How The Steps Stop Addiction!! Recovery can be Long Lasting and People Can Regain their Lives

The gambling industry's tentacles reach deeper with each passing football season. This year, as betting platforms multiply and advertising saturates every media channel, we're witnessing a perfect storm for addiction. Sports channels, streaming services, fantasy leagues, and in-game betting options form an ecosystem designed to extract maximum money from vulnerable individuals.

What's truly alarming is the network of complicity. State governments promote gambling under the guise of funding education. Media giants from Disney to Fox profit from gambling advertising. The money trail leads everywhere except to protecting ordinary citizens. While we have protective laws for driving, drugs, and weapons, gambling—a weapon turned against people—continues with minimal regulation and maximum promotion.

After 25 years studying recovery processes and becoming a Steps Scholar (much like biblical scholars), I've reimagined the traditional 12 Steps to address their limitations into The 12 Steps Explained. Recovery begins with understanding how addiction lies to us and disconnects us from our authentic selves.  Effective recovery acknowledges our universal need for help and guidance. Addiction's greatest power lies in isolation, keeping us from our true nature. The path forward involves identifying our genuine desires—for recovery, love, wellbeing, healthy relationships, and a meaningful future. By building character traits like honesty, hope, and courage while making the most of each 24-hour period, lasting change becomes possible. Join our Recovery Freedom Circle on Facebook where we support each other through this journey of rediscovery and transformation. Remember: recovery is beautiful, and your emotional intelligence is your greatest asset in this battle.

Chapters

• 0:02 Introduction to Recovery Podcast
• 1:33 Football Season's Hidden Addiction Crisis
• 4:02 The Gambling Industry's Complicity
• 6:03 Understanding the 12 Steps
• 8:27 Finding Your True Self Again
• 11:59 Making Each Day Count

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Addiction recovery the steps how do they all come together? 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 relationships, work hard in your jobs, your business school. Just work To love unconditionally. Just put much more love out there and watch more love return. Love does make the world much, much more enjoyable. So remember, recovery is beautiful. Your EQ is your IQ and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. So now join the Facebook group Recovery Freedom Circle. It's a community where we talk about the steps recovery, goals, dreams, success. Also talk about obstacles, also talk about things that we're struggling with. Also talking about things that we have overcome. This is about healing. This is about growth. This is about living your best life. Now let's jump into this week's episode the steps addiction recovery how do they all come together?

Speaker 1: 1:33

A lot of people are going to be suffering here in the next few months. We are now getting back into another football season. That means that sports betting is accelerating, that means alcohol abuse will spike and that means that almost every other metric whether we're talking about anxiety, depression, drug use, pills, lack of productivity, lack of productivity, relationships, where people feel really isolated. So this is all going to spike Because we're talking to another football season and the only thing different Between last football season and this football season Is that the gambling industry has gotten stronger that all vehicles, especially media. We're talking about all the different sports channels. We're talking about, now, all the different streaming that's available. We're talking about this constant need of information, whether we're talking about statistics, whether we're talking about fantasy sports, whether we're talking about actual betting, we're talking about prop betting, whether we're, then, which we're going to utilize for when we start losing and we start getting desperate for in-game betting. It's all designed to extract as much money from your wallet, from your bank account, into the hands of casinos, sportsbooks, any other operator, legal or illegal, and then you have less money for anything and everything, whether we're talking about your rent, milk money or going out to eat or travel. It's all going to be effective because they keep racking up more and more profits, and I always say follow the money. That's what everybody always says. Whether you're talking about business or you're talking about politics, they always say follow the money. That's what everybody always says. Whether you're talking about business, whether you're talking about politics, they always say follow the money.5, betaway. I mean all these companies, all the advertising, and the thing is is that they're all players. You now have what they always talk about crimes.

Speaker 1: 4:14

Who is complicit? State governments are complicit. All the media outlets are complicit. So we're talking about Disney, we're talking about ABC. We're talking about ABC, we're talking about NBC, we're talking about any of the other Fox News, any of the other players, and we're not even talking about all the different newspapers and online media outlets. We're talking about every state government in the United States.

