Drug Addiction and Recovery

Build A Meaningful Life

1. Pick up a new hobby. Do things that challenge your creativity and spark your imagination—something you've always wanted to try.
2. Adopt a pet. ...
3. Get involved in your community. ...
4. Set meaningful goals. ...
5. Look after your health.
6. Find a friend who will help encourage you.
7. See a psychologist

What is addiction?

The Spiritual Root of Addiction

"We are addicted because we are not living from our source; we have lost our connection to our soul. The use of food, alcohol, or drugs is essentially a material response to a need that is not really physical at its foundation. Drunkenness, for example, is really a forgetting of personal memory so we can experience the joy of the non-personal, the universe. What we are looking for is pure joy rather than mere sensation, or even oblivion of sensation. Self-destructive behavior is unrecognized spiritual craving. All addictions are really a search for the exultation of spirit, and this search has to do with the expansion of consciousness, the intoxication of love, which is pure consciousness."  ---Deepak Chopra

Deepak Chopra's work on addiction offers new insights into why addictions are SO DIFFICULT to QUIT.   Search for Deepak's books on addiction, they are well worth the read.  TJS

If you need help to stop smoking ask.....

The Son (a poem about the struggle of a boy)

Son (ciaksi)

The gravel road
winds its way like a snake
through the hills to the homes
of the Innu people who have
lived there for one hundred years.

Worn houses dot
the land in a similar fashion
with broken windows and sagging
porches in need of repairs that will
never be completed.

On grey days
the despair creeps its
way into the lives of children
caught in vague attempts to
find meaning.

Alcohol, drugs and
violence become ways
of interpretation that blind
and confuse reality.

On one such
grey day in a home
on a hill overlooking
the peaceful bay the pain
became too much to bear.

Her son who was her hope and
joy, found a quiet place, and with a bicycle chain, kinked it
around his neck, and stepped off the chair.     

 ---Todd Sojonky 2005

Christmas isn't always happy...

It seems that booze is a significant part of Christmas.  Sad but true.  Christmas is a time when people who haven't seen each other very often get together and drink.  Many clients of mine have struggled with Christmas family gatherings simply because of alcohol.  Liquor stores are open longer,  advertise more and sell lots.  So what can you do?

Well for starters limit what you buy and how much alcohol you have on hand.  An overly full bar is open to abuse.  Second, make an agreement with everyone in your group to stop drinking alcohol at a certain time and switch to herbal tea.  You will sleep better and remember more!  Third, take the time to write down the parts of your life that really matter to you; the people you love, goals you want to achieve, or even places you would like to see.  Often when we are motivated to think about the meaningful pieces of our lives we quite naturally drink less.

Finally, I hope you enjoy your Christmas and take the time to slow down, walk lots and relax.  Peace.  TJS

Why Smokers Become Addicted

"Most smokers become addicted to the nicotine contained in tobacco products. Nicotine has a deadly addictive power. How? When a person puffs a cigarette, nicotine particles find their way to the lungs through inhalation. From there, nicotine is absorbed into the bloodstream just like the oxygen people breathe. It travels with the blood to the brain where it locks onto certain receptor areas. Dopamine is then released into the brain. This is the chemical that makes the smoker feel a euphoric sensation."
 

Gaetane Ross is a Certified Natural Health Consultant who has spent over 4 years focusing on Nutrition and Health. She also specializes in Alternative Medicine, Spiritual Healing and Healthy Lifestyle.
If You Sick Of Trying to Quit Smoking By Using Patches, Gum, Sprays or Pills... That Fail Every Time, you need to visit:

http://live-o-natural.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gaetane_Ross

Youtube

Hi there.  I have had some questions in regard to instructional/motivational videos on my youtube site.  You need to go to youtube and search DrToddSojonky (just as I wrote it)  there are dozens of videos discussing motivation, addiction, counselling, meditation, etc.  Find it and check it out.  Peace. TJS

Counselling and Addictions

I have had some requests for information on Counselling, Addictions and Meditation.  I have established a youtube site that has over 150 videos for you to view.  Go to www.youtube.ca and search for DrToddSojonky exactly like I have typed.  You will find great videos to be inspired, taught and challenged.  Peace. TJS

When stuff matters.....

Last night I had the opportunity to teach an advanced Addictions Theory class from LaRonge, Sk. It was wonderful! We talked about why our children are struggling with addiction, we shared personal stories about our own addictions and we shed some tears. These are brave women who not only work in the field of addictions but have survived addiction. We spoke of the divide between First Nations people and non-First Nations people and we watched a challenging video about residential schools. Two things stood out. First we are all connected through our brokenness and second, addictions affect all of us; no matter what our skin colour is. Stuff matters when real honest folk get together and dream, share and cry about what is happening in our communities. Keep up the great work in the north! TJS

Post-Colonial Psychology

Whether we counsel alcholoics, drug addicts, broken marriages, youth or children we must, if we are to be ethically sound, take into consideration the world view of the client as equal and valid to ours.  To approach a client from our perspective alone is to miss the opportunity for gestalt.  The coming together of answers and questions.  TJS

"Quite simply, a postcolonial paradigm would accept knowledge from differing cosmologises as valid in their won right, without their having to adhere to a separate cultural body for legitimacy."

