ADDICTION;

A Fierce & Frightening Story

“Physically, Mentally, Psychologically, & Emotionally Bankrupt”

By MICHAEL PATANELLA

Earlier this week, I was reading some chapters from the “Just For Today” Sober Book.

There were two chapters that connected extraordinarily well to each other. I was also very impressed with Chapters one & two. The words, and the messages, connected intertwined, connecting, disconnecting, reconnecting.

The Chapters were titled, “A Closed Mind, & A New Vision.” I feel that those two are very interconnected and go hand in hand. So it makes sense that they’re in the book back to back and that their chapter numbers are one & two.

The quote they give to start The chapter for Closed Mind, Chapter One, is

“A new idea cannot be grafted onto a closed mind. Open-mindedness leads us to the very insights that have eluded us during our lives.” There’s a lot of the reason we become our own victims of having a closed mind.

“Addiction stripped us of whatever direction we had.”

I believe most of the time A New Vision (The Title For Chapter Two), is of high quality if it’s the end result of the development of a Mind once Closed, but now Open.

I sure as hell can say I was stripped of my direction & meaning, & Dignity during my addiction.

That’s one of the main reasons my addiction ran so long. The more I went on, the more my journey stretched, & everything got worse .

The more power gained, the addiction also gained.

I also agree with the Just For Today when it discusses denial. Denial stops everything. Denial Stops us from facing how bad we have gotten. Eliminates the ability to see the big picture. We don’t see how some quality treatment would do us good.

Opportunities become invisible.

“Self dependence and self will, can keep us from admitting even the possibility of the existence a Power greater than ourselves.” I think that means that sometimes we have a lot of pride, that gets in our own way. When looking at the results of our “pride” it shows very quickly how much nonsense it created.

We use our self-will to have fights with our own selves, it we had two heads, then we’d be butting heads. The self dependence, is just another form of co-dependence.

Instead of a typical two person co-dependence, we have, a first time ever. A one person co-dependency; A One Man Dramatic Shit Show.

It’s You Vs. You.

That’s usually the strongest type of battle we face, the one against ourselves. It is a battle, searching & waiting to see the end result. Who’s The Winner & Who’s Loser. Obviously though, in this kind of fight, there’s never a winner.

Nothing but one big loser. How can we consider anyone a winner when it’s a fight against our true hearts and souls?

These battles can be the most volatile battles & fights we ever encounter in our lives. Also, the worst part is, the reasons these fights start are usually reasons that are mostly confusing & vague & At times immature too.

Or the reasons are just completely unknown! No reason whatsoever.

I’ve bullied dozens, perhaps even hundreds. I’m ashamed to say I was so evil, so heartless that I don’t remember much about those I’ve hurt. I probably can only name a tiny fraction of names of those who suffered from my cruelty. There is one though that I know the victim very specifically.

There is one though that I know the victim very specifically. One who’s suffered every single day.There is one person that has been hurt the most from my entire life of bullying.

Undoubtedly I’ve been a bully to many people in my life, I don’t deny that.

However the victim of My most cruelest & most heartless, disgusting bullying has always been ME.

That fact, has contributed to an inner self of constant self loathing that words cannot even explain or describe.

Again, another way the Addict within me, was acting like an Addict, hurting & using others like Addicts do, growing more & more selfish, selfish Addicts like are. Long before the act of physically using Heroin.

When drawing a conclusion to everything now considered, many Interesting, strong theories are brought to light about the actual using of the drug.

We find that the drug use, or whatever our Addiction or Self Destructive Behavior(s) is, is just one of many symptom of someone who is Physically, Psychologically, Emotionally Bankrupt.

At the Chapter for “A New Vision,” their intro is quoted as,

“Do We really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear?” It goes onto say that some people look back at their short comings and defects as the key elements that carved their characteristics of who they are today. That sounds like the identical answer I would had given if asked. I have talked countless times about how I have come to believe, that most of my successes in my life, can all go back to an origin that got it development from an experience, that at the time, was probably a bad experience.

