Empowered

Yo, yo, yo, what's up Nico here!

So we've talked about a couple different points when it comes to recovery. I'll let you know that you need to be empowered. This is done by following through on the decisions that you make with actions that support those decisions. When you don't, that's, when you start to lose trust in yourself, losing trust in yourself, causes you not to make the decisions. And then you don't take the actions, and can get stuck in a rut. So we were talking about last time, what you're gonna need to start doing to take those actions, make hard decisions, and then assess in a few different areas what the results are! Next you want to look for areas that you will include support. The reason why I'm doing this stuff, guys is again, I spent more than 10 years trying to figure out how to get clean without going to rehab, without going to jail without doing all the traditional things. AA, religious groups, and other traditional modalities. Um, they didn't work for me. So I felt like I was out there by myself, trying to sort out this mess that I had created. It's not anybody else's job to figure it out. I'm the one that chose to do drugs, but I'm the one that needs to figure out a solution. Again, what I've told you guys is that the drugs may be new. But the behaviors haven't changed. Addiction itself isn't new. People have been addicted since the human brain has been working. We get addicted to pleasures. We get addicted to comfort.

We get addicted to people. We get addicted to substances, not just drugs and alcohol. I'm also talking about food. I noticed these addictive behaviors when I was using them. And I started figuring out that it's not so much the Drugs not so much the alcohol. It's not so much the vice itself, but it's the mental state that we have ourselves in. And so that's what I'm big on. How do we make decisions mentally and then follow through on them physically so that we can change the world that we live in. I'm not talking, go save the world. I'm asking you to change the world that you live in. That's it make it somewhere that you want to be by getting to your definition of sober. Have you done that yet? Have you figured out what your definition of sober is?Yeah. I'm asking you these questions because I had to figure these things out without guidance. These were pivotal moments and questions we must ask ourselves. When I could define what sober was for me, then I could work towards that. When I understood that the decisions in my head need to be followed through with actions out here in my hands, in this world, with what I was actually doing, things started to change. I began to trust myself again, the stages that we go through are very common, but they're not the same. So what I want to talk to you about today is your three needs as a human. Um, that's your mental, your physical and your spiritual needs. You need to acknowledge that you have all three parts. Again, I'm not here to preach. That's not my job, but I need to teach skills so that you can make the decisions first, before I preach, what I know is true, you need to start trusting yourself before you'll trust anybody else. So the three parts that you need to know, that you need to work on are your mental, your physical and your spiritual.

We'll start with the mental. This is logical thinking, This is step one before step two, step two before step three. And then assessing if there's any steps between one and two, assessing if there's any steps between two and three and making sure you do all of 'em, your mental state is how you are thinking logically, um, your awareness of what's going on around you, your cognitive skills. Um, those are your mental rights. Also includes your self talk. What you're saying to yourself is super important. Most people don't even acknowledge that. They say some very foul things to themselves, but your self talk, that little voice that pops up that you think you don't have any control over. That's your self-talk. That little voice though is part of the spiritual portion. The world calls it your conscience. So that's what I'm gonna title it. It's your conscience. My personal belief is that that's God, that's the creator talking to you. You can choose to listen, or you can choose not to society calls it, conscience, congruent, living, meaning what you're being told inside that little voice you're actually living alongside with it. For instance, my little voice has been telling me recently, stop smoking. That's what my conscience has been telling me. That's what God has been directing me to. He speaks to me. He told me, Nico, you gotta stop smoking Father. I tell him because God is my father. I've been smoking since I was 14 years old. What do you mean I gotta stop now. Just stop smoking. So that's what I'm working on right now is removing smoking from my life. How do I do that? Well, I think mentally well, logically smoking is not good for me. No, it damages my health. It doesn't increase my longevity of life. Um, and it gives me a small sensation before immediate regret. That's my mental state. When I smoke the spiritual side of it. Every time that I smoke, every time that I buy a pack of smokes, I feel guilt, I feel a heaviness in my chest. That's where it hits me right here. Ah, you shouldn't have done that, bro. I used to get that same thing when I was quitting heroin. When I stopped drinking and I, I still go by the sack and I still go by the bottle. Ah, you shouldn't have done that. So I know it's part of my transitional phase is this guilt feeling that I have inside. I appreciate it because it means that God's still talking to me.If you don't believe in God, then it means that you still have a conscience, but that's how it hits me. So mentally I assess whether what I'm doing is logically making sense. Pro tip that I told you about: don't lie to yourself.

