September is National Recovery Month and we want to celebrate by featuring and rewarding you. After all, if you didn’t exist, we would just be writing this for ourselves.
How do we want to feature and reward you, you ask?
We want to welcome you into the Genius Recovery family. This could mean featuring you as an expert we interview. It could mean bringing you in as a paid contributor. We’re not entirely sure yet. What we are sure of is that we want to start by asking you to share your recovery story with us.
Here’s how it works…
Many of us are used to sharing our “experience, strength and hope.”
Well, to celebrate Recovery Month, we’d love to hear less about your addiction and more about your recovery. In fact, we’d specifically like to know—in stories that are 500 words or less or videos that are two minutes or under—about the impact community, nutrition or environment has had on your life since you put down substances and picked up life.
Once you’ve written your essay or created your video, please message us on Facebook and add the video or story as an attachment. Please also include your mailing address.
Why do we want your address? Well, we will read through all the entries and select some to publish both on our site and on our social media. IF your story is selected, we will send you a copy of our book, The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery.
YES, we want to both feature you on a site that has contributors like Dr. Gabor Mate and Tommy Rosen AND send you a copy of our #1 bestselling book.
Need help getting started? Think about the friends you’ve made in recovery, the way your diet has changed (trading vodka for smoothies, anyone?), the woo woo activities you’ve embraced or anything else that might have horrified the old you (but thrills the new one).
We are so excited to celebrate your genius in recovery.
An Open Letter to Anyone Struggling with Addiction
By Joe Polish
First I want to say how sorry I am that you or someone you love is struggling with addiction. I know firsthand how painful it is. Addiction nearly killed me when I was 18 years old.
What I’ve learned since then is that almost all addiction stems from trauma. This can be difficult for some people to understand; they assume trauma has to mean a person was beaten, molested or in a life-threatening accident. But we all have different levels of sensitivity.
Addiction is something you are driven to do—anything you crave that gives you temporary pleasure or relief but then causes negative consequences. Addiction is something you are unable to give up, despite the suffering it causes.
The challenging thing for people that don’t have this to understand is how someone could have that craving in the first place. They wonder why the addict can’t just make a better choice.
I’m of the belief that addiction is not a choice. Once the addict goes into a craving state, it’s beyond willpower or intelligence. Intelligence can actually be a detriment because the smarter people are, the more they believe they can think their way out of the problem.
What many don’t understand is that addiction isn’t a problem—it’s actually a solution. If you’re in pain, angst, anxiety, fear, rage, depression, sadness, loneliness or experiencing any other form of suffering, there’s nothing wrong with wanting to be out of that pain. It’s how we go about scratching the itch that causes the issue.
Ultimately, addiction is a connection disorder. It’s feeling incredibly disconnected and uncomfortable in your own skin. You just want to numb out, or escape. You want to feel something—anything except the dread that comes with that craving state…a state that always has compulsivity or impulsivity attached to it.
Looking at addiction from a state of compassion, as opposed to judgment, is critical. We cannot punish or beat addiction out of somebody. Sure, we can throw people in prison, scold them or run away from them, but that doesn’t help make the cravings go away. Love and compassion are critical—though, of course, those can be difficult emotions to embrace when dealing with addicts. The symptoms of addiction can be ugly; they often involve activities like cheating, disrupting, lying, stealing and other egregious acts. That’s because addicts will do anything to get out of the pain they are in. The addict brain has an appetite for destruction and is fueled more by chaos than harmony. In other words, it’s hard for addicts to feel okay. And it’s not easy to feel compassion for someone who’s leaving shrapnel in their wake. But the more you can understand that the addict is in pain and just trying to get out of it, the easier it can be to deal with the recklessness and chaos that comes with it.
Addiction is also biochemical. You are dealing with serotonin and dopamine. Once you quit the drug or behavior, you may have to fix and repair the gut. You have to get the body back to a state where it produces “feel good” chemicals in order to cope with the uncomfortable feelings. This means exercise, yoga, meditation, float pods, the right nutrition, and more. The issues are in the tissues, and if you can incorporate movement and communities, it can help heal. Building a rapport by being around other addicts is critical. It doesn’t have to be a 12-step meeting; you just need a community—an ongoing, consistent community.
It’s a lot of work—but not nearly as much work as active addiction. And if you’re willing to do the work, there’s freedom on the other side that most addicts and their families probably haven’t ever experienced before. The bottom line: help is available. There are many people and resources available at little or no cost.