Good chance that I was going through a very difficult time in my life, and I was battling my battles in the dark. The characteristic molding, did most of its building, while I was in that dark journey.

Coming from darkness, finding light; A moment the Reward for struggle. Complex Character Development. A Moment both, a Spiritual Moment Spiritual Awakening.

From those experiences, there inside your Heart & Mind were more steps towards a Man with now, a stronger.

High Moral Character; Strong relationship with Faith.

Qualities that were made by surviving the struggle & making it through the darkness were Trustworthy, Honest, Hard Working, & Leads By Example. Treats ALL with respect, and doesn’t pass judgement onto others.

Throughout Life, Our Higher Power will continue to test us, & reward us. God will continue to guide us in developing our Characters. So there will be dark times. It isn’t a punishment. It is an offering of God’s tools. Tools that can help you become as much, or also as little as you want to me.

Although It’s an offering from God, the choices on what to do with those tools is not God’s, but yours.You can show God the strength of your Faith. Don’t forget, even though it may seem so at times, our Higher Power never leaves us in difficult times.

God’s Hands are always reaching for us. It is on us to extend our hand back.

Just like going through that darkness, know that the whole time, my Faith was enough for me to know, God was there pushing, guiding, never turning his back on me.

Successfully coming out of the darkness, putting our guts, & faith into our High Powers, to believe that the Power is there with us in the dark, guiding us out, to receive rewards us with God’s endless blessings.

By understanding that sometimes there may be short cuts out of difficult places and dark times, but it may be at the expense of others, like cheating, stealing, or lying, those short cuts though successful short term, can have a chance of coming back to Haunt us someday.

Do the right thing, all the time, and especially when nobody is looking.

With a New Vision, we can make what we envision a reality, if we are willing to put in the work; overtime at that.

A future that consists of less weight holding you down.

Held down by the most toxic emotions in the Human Race.

Not only Toxic, but dead weight too. None of them can propel any kind success.

Ruining mental and physical health. It has been tough to do, but I have worked hard on these topics.

Some of the Top Toxic Topics in my opinion are Resentments, Unresolved Or Unprocessed Guilt, Shame, & Fear of Maturity.

When I got sober, every feeling that I numbed with drugs for years were waiting for me. Grief, Sadness, Loss, Betrayal.

That’s what drugs did. They masked; they didn’t get rid of one damn thing. Just covered up feelings. Like a cheap shit blanket. The drugs stopped development of my brain from the time I started my addiction. The brain MIGHT be able to semi reset, only in a committed Recovery. But for some of the damage, what’s done is done.

That does not mean that we have to submit & feel that we are just hopeless victims.

We need to work especially hard to expose our fears, & we can then stop being stuck. God always had newer better visions for me. I just chose to disregard them for a long time.

We will always have character defects.

Remember, like mentioned earlier, things that seem like struggles, or unfairness, darkness, or defects etc. etc. The type of things, that really allow our Content of Character to develop, and grow.

I can 100% testify that it is true. My best, and obvious example; getting in trouble with the Law in the past, saved me.

I was able to break free from the chains of my addiction and my struggle.

I finally was able to be honest with myself, & I accepted the fact that immediate drastic change was needed.

Nobody can tell me God only throws struggles & heartache. God throws us opportunities. Some are free, but most are hard work.

If it wasn’t for Legal Systems, I would had stayed on the self destructive road.

I’d now be homeless on Trenton Streets or DEAD.

A Gift was sent to me from God, disguised as the Law. A Gift that Guided me to a path that lead me to an offer of the Greatest Gift there is to the Human Race.

The Kind of offer so extremely rare to even come just once into anyone’s life.

Therefore, it certainly won’t come twice. So, like they say about in Boxing when someone got a Golden Opportunity. They say, “Take it, cause ya ain’t gonna get a Second Chance.

The offer was giving me a Courageous opportunity to take control.

To Start from scratch and COMPLETELY change My life.