  (Eduardo Duran, 1995)

Overcoming Addictions

Addiction is the number one disease of civilization, and it’s directly and indirectly related to all other diseases. Besides physical addictions, such as the addiction to food, tobacco, alcohol, and drugs, there are psychological addictions, such as the addiction to work, sex, television, shopping, appearing young, suffering, anxiety, melodrama, perfection. Why are we addicted to all these things? We are addicted because we are not living from our source; we have lost our connection to our soul. The use of food, alcohol, or drugs is essentially a material response to a need that is not really physical at its foundation. Drunkenness, for example, is really a forgetting of personal memory so we can experience the joy of the non-personal, the universe.

What we are looking for is pure joy rather than mere sensation, or even oblivion of sensation. Self-destructive behavior is unrecognized spiritual craving. All addictions are really a search for the exultation of spirit, and this search has to do with the expansion of consciousness, the intoxication of love, which is pure consciousness. Over and over, people have tried to overcome their addictions through psychological and behavioral methods or through medication. None of these offers a permanent cure.

The only cure for addiction is spiritual. We hunger for the ecstatic experience, which is a need as basic as the need for food, water, or shelter. Ecstasy, or ek-tasis, literally means stepping out. True ecstasy is stepping out of the bondage of the time-bound, space-bound world of materialism. We long to step out of the limitations of the body. We long to be free of fear and limitation. We hunger for the oblivion of our ego so that we can experience our infinite Being.

-Deepak Chopra, M.D.

ADDICTION.............

Not only is addiction universal not only are all ofus in it but it's the essence of our being as humans. It's not something tobe disowned. You can't do that, because addiction ispart of our core being. It's part of who we are. Given that, what can we doabout addictive behavior? I can think of only twothings to do about it. The first is to try to move it, to try and shift itso that the forms of its expression are less harmful ratherthan more harmful. lt is better to be addicted to a twelve-step programthan to be addicted to alcohol. It is better to beaddicted to exercise than it is to be ad- dicted to smoking. You can makethose value judgments about addictive behavior.And that approach to addiction should not be discounted because, in fact,maybe that's the only thing that most of us can do.

The only other strategy is to try and get at the root of craving. TheOriental religions would have us believe that this ispossible through intense introspection and meditation and practice. I'm notso sure of that. I think maybe you can go a longway - you can get way down there - but if the origin of craving is indeedtied up with the origin of the universe, then I'm notso sure that it can be uprooted. I think all you can do is do the best youcan. I mean, go after it; try and contain it andunderstand it. The biggest mistake we can make is trying to disown it.

I don't think addiction is curable until the expansion of the universereverses and we begin going back to a single point. Butthat should not be a source of despair. That's part of who we are. What weneed to do is to accept that aspect of ourhumanness and work with it so that it's not destructive to ourselves or toother people. We also need to celebrate it for whatit is. Because it connects us with all other people, it's a source of greatcompassion and great empathy. It's a motivation towork with others to try to halt the kinds of destructive behavior that arehappening today. I can think of nothing moreimportant than that.

So don't let your perspective about addiction be limited by one group'sdefinition of it. It is the broadest and most importantproblem we face. It's something that all of us share, and it's whatconnects us to everybody and to the higher power. That'show it is.

Andrew Weil is a botanist, physician, and author. He is an expert onalternative medicine and an advocate ofmultidisciplinary health care and preventive education. Dr. Weil holds anM.D. from Harvard Medical School and isassociate director of the Division of Social Perspectives in Medicine atthe University of Arizona College of Medicine.

Always Believe

We go to a school in the north. There is a lot that is happening in the north. What’s not so good is the use of drugs and alcohol. We have a story in all of us that gives us a dark spot in our mind. People have families, we all do, but we can’t pick our mothers and fathers, but we all still love them.

Sometimes a dad or mom leaves the family and people have to deal with them leaving. People use drugs and alcohol to escape reality and avoid the depression of their lost love ones. Though everyone smiles I think we die inside. Who would leave a child alone in the streets or sell their belongings to get a fix? We all struggle with these bad things inside. We still have control and can change; we just have to believe it.

Dealing drugs and buying for others gets you cash but at what cost? You’re feeding the addiction that is the demon in us, keeping us from reaching our goals and holding us down. Part of having a choice is saying NO. Don’t give in and ALWAYS believe in your power.

Kelly

Renunciation

Renunciation has both sadness and joy in it: sadness because you realize the futility of your old ways, and joy because of the greater vision that begins to unfold when you are able to let go of them. This is no ordinary joy. It is a joy that gives birth to a new and profound strength, a confidence, an abiding inspiration that comes from the realization that you are not condemned to your habits, that you can indeed emerge from them, that you can change, and grow more and more free. ---Rigpa quote of the day

Andrew

Andrew is one of hundreds of youth struggling with addictions and poverty in the Canadian north. He is one of the brave ones who want to change and needs our help. These are Andrew's words.....

"It's hard to quit cause people offer a blast, friends convince you to. And in order to have a blast you need money. So you get it. I want to go to treatment for three or four months. I know its ruining my life and making me depressed. I want help. If you want to get off drugs you need to look for new friends who don't do it. Talk to somebody you trust."