There is no right or wrong. \u00a0If you are here on this site, there is a good chance you believe that statement; however, there is what works<\/i> and what doesn’t<\/i>. \u00a0For those of us who are in recovery, as well as those who understand the destruction that addiction causes, we know that addiction\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work.\u00a0 Physically, it damages the body just like cancer, diabetes, and heart disease.\u00a0 Emotionally, the addict copes with life\u2019s twists and turns about as well as a 4-year-old and never gets better at it while actively using.\u00a0 And as hope for normalcy fades from the addict\u2019s life, so does any desire to grow spiritually.<\/p>\n
In Neale\u2019s conversation with God, God makes it very clear that nobody does anything inappropriate, given their view of the world.\u00a0 Again, being that you are here on this site, you will probably agree to some degree that everything is perfect just the way it is.\u00a0 There is perfection in all that we think, say, and experience.\u00a0 For those of us who have experienced addiction firsthand, even when that was happening, it was perfect, there was nothing wrong with it at all.\u00a0 I was experiencing exactly what I was choosing; and that was to do drugs.<\/p>\n
It was not apparent to me or anyone else in the beginning of my drug use that there was a problem, because it was working.\u00a0 It was working perfectly.\u00a0 I was able socialize better and I\u00a0didn’t\u00a0feel inadequate anymore.\u00a0 For most addicts, when we had our first experience with the addictive substance or behavior, it was mission accomplished — we had found the cure!\u00a0 Over time we began to demand more and more out of the disease, and that is when things clearly did not work very well anymore.<\/p>\n
Thanks to the media for bringing right into our living rooms perfect examples of people living a life of active addiction to keep this very real for us.\u00a0 Just about two years ago, we watched as Charlie Sheen was fired from Two and a Half Men for ironically exhibiting the same behavior his character on the show acted out week after week.\u00a0 He then proudly came out and said that he was \u201cwinning.\u201d\u00a0 How is that for denial?\u00a0 The whole world saw him fired from a multi-million dollar job, lose his kids in a custody battle, flaunt horrible relationships — and he called that \u201cwinning.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nary a month goes by without seeing Lindsey Lohan\u2019s plastered mugshot flash across the TV screen and the tabloid magazine racks.\u00a0 Her spiral down to the bottom is being meticulously documented in print and on screen.<\/p>\n
We have seen the following legends pass on from addiction:\u00a0 Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, John Belushi, Chris Farley.\u00a0 The amazingly talented Whitney Houston.\u00a0 Then there is the 27 Club, which includes: \u00a0Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Curt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, Jim Morrison, just to name a few, all of whom died at the age of 27.\u00a0 The list is too long to include all the names here, but I am sure you know of someone who you may have been a fan of that passed away from addictive behaviors.<\/p>\n
But we love keep up with the crazy behaviors the famous addicts of the world continue to display.\u00a0 Addiction sells.\u00a0 The media is making a fortune by following known addicts around, waiting for them to act out, get into a fight, get arrested, or better yet, when they die.\u00a0 It\u2019s not the media\u2019s fault.\u00a0 The media is just giving the public what they want, and are willing to pay for.<\/p>\n
It is our cultural story of living our lives vicariously through the celebrities. \u00a0Many people are of the belief that it is not moral to act this way themselves, but enjoy seeing other people do it.\u00a0 It is almost as if the celebrities aren\u2019t real, and it is okay to sit by and watch them destroy their lives.\u00a0 Most people don\u2019t even consider that they are actually enabling the behavior by patronizing them.<\/p>\n
Why don\u2019t we have the same standards for the rich and famous that we would have for our own family members?\u00a0 If every act is an act of self-definition, and it is<\/em>, aren\u2019t we saying, \u201cIt is fine by us if you want to kill yourself with drugs, just entertain us in the process\u201d? \u00a0What message are we sending to our children by allowing this stuff to creep into our homes?<\/p>\n We spend way too much of our time and money glorifying alcohol and drug use.\u00a0 It is common now to see references to pot smoking on almost all of the sitcoms.\u00a0 If it\u2019s okay to watch that as a family, are we sending the message to our kids that pot smoking is condoned?\u00a0 Is marijuana use now condoned?\u00a0 Do we as a society not care anymore that our kids are using pot?\u00a0 New surveys show that, for the first time ever, more Americans are in favor of legalizing marijuana than those who oppose it.\u00a0 Do we just want the money from it?\u00a0 Or do we not care if people use it?<\/p>\n I think we need to pay a little more attention to what works<\/em>, and what doesn\u2019t<\/em>.\u00a0 It is clear that addiction doesn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n How are you defining yourself?\u00a0 Does it matter to you?<\/p>\n I get that everything is perfect, I really do.\u00a0 Nothing needs to change.\u00a0 I, however, am defining myself as someone who desires to see the rampant addiction and destruction it creates lessen in my lifetime.\u00a0 I choose to be a person who is there for the addict when they reach their hand up from the bottom and ask for help.<\/p>\n What will you do to help?\u00a0 What is the cultural story you hold about addiction?\u00a0 Let\u2019s talk.<\/p>\n (Kevin McCormack C.A.d Is a certified addictions professional, as well as a Conversations with God Life Coach.\u00a0 Kevin is a practicing Auriculotherapist, and a Spiritual helper on <\/em>www.changingchange.net<\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 Kevin will be presenting at the CwG Recovery Retreat in Medford Oregon June 23rd<\/sup> \u2013 June 26th<\/sup>.\u00a0 You can visit his website for \u00a0at<\/em>\u00a0<\/i>www.Kevin-Spiritualmentor.com<\/span>\u00a0<\/a><\/em>\u00a0<\/i>To connect with Kevin, please email him at\u00a0<\/em>Kevin@theglobalconversation.com<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" There is no right or wrong. \u00a0If you are here on this site, there is a good chance you believe that statement; however, there is what works and what doesn’t. \u00a0For those of us who are in recovery, as well as those who understand the destruction that addiction causes, we know that addiction\u00a0doesn’t\u00a0work.\u00a0 Physically, it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[1107,1104,1108,1106,195,1103,544,1105],"class_list":["post-4722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction-and-recovery","tag-amy-winehouse","tag-charlie-sheen","tag-drug-addition","tag-john-belushi","tag-kevin-mccormack","tag-marijuana","tag-pot","tag-whitney-houston"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4725,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4722\/revisions\/4725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}