Stop Addictions Forever!!! The 4 Keys to Recovery.

We explore the four essential keys to permanent recovery from addiction, offering a comprehensive approach that addresses emotional, spiritual, mental, and social aspects of healing.

• Recovery is complicated because addiction affects us emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, and financially
• Key #1: Addiction is an emotional disease requiring an emotional solution – learn to identify and express your feelings
• Many enter recovery as emotional children, requiring therapy to develop emotional intelligence
• Key #2: Address the spiritual disconnect by finding what spirituality means to you personally
• Develop trust, faith, and connection to something greater than yourself
• Key #3: Feed your subconscious with positive messages that you deserve recovery and love
• Create personal mantras and surround yourself with people who support your healthy lifestyle
• Key #4: Recovery is about connection since addiction thrives in isolation
• Form genuine bonds with yourself and others – humans need relationships to thrive
• Consistently practicing these four keys creates a foundation for lasting recovery

Join our Facebook group "Recovery Freedom Circle" to connect with others working the steps, share struggles and victories, and find support on your recovery journey.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Recovery Freedom
• 1:28 The Four Keys to Recovery Explained
• 3:30 Key 1: Recovery as Emotional Solution
• 7:29 Key 2: Healing Spiritual Disconnection
• 9:09 Key 3: Reprogramming Your Subconscious
• 13:00 Key 4: Recovery Through Connection
• 14:49 Embracing Your Best Life in Recovery

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Do you want to stop your addiction forever? Never go back to the drink, the drug or the gamble. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in Recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day, to work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in your relationships, work hard in your business, your job, in school. Just work and to love unconditionally. Just put much more love out there in the universe and watch more love return to you. Now what we encourage people to do is to join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle. The link is down below in the show notes. It is a community where we talk about the steps, how to work the steps, questions about the steps, about recovery, anything that you might be struggling with or want to showcase something that you achieved, a goal, a dream or something inspirational or motivational. That is what the community is all about. We're all about here trying to live our best life and to help each other live their best life. Now let's jump in to this week's episode how to stop your addiction forever and not return. Now let's jump in to this week's episode how to stop your addiction forever and not return. Never relapse, whether it's one day, one month, 10 years. There are four keys to recovery.

Speaker 1: 1:38

See, the problem is a lot of people try to break down recovery into one thing. Recovery is this, or if you just get closer to that, and it's not that simple, like life. Recovery is complicated because it's not just one thing, because it's not just one thing. It is an emotional disease, like it says in the DSM, but it is oh such a mental disease as well. And because it takes over our bodies, it affects us physically. That is why we have those cravings, that is why we have withdrawals and, yes, it is a spiritual disconnect as well. So it's also a spiritual disease and it will affect your pocketbook. Because you're not focused on your job, you're gambling, you're gambling way too much, you are doing severe damage to your financial security. If you're drugging, you're spending way too much money drugging, not moving ahead in relationships, in your business or job, so it's affecting you financially. So, because addiction breaks us down in so many ways, in so many areas of our life, it's not just one thing, but there are four, what I see as the four keys. If you address these four keys usually just on a daily basis, and you'll understand how I can deal with these on a daily basis. Number one, a daily basis. Number one addiction is an emotional disease. That means recovery is an emotional solution. What does that mean? That means is that you have to constantly ask yourself how do I feel Now if you grew up like me?

Speaker 1: 3:45

You grew up in a family that never talked about emotions. We never said I love you, we never hugged, we never moved forward. So I was an emotional child. As I first entered into my first 12-step meeting when I was 30 years old, I was an eight-year-old emotional child in a 30-year-old man's body. I worked out, I graduated from college, I had my own business. I attended a lot of religious services on a weekly basis all the way through college, but then fairly frequently. But yet I was an emotional child.

Speaker 1: 4:25

So in the beginning it was just trying to read about alcohol, alcoholism, understanding what is addiction, and then later on, about a year and a half, I went to a therapist and I was in therapy for over seven years, learning how to ask that question that I should have learned growing up. How do I feel today? What am I feeling? Should have learned growing up. How do I feel today? What am I feeling? And knowing that my feelings will constantly change and I will have multiple feelings and emotions at any moment. That's the revelation. I am going to have multiple feelings and they could be on opposite ends. I could feel happy and sad, I could be joyous and depressed. I mean or usually it's not always that extreme, but you've got to understand that we have emotions about different things going on in our life. We may be elated about what's happening at work, but then we're depressed when we're thinking about our love relationship, and that can happen and that happens all the time to many, many people. So the question is is you have to learn how to ask yourself how do I feel? And constantly state it, and also be able to tell people. Not be afraid to tell people, especially if it's negative emotions. I'm angry at you, I am depressed, I feel sad. Can I count on you? Can we go somewhere? I need to vent as well as being able to share all the good fortune. I feel joyous today, I am elated, I am excited, I'm energized, I feel calm, I'm relaxed, all those things. So if you don't know anything, either hire a recovery coach like me or go find a therapist and learn how to identify your feelings.

Speaker 1: 6:20

Number two, which a lot of people, especially in 12-step rooms like to talk about that. Addiction is a spiritual disconnect from your higher power, from your God, like I always say, I like to say God, higher power, the great mystery. Whoever you want to identify this big force out there, it could be like Star Wars. Let the force be with you. You have to start to understand whatever you grew up with, whether that is going to weekly service, like I did as a Catholic, or if you went periodically, or if you just grew up completely atheist or agnostic, with no belief in God. No, actually understanding, never reading the Bible or any other religious book and then trying to understand. What does all this mean? And when you get into your addiction, you do have a spiritual disconnect. You are not living in some type of serenity, peace, which we all want, and that is the biggest problem.

