I remember it like it was yesterday.\u00a0 I was very young, maybe eleven or twelve years old, hanging out with a friend at \u201cThe Pit.\u201d\u00a0 The Pit, as we called it, was an old foundation of a house that was dug into the ground.\u00a0 We made a makeshift roof out of junk wood and metal we had gathered up from our neighborhood.\u00a0 This became our version of a tree house that we would hang out in and do “kid stuff.”<\/p>\n
At this point in our young lives, \u201ckid stuff\u201d was gathering up Playboy<\/em> magazines and stealing beer and cigarettes from our houses and maybe even some of our neighbors’ houses.\u00a0 (Sorry, Mom and neighbors.) Call it boredom, call it fitting in, call it copying adult behavior, or call it small-town living.\u00a0 Whatever you call it, not every kid did it the same way, so the bottom line is this was just our<\/em> way.<\/p>\n I was raised Catholic.\u00a0 My family went to church pretty regularly and I attended Sunday School taught by the priest or nuns.\u00a0 My brother was an altar boy, and I choose to follow in his footsteps. I really think I did it because sitting in church was murderously boring, and at least being an altar boy gave me a job and a purpose for being there.<\/p>\n I certainly listened to the teaching. Again, some of it did not interest me much and other parts of it were just confusing.\u00a0 I did, however, learn that good people went to heaven and bad people went to hell.\u00a0 This seemed to be the crux of every fable, story, or parable that we examined. I also learned that the lines were sketchy, at best, of what was the difference between “good” and “bad.” \u00a0There were some behaviors that the teaching was pretty clear on, though.\u00a0 And by the time I was a pre-teen, I had already done some of the \u201cbad\u201d ones.<\/p>\n Now, I don\u2019t know if the church was clear on the whole “forgiveness of sins” thing, or perhaps I didn\u2019t pay very close attention to that part, but I was pretty sure that there was a good chance that I was doomed to hell at an early age. \u00a0And to be really honest, I didn\u2019t care. If I am going to be completely candid here, I will admit that I never really cared for the whole \u201cborn in sin\u201d thing.\u00a0 In fact, it really made me kind of mad.<\/p>\n Back to that day in \u201cThe Pit.\u201d \u00a0My friend and I had just found a new thing to do.\u00a0 I do not remember who, what, or where we got the idea from, but we decided to crush a bunch of No Doz tablets up and snort them.\u00a0 I clearly remember us saying \u201csince I\u2019m going to hell anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n I would like to be really clear here that I do not blame my religious upbringing on my decision to practice risky behaviors like abusing drugs. \u00a0The point I am trying to make here is that I believe that my young mind rejected the idea of my being born in sin.\u00a0 The term “sin,” to me, meant “bad.” \u00a0So if all people where born \u201cbad,\u201d what is the point of that?\u00a0 What message does that send to someone of that age? \u00a0Or for any age, for that matter?<\/p>\n Here is where your personal power can be experienced: \u00a0Stop calling yourself bad, stop labeling your behavior as bad, stop judging others’ behaviors as bad.\u00a0 Look at things and see if they are producing the outcome which you desire.\u00a0 If not, call them \u201cno longer useful\u201d and move away from them.<\/p>\n Start taking notice of your preferences.\u00a0 There is a huge distinction between “preference” and “addiction.” \u00a0If your choices are not producing the life you say you want to lead, choose again. \u00a0Does this sound too good to be true?\u00a0 I assure you it isn\u2019t. \u00a0And people are doing it all the time.\u00a0 The only thing that limits you is what you think<\/em> limits you.<\/p>\n The only thing stopping you from making changes in your life is your fear of the unknown.\u00a0 Life is here to conspire with<\/em> you, not against<\/em> you.\u00a0 It has been my experience, and the experience of many others, that when we decided to give sobriety a chance, life got better.\u00a0 The Soul offers us unlimited grandeur; the Mind desires to keep things small.\u00a0 The Mind is all about survival; the Soul knows survival is guaranteed.<\/p>\n I choose today to hold beliefs that serve my purpose.\u00a0 Fear-based beliefs no longer work for me.\u00a0 Conversations with God<\/span> tells us that \u201cobedience is not creation.\u201d\u00a0 <\/i>I would say that obedience is an escape hatch that we use in order to not be responsible for our choices.\u00a0 I have heard Neale say, \u201cno one ever does anything they do not want to do.\u201d\u00a0 I have placed a great deal of thought into that statement, and I would agree.<\/p>\n \u00a0“Most people on earth don’t believe in God as God really is because it is just simply too good to be true.” \u00a0~ NDW<\/p><\/blockquote>\n (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist. \u00a0He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, recovery coach, and interventionist\u00a0specializing\u00a0in individual and family recovery. \u00a0Kevin has a passion for holistic living, personal awareness training, and physical meditation. You can visit his website<\/i>\u00a0Life<\/i><\/a>\u00a0After Addicton<\/em><\/a>\u00a0for more information.<\/i>\u00a0To connect with Kevin, please email him at\u00a0<\/i>Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com<\/i><\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I remember it like it was yesterday.\u00a0 I was very young, maybe eleven or twelve years old, hanging out with a friend at \u201cThe Pit.\u201d\u00a0 The Pit, as we called it, was an old foundation of a house that was dug into the ground.\u00a0 We made a makeshift roof out of junk wood and metal […]<\/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":[185,1682,1684,1683,4,422,286,1686,186,1685],"class_list":["post-8159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction-and-recovery","tag-addiction","tag-born-in-sin","tag-catholic-church","tag-catholic-teaching","tag-conversations-with-god","tag-healing","tag-hell","tag-no-doz","tag-recovery","tag-sunday-school"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159","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=8159"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8163,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8159\/revisions\/8163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}