Stack the hope Chips

Yo, yo yo Nico here, A pillar to recovery is “hope”. There is a sense of hope that gets instilled in you when you solve one of your problems, regardless if it is big or small.

Find what's gonna be the next best step to take towards that big problem you want to solve. Reason why is because if you try to solve a big problem like not drinking anymore, not using, but you do not deal with the underlying issues (Trust, rejection, fear, coping for trauma), then you'll probably exercise some extreme willpower. And I'm pretty sure that you'll get a couple days done. You might even get double digits, triple digits worth of days there comes a breaking point though. That breaking point is difficult to overcome. If you don't know how to stack small wins of hope in your corner, you must find a purpose for doing what you're doing.

Here's how I would stack a small win of hope. I would go buy my bottle, put it on the counter, and have easy drinking access. I didn't like my relationship with Alcohol, but I didn't know how to change it. So I just started to delay the time I got the comfort of drinking. This exercise was to develop self control because I would immediately want to drink.

I'd ask myself some questions; “Why do you want to drink?” “Why do you want to drink?” “Why do you want to feel ‘better’?” If you don't know what questions to ask yourself, then just ask yourself why three times. So the bottle would be on the table. I would ask myself, “why do you want to get drunk?” “Why do you want to get drunk?”

Then I'd answer myself.

” Well, I want to get drunk because ol girl pissed me off today. I want to get drunk because work is dumb and I don't understand why they do it certain ways.”

Then I had to follow up on answers:

“Well, she pissed me off because she said something that I didn't like” (hurt feelings)

“Why didn't you like what she said?”

“Well, because it’s true”.

That's how I would work through my first layer. If I could answer those three questions immediately within like 60 seconds and I knew why I was gonna drink. Then I felt better because I knew I was working towards something. It was a small win, for delaying immediate gratification and facing the next best step I could.

It wasn't just this unclear I'm gonna drink until I black out again. Don't get me wrong. I'm not encouraging you to continue to participate in harmful behaviors. What I am encouraging you to do is self reflect before you participate in a binging behavior or a habit that you're trying to break, nobody else cares about you as much as you, honestly. If you don't care about yourself enough to ask yourself three questions of “why?” before you get drunk, before you get high, then the reality is you're just seeking attention. You don't want help.

If you want somebody to give you attention to make you feel better go post on social media. Get yourself a quick little 5 minutes of attention. You'll even make someone's day because they're gonna feel like they contributed to society by encouraging somebody today.

I struggle with individuals who say that they want to change, and don't take any simple steps to get there. The reason why I make fun of people and I talk to my sarcastic tones is because I had to figure this stuff out by trial and error. I know what it's like to wake up in that victim mindset saying the world is against me. No one wants to help me. Oohh poor me.

Reality is someone else out there has it worse than you do right now. There's someone in this world that is praying to their creator for a simple break from life that you have access too and are taking for granted. I was sleeping in my truck. When I came to this realization, complaining that I had to sleep in my truck in a Walmart parking lot, complaining that I only had half of gram of dope, complaining that I had to keep this machete with me all the time, because that's the only way I kept safe.

When the reality was, I knew two people at that time who wanted shelter. Like they would've paid me to sleep in my truck. I knew a couple other people at that time who didn't have the skills or will to figure out how to get a dope sack when they were dope sick.

I knew some individuals who were straight sharked on because they couldn't protect themselves. So while I was sleeping there in my truck, pissed off, what I really had to do was realize that out of the choices that I had made, I was actually in a good spot. I was protected. I had four walls around me, a roof and a floor. I was locked in. I had some sense of security. I know what it's like to not have security or feel safe and took the time to be grateful that I could say I was safe.

I know what it's like to keep your eyes open and not sleep for a couple days because you're in a spot where you don't know what's gonna crack off. So that type of sense of security made me feel better. I was grateful for that. I was gonna be able to sleep that night, even if it was just for a couple hours, because I had a gram of dope. It would make me well enough to sleep. I was grateful for that.

There were people out there who were scraping pipes, breaking off the ashes of foil, trying to get high with that. I know what it's like to scrape a pipe. I know what it's like to scrape some foil. So that's why I'm saying when I was looking at the half gram upset that I didn't have more, I should have been grateful that I was able to feel relief. Again promoting harm reduction, not promotion of use.

There is a hope that you can create inside of yourself. I know it's been robbed from you. I know that Hope's been taken away because the rest of the world says, “well, you just need to get it together. Figure it out here in this space. And in this time”, I'm gonna agree with them.

You do need to figure it out, but I'm also gonna give you tips on how to do it. So today's tip is to figure out how to be grateful for your current situation, regardless of how bad you think it is. I want you to figure out one way to be grateful today because there's somebody in this world right now that is praying for your situation because there is an opportunity in it. Praying to be where you're at, because if they can get to where you're at, then they actually have a shot. If you're missing hope, then I want you to think about this person for me, I've named him in my mind you pick a name for him in yours.

When I don't want to do something that is good for me, others and the community, when I have my triggers go off. When I want to drink when life smacks me around and remembering, “Hey, I escaped worse types of situations before.” I think about that person. He is sitting in his job at 1400, he is wanting to drink but also sick of how it makes him feel. He just got his butt ripped by someone and could really care less because everything is meaningless. He feels like he is existing but not living and he is wanting to live again. He knows it is killing him each time he drinks, he understands the risk.” Financially he is broke living paycheck to paycheck and blaming others for his lack of opportunity.

I get this hope inside of me, that there was a time that I prayed to be in a position like this, to be able to help that person. I am not gonna squander this purpose because of one feeling, I will replace that feeling with hope!

Hope that it can be done and you have it in you! If I can share this with you, if you're still above ground, you're listening to this, then you've survived a hundred percent of the days that you didn't think that you could make it through!

You're a hundred percent holmes. Are you gonna keep it that way? Again, the goal around here is not to do recovery for you. Not here. To help you get there I can guide you how to do it.

1. you need to define sober for you.

2. You need to decide what the next best action is.

3. You need to define the purpose for doing it, why you're gonna do better today.

I have my own journey to go on and I just want to help guide others today. There is a way to do better. You aren't required to be an angel. It's okay to have No Halo.

Pro tip, don't try to solve your biggest problem First. Pick one thing in your control you can solve today. Pick the next best problem to solve and Repeat.