We can justify using don't get me wrong. I can come up with an excuse and I could probably validate why you're using it, but we can't do that. The reality is smoking. Isn't the worst thing. If you look at my history and you find out that I'm just smoking, ah, people, people don't bother me about it, but in my heart, in my soul, my spirit in my mind, it's not right. And I can't do it. The physical portion of it, well handled, smell, beard. Eh, it keeps all the sense in it. Shorties at the shorty that I'm seeing. She doesn't like it. So physically it is unattractive physically. It doesn't help me physically. It is, detracting. It's a liability for me, It's not helping me anymore.

Don't get me wrong. There was a point where smoking helped me because it was the only time I could stop and think. And that's what I know. I like it. The most is the comfort that I have from it. I don't even like the smoke no more. I don't even like the smell of it, but that comfort that I get, that's what I've been chasing. And that's what I've been chasing my whole life, regardless of the substance. It's always been a comfort. What I found out over the past three years is that when I live in comfort, things get worse. When I stay in an uncomfortable state, meaning personally develop me, myself, meaning working on something that I know I need to change. Things get better. So in your recovery, one of the next pillars I need you to know is that you have to address your physical, mental and spiritual needs. You have all three, how you choose to address 'em is up to you, but you have all three and you need to acknowledge them. Here's the other portion of this. And this is where it gets really sticky for me. At least You must include your community. Yeah. The ones who already know that you're using the ones who already know that you're over drinking, the ones who are most immediately impacted by it. You need to include them. I was, I guess, lucky in the fact that my immediate family told me I had to leave.

My mom kicked me out of the house. My father kicked me outta the house. They had separate homes. They both kicked me out. I didn't have a community. I had myself, I had the floor and I had the bottom. When I started to get better. When I started to actually show results. That's when my community started to come back around. I wanna be honest. I resented them for it. I still have some resentment towards them for it, because the reality is you left me in my worst state, told me to figure it out by myself and I did. And now you want to come say, Hey, good job pat me on the back because I figured it out. I struggle with that still. I do. But what I'm gonna tell you is that if you have people around you still, who haven't given up on you, Who hasn't told you to go figure it out on your own, leverage that love to lift you up, leverage that because there are some individuals out there and you see 'em, you can see it in their eyes that they've, they've just lost. Hope you smile at 'em. And they don't. There's no response. I relate to those people because I know what it's like to feel empty inside because you don't have a community. The people at my job, well, they just put up with me. As long as I did half assed work. They didn't really care. Your job don't care about you. They just want their work done. Quite honestly, friends. If you have some good friends, while those are gonna be the ones that tell you, Hey, go get your stuff, right? Here's some help. Here's some solutions. Here's some resources. But until you start addressing this stuff, we're not talking about anything else. That's a good friend. Most of my people like high school friends, people that I was running the streets with, nah, none of 'em are around. Nah, one, your friends, your family, your community, your tribe, the people who still want to see you do well. They need to be involved. How they're involved is up to you. When my family started to want to be participating in my life again, I had to set boundaries because again, there's emotions that I have towards them about that. That aren't good, but they're not bad either. They made the decision that was best for them. And I can't knock 'em for that. I'm making the best decisions for me now. And I get to set the boundaries.

You set the boundaries on how much help you're gonna get from each one of them. But I'm telling you to leverage one thing from each of them. If you have one that's just good at listening and tell 'em, Hey, I'm gonna be going down this journey. I just need your ear so I can vent. If there's one who knows how to solve really well, and you could run your ideas through them, just for feedback, tell them, Hey, you know what? I love the way that you create solutions, I'm gonna be, if it's okay with you, I'm gonna bring you, um, some of my solutions. Can you poke holes in them for me, please. Those types of help, having someone to listen to, having someone to poke holes in the solution that you're coming up with will save you. Time, effort and energy, watching videos like these will save you time, effort, and energy. The reality is you're not the first motherfucker to have to do this shit. Are you gonna be one that survives? Are you gonna join the minority of us? Who knows what it's like to stick a 33 gauge needle in your vein slam 60 CCS, just to stay sane Where you're gonna be like the rest of them ending up in an institution or the grave. I'm passionate about getting people to their definition of sober. So if you would like help there's resources at nohalonm.com. I have a self-help guide that can help you set up a smart goal. I have a book. If you're just thinking about wondering what sobriety is like and how to start it, I have some free stuff up there as well, because you deserve to live the best version of your life. There's no reason to be tissue paper angel soft around here, man.

No one's asking you to be an angel, but you are required to do better each and every day.