Speaker 1: 4:43

We're not talking about countries that try to almost encourage people to gamble so then they can increase their general revenue or they can increase some type of fund, which they will gladly boast that they're using gambling money for education. Well, here's some education Encourage people not to get into difficult situations. That would be responsible government. Responsible government protects individual citizens from themselves and from others. That's why we have laws around driving vehicles. We have laws around drugs, alcohol. We have laws around anything else that would involve firearms or any other types of weapons.

Speaker 1: 5:40

Gambling is a serious weapon that is turned on people and, like I said, the worst things are the advertising and the inline stuff. So let's get back to this. But how do we stop this? We stop this by we start dealing with ourselves. You have to know who you are dealing with ourselves. You have to know who you are. See, that's why I've spent over 25 years studying the steps, just like there are biblical scholars that like to study the overall Bible, whether it's the Old Testament or the New Testament, or it's all four Gospels or certain teachings of Jesus Well, in recovery, the basis is the steps, the steps that were originally written.

Speaker 1: 6:30

They came about in 1935, with, obviously, influence from the Oxford group, which is an evangelical group and which was a lot of that did come out of the Bible, and so there are a lot of biblical references within 12-step terminology, 12-step teachings, and I've spent over 25 years really just studying and trying to understand how different 12-step groups mainly the ones that deal with alcohol and gambling have written them. But they're very similar in any other 12-step group, whether we're talking about narcotics, food, where we're trying to understand self, this whole concepts of self-love or love of self, or love of self, these concepts of being secure with who you are and acting mature, or being insecure and acting irresponsible. So I encourage people to really study the steps. Now I understand why the steps have a low success rate. That's why I personally rewrote the 12 steps of recovery into the 12 steps explained, and number one is is we have to address how addiction lies to us.

Speaker 1: 7:57

We have to get at the root cause. What causes people to even do stupid things like put some type of dangerous chemical, let's say, drink some liquid like alcohol, inject a drug, whether that's by smoking, injecting it into your bloodstream or taking some form of pill, where it also gets into your bloodstream? How quickly can these drugs, chemicals get into our brains, which then can change the way we feel or just numb us out? And then we can be induced also with either gambling or pornography, where we have a total disconnect with relationships, because once you're gambling or you're in porn, or even if you, let's say, you're just hiring sex workers or you're, let's say, just going to the strip club, you're trying to get outside of yourself and that becomes you are changing your brain chemistry because you are disillusioned around money and sex. And I always say man, it always will come down to money and sex relationships and how. Women want more money, women want sex, men want more money, men want sex.

Speaker 1: 9:19

Also, on how gambling and pornography disassociates ourselves from our spiritual self and what we would believe, whether it's God, higher power, some type of great mystery. So the steps have to be addressed, but in a way that makes sense, and instead of talking about spiritual beings in step two and three, we really need to be talking about that number one. We all need help. We're all fucked up. We all need to lean on someone. We all need some type of guidance, whether it's our health, whether it's our finances, whether it's learning new skills. What we also need to realize is that we're no longer alone, and that's the biggest problem with addiction it isolates us. It keeps us from being who we truly are. And now, when we really step into step one, we list down what are our true dreams and goals. What do we tell ourselves? How much Hugo deserves recovery, how much Hugo deserves love, how much Hugo deserves to take care of his body and Hugo deserves intimate relationships, male and female, as well as plan for the future. It's not that hard.

Speaker 1: 10:46

The program talks about 24 hours, and that is what we have is 24 hours to do the next right thing, the 24 hours to be productive, 24 hours to enjoy life, because, like they always say, this could be your last day here on earth. So make it, make it memorable, make it enjoyable, make it productive. And so we want to keep pushing, not only the steps but also the character building, because that also plays into it. And that's why the Recovery Freedom Circle, where I talk about character traits, the honesty, the hope, the faith, the courage, as well as step one, two, three, the way I've written it, that is how you're going to get out of this. There are biblical scholars. I'm a step scholar because I not only have studied this for over 25 years, I live it. I love living the steps and I love sharing how you can change your life and just do what you truly want and to have the types of people in your life. With that we are going to conclude this episode of the 1% in recovery podcast.