Greg: What’s up everyone? Greg here, Matt here. Project Unbroken, make sure to subscribe. Today we’re going to be a question, so I’m going to pass it over to Matt, he’s got a question he’s going to read, and we’re going to take it from there.
Matt: Yeah guys, first of all, thanks for the question, we’ve been getting a few of them in now, so this is pretty exciting for us. We have a question from Katie K, I’ll leave it at that. “I’ve been clean for three and a half years, but I still crave it every day. What can you suggest to help me kind of not think about my addiction?”
Three and a half years, congratulations on the-
Greg: That’s awesome.
Matt: Three and a half years, that’s awesome. But at the same time, it’s not fun to crave what we were addicted to every day.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: That’s big. And that’s … so, I think what I would suggest first is to … and, a lot of, I think, recovery programs would go against this, I would start replacing, big time.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: I mean, you need to start … or for me, I would personally start trying to fill that void of whatever you’re craving with something that you enjoy. I always go immediately to things that you may intrinsically motivated to do, so stuff that you really just like doing. So I don’t … whatever it may be, it could be knitting, or I like exercise, we like exercising. Any sort of activity that can kind of take your mind away from everything else.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: For a little bit.
Greg: Yeah, so I think some advice I would give is to kind of change maybe the way you look at it, right. So, for a while, I would think about heroin as well, but I started changing my thinking to like not thinking about how good it would feel to do heroin, but how much it would fuck up my life.
Matt: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Greg: Like all the bad things that heroin did. I’m constantly in that cycle, I’m constantly going through withdrawal, I have no money, I’m mistreating people I love. Like I think of all that shit it did for me. Fuck how it makes you feel, because that only lasts an hour or two, you know what I mean? I think of the long term benefits of not using. That way, when I think of using … like when I think of heroin right now, I think of all that bad shit, I’m like, “Fuck no.”
Matt: Oh my god.
Greg: I do not want that shit near me.
Matt: Yeah.
Greg: You know what I mean? I don’t care how good it makes me feel, because I’m thinking of all the long term bad shit that it does for me.
Matt: That’s a really good point. I was messing around with this idea the other day, of thinking about you can kind of see into the future a little bit. And you could take two different roads. You can see in the future and the road if you stay clean, you know things are going to be getting better, and better, and better. Maybe you’re working towards a goal, opening a business, starting a family, whatever. All those things require you to stay off of heroin.
Greg: Yes.
Matt: Or, you could look on the other road towards the future, and that’s when you’re using again.
Greg: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Matt: You’re not going to start a business, you’re not going to be as successful as you could be, your relationships are going to go to shit. All the bad things that happen in your past will continue to happen if you go down the road of using again.
Greg: Yeah, you know what I think a lot of addicts do is stop tricking yourself to thinking maybe that’s it a possibility that there’s a middle road, because there’s no fucking middle road.
Matt: There’s no middle road.
Greg: It’s either this way, or it’s this way. It’s not … like a lot of alcoholics, like I’ve known people who have been sober for 10 plus years, they’re like, “Well, I’ve been sober so long, I can have a drink.” They have one drink, and it’s right back into the shit show. Know what I mean?
Matt: Like, worse, yeah.
Greg: So if you get rid of the mindset that like, “Oh, well, maybe I can just do it here … ” like, get rid of that. It’s either this way, or it’s this way.
Matt: And I would say for most substance abuse issues, it’s black and white.
Greg: Yeah.
Matt: There’s really not a middle ground. You’re not going to all of the sudden be able to control it this time.
Greg: Definitely.
Matt: So, I think, to Greg’s point, maybe shift your perspective a little bit, don’t look at the good times, because if you look back I’m sure you can remember it brought more issues than good things your way. And then try to replace … if you get stressed out, and think about drugs, maybe try to replace that with a good habit. Maybe try meditations, whatever, anything to kind of just switch that thought that heroin’s going to help you, because you know it’s not going to.
Greg: Cool. Yeah, I like that. So hopefully that helps you Katie, Katie K, is that what it was?
Matt: Katie K, yeah.
Greg: All right, cool. If you have any other questions, send them in, we’ll answer them just like this. Make sure you comment below if you have anything to add, subscribe, and we’ll see you all on the next video.
Matt: See you guys.