Speaker 1: 7:24

The biggest problem is that it requires work journaling, talking, going to meetings, talking to people, reading books, listening to podcasts, going to different services, asking this question what do I believe? Now, everybody should have their own belief, but they should be always encouraged. I love praying every day on my knees it gets me so much closer and actually just being grateful that I have breath and I have some people in my life and I have the ability to work and be productive, but everyone else has got to find their spiritual journey, their spiritual path, that enlightenment, that contentment, and that is how you move forward. Find out what spirituality means to you. What do you truly believe in? And it's something bigger than you.

Speaker 1: 8:17

It's not as simplistic as oh well, I can't see it. Well, guess what? I don't see or understand a lot of things and you can't. You have to sometimes just trust, sometimes have faith and ask those questions what do I have faith in? Who do I trust? What do I trust you live in much more faith and trust man, life gets so much easier, so much more peaceful, so much more enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 8:49

And now we are going to move on to the third piece which in a lot of ways probably can almost jumpstart your recovery, your recovery, your subconscious. You see, after asking ourselves, what do we feel and what do we believe in in questions one and two. Really, question number three is something that can really get us moving, because part of this is about addiction and recovery. Is your mindset, do you have a desire to get better? How deep is that desire? Because a lot of people just say I want to get better, because they had a bad weekend where they were drunk on over high, they slept for two days, they lost a lot of money, they were sleeping with people they shouldn't be sleeping with. I mean, it could be a numerous things where they just feel like I've got to change, but it's really usually got to come from almost a place of pain. Pain is the greatest motivator. Pain really gets us to change and go. I cannot keep doing this.

Speaker 1: 9:54

But we have to feed our subconscious. Our subconscious rules 85% of all our actions and behaviors. They are not conscious thoughts. When we're awake, oh, I'm making these decisions. They're already embedded into our brain and our brain pushes us into making these decisions, these beliefs, these actions. And we have to constantly feed our subconscious.

Speaker 1: 10:17

I deserve Hugo. I deserve love. I deserve recovery. I deserve to have a thriving business. I deserve to have a strong body. I deserve to have a strong body.

Speaker 1: 10:26

I'm going to go work out. I am going to spend time with my dog, my cat, my best friends, family friends. I am going to move forward. We've got to keep asking yourself all those questions that are uplifting. We have to be our own cheerleader. I'm going to spend the weekend with someone that I love. Go, be with your, like for me, be with my girlfriend, be with someone that I truly, truly love, and you should have more than one. It shouldn't just have to be like, let's say, your spouse or your boyfriend girlfriend. You should also have best friends. I have lots of best friends from high school, from graduate school, that so they can also uplift us and feed our subconscious that we're doing well, that we're on the right track, we're hanging around people that keep us on a healthy lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 11:36

Go to the gym, whether we're going to some type of church or spiritual program program all of that. We have to move forward and identify all the people and all the things that bring us joy. I love going to the gym. I love podcasting, I love reading, I love shooting hoops. I love going out to new restaurants, trying different foods. I love to travel. I love to see art museums or going to some other types of live events or some type of competition.

Speaker 1: 12:12

You've got to identify the things that truly, truly move you, but you've also got to constantly feed your subconscious. I wake up every day and say my personal mantra Number one the biggest thing is is I want peace and contentment in my life. I am going to have fun. I am going to work hard, I'm going to believe in hope. I am going to love unconditionally, I am going to show much more faith. These are the things. That really is my own personal mantra that I say every day, and you need to have your own personal mantra, because you got to constantly feed your brain and then get the people around you that also feed your soul and move you forward, which will lead us to number four. Like I was talking, partly in the subconscious, we kind of fed into number four.

Speaker 1: 13:09

Addiction is all about isolation. It's about being lonely and gamblers are the worst, gamblers are the loneliest people. So that means recovery is connection. Recovery is about that bonding hormone, oxytocin. That's why oxytocin is much more important than dopamine or serotonin and even endorphins. You've got to start bonding with people First, bond with yourself, be self-aware, love on yourself, love God, love other people, not only in a romantic sense, but just love your family, love your friends, love your colleagues or clients. However you make money, love just joining different groups. You've got to connect. Human beings are designed to have relationships and human beings are social creatures.

Speaker 1: 14:04

And if you say that, oh, I'm a loner. I really would question why are you such a loner? And so we all need at least I say at least three people that we can have some type of conversations with someone to go to a meal, with someone to do something with and not feel so alone. So I encourage you, man, just have lots of friends, learn how to be a friend. Maybe read a book on how to just talk to people, how to do small talk and just how to just kind of engage and just love life. And once you love life, there's gonna be people around you that want to be around you and you'll have lots and lots of friends. So those are the four keys.

Speaker 1: 14:49

And if you do those things on a daily basis, if you constantly state how you feel, if you know what you believe in, if you feed your subconscious that you deserve recovery, deserve love, and you have people in your life and you are self-aware of who you are, you will never, never, never, never go back to the addiction and you will strive in recovery and you will live best life that you design, that you put down on paper. That's why I want to talk about writing down your goals and figuring out what you want in life? Who do you want to do things with? What do you want? When the end comes, are you going to be able to be content, smile, be peaceful and just say I did my life With that. Life is wonderful. And we were going to end this episode of the 1% in Recovery podcast.