Gratitude is an attitude

Yo, yo yo what's up Nico here!

An additional pillar to recovery is that it gives you hope. There is a sense of hope that gets instilled in you when you solve one of your problems, whether it is a big or a small problem. It feels good to solve a problem, find a solution, and overcome the thing that stopped you. If I could just throw in a quick pro tip, don't try to solve your biggest problem, first.

Find out what's gonna be the best step in that biggest problem to solve. I say that because if you try to solve a big problem of not drinking anymore, but you forget to deal with the underlying issues, then you'll probably exercise some extreme willpower and I am pretty sure that you'll get a couple of 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!

Here's how I would stack small wins of hope. I would go buy my bottle and put it on the counter. I didn't like my behavior, but I didn't know how to change it. So I just started to delay the process and I'd ask myself some questions. If you don't know what questions to ask yourself, then just ask yourself “why?” Three times. So the bottle would be on the counter, and I would ask myself, why do you wanna get drunk? Why do you wanna get drunk? Why do you wanna drink?

Then I'd answer myself.

“Well, I want to get drunk because ol’ girl pissed me off today.”

“I want to drink because work is dumb and I don't understand why I gotta do it.”

Then Ask yourself why you had the first answer.

“Well. Why did, why did ol’ girl piss you off?”

“Well, she pissed me off because she said something that I didn't like.”

“Why didn't you like it? Well, because it was true.”

That's how I'd kind of work through my first layer. If I could answer those three questions of why immediately within like 60 seconds, and I knew why I was gonna drink, why I was gonna get messed up. Then I felt better because then I knew I was working towards something. It was a reward for doing the menstrual work that is needed to remove the need to drink.

It wasn't just this unclear ”I'm gonna drink and I will black out again.” Don't get me wrong. I'm not encouraging you to continue to participate in harmful behaviors. But 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 do. No one will know how to treat you until they see how you treat yourself. If you don't care about yourself enough to ask yourself three questions of why before you get drunk, then the reality is you're just seeking attention. You don't want help.

You want somebody to give you attention to make you feel better. I'm gonna tell you, go post on social media. That's what that's for. Get yourself a quick little high like that. Better yet. You'll even make someone's day because they're gonna feel like they contributed to society by encouraging somebody online today.

I struggle with individuals who say that they want to get clean but don't take any simple steps to get there. I know what it's like to wake up in a mindset saying the world is against me. No one wants to help me. And “whoa is me”. The 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 the position that you're in. 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 g 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 of 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 sharked on because they couldn't protect themselves. So while I was sleeping there in my truck, uncomfortable, and pissed off. What I had to come to the realization was 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 ceiling. I was locked in. Cool. I had a sense of security. I know what it's like to not have security. I know what it's like to keep your eyes open and not sleep for a couple of 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, that I was gonna be able to sleep that night, even if it was just for a couple of hours because I have some dope. It would be 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 dope I was upset that I didn't have more, I should have been grateful that I was able to have some.

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. “Do it 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 that you're in, 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, praying to be where you're at, because if they can get to where you're at, then they have a shot.

When you're missing hope, and I want you to think about that person for me, I've named him. I know who he is. I see him. And when I don't want to do something, when I have my triggers pop off and I want to drink when life smacks me around and I'm remembering that, “Hey, I escaped this type of situation before using drugs.” The temptation is there because of the choices I have made. I think about that person. 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 somebody. And I am not gonna squander it because of one feeling or one moment.

I will replace that feeling with hope, hope that it might be tough right now, but it won't be tough forever. If you're above ground and 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. Are you gonna keep it that way? Again, the goal around here is not to do recovery for you. You need to define sober for yourself. You need to figure out what the next best action is. You need to figure out how you're gonna do better today. I have my 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.