing thing that I found in doing so was that, not only was I keeping away from my unhealthy habits, I was also starting to make money and being able to better deal with my problems head on in only a short amount of time.
Though it may seem so simple in writing, I fell of the bandwagon many times during this process and in reality, this process for me was not straightforward at all. It was rather, a matter of picking myself up again when I succumb to my old habits, to remind myself, that I want to get better and to stop this behaviour.
By picking myself up time and time again and not giving up, bit by bit, I replaced my old destructive habits, with new productive ones. Not only that, with this new found productivity, I continued to push myself even further, to achieve accomplish more in life.
Since that time, and since making that decision, the defining factor to getting better was not in never falling down, but rather choosing to get back up and trying even harder. In doing so, I now find myself in an ultimately better place in life.
Thinking back to when I was at rock bottom, wondering how would I ever be able to live life without drugs, like that was an impossibility, I now know, that was the mind of a downtrotten, addicted and sick mind thinking that.
Now, with a clear mind, I never want to go back to relying on ever being high to have a good time, or to deal with my problems. For I now see, that it never helped me with solving any problems, rather, to escape it momentarily, only to push it back to be dealt with at a later time.
Now, with a clear mind, I would much rather choose to be proactive and deal with my problems head on, such that I may clear my path of problems and achieve success of even greater heights.
The feeling, I felt, once upon a time, when I was utterly depressed with my life, wondering will life always be this hard, and riddled with problems. The answer is no! Life can be much better than that! Life can be filled with amazing adventures and the ability to accomplish great things!
I am so very grateful and blessed, that the road to recovery was possible, and I seek to aid others to the path of recovery. For life has so much to offer.
