Secret bag of tricks

Yo what's happening, Nico here.

One of the fundamental things I had to learn in my self-recovery journey was how to expose my secrets. We are all very good at hiding secrets. Sure. We probably hid that we had a problem for, a pretty long while before we told anybody or before somebody called us out on it. Even then it was a secret, So we wouldn't tell anybody, right? How many have shared with their employer, that they have a use disorder? We don't do that because we're automatically stigmatized and they tell you, "Okay, we need you to take FMLA and we need you to go to rehab." I guess that's their automatic solution. So we don't tell our secrets at our work. If you have a partner, do you tell your secrets to them? Or are you hiding your us from them? The amount that you drink, I did it too. Don't get me wrong. I would kill a half-pint before I got home. Just so when shorty saw me drink a pint, she thought that that's all I drank that day.

It was a secret. I said I love this girl. I said I cared about her. I wouldn't even share that part of me, with her. So if we're not sharing it with our work and we're not sharing it with our partner, who do you share it with?

These are two areas where we spend the most of our time, then where are we gonna share our secrets? Where are we gonna go and tell somebody, "Hey, I need help." or "Hey, I'm struggling."

Those are the deep secrets that I think drive So many of us back to the comforts that we know these

Comforts are the vices that make us feel guilty and make us feel shame, make us feel regret. So where are you gonna expose your secrets? We know we don't even tell ourselves. We look in the mirror and we lie to ourselves. Currently, guys exposing my secrets. My God, he's been telling me, "Nico, you need to stop smoking" secret is I don't want to stop smoking. I enjoy it. It is a comfort to me, but it's a childish comfort. You see, as I go back and forth between this, I don't wanna stop smoking, but I want to please my God, to the best of my abilities. One moment. It's like, yeah, I'm gung ho "I don't need to buy no smokes." The next moment. A moment's like, "yo bump all this. I'm just gonna light up." If we don't have somewhere to go to tell these secrets if we won't even tell ourselves that we need to change, where do we go? How are we supposed to rid ourselves of these problems? How do you expect to achieve self-recovery, holding onto secrets?

It doesn't work. The one that I just shared with you, the secret where I gotta stop smoking.

The first step is, is acknowledging, and saying out loud "I need to stop smoking." I repeat to myself my desired outcome. So right now what I do is I tell myself "I'm not a smoker." "I'm not a smoker. I don't smoke." As I begin to tell myself that I unravel in my head, these little secrets that I have told myself, "that I am a smoker and that I do need it."

I believe a lot of us struggle with it because we have built this lie for ourselves. And when we talk to somebody else about our problems, our situations, life events, that caused us to make the choices that we made to put ourselves in the position that we're in right now, those, Those are the conversations, the discussions that need to happen so that you can release it from your mind.

In releasing it from your mind, you'll be able to start feeling that space with more positive thoughts. There was an individual that I knew I'm gonna be straight with you. I did not like this guy and could not stand him, but I had to work with him. He was a few years older than me and he was slamming heroin. slamming means IV injection. I knew the dude was using it. I met him when I was clean. I'd already been clean for like three years.

Middle of the summer here in New Mexico. It's 90 degrees by 10:00 AM. Bare minimum by two you've already hit triple digits or you're pushing them. Y'all know though, you gotta cover up all your track marks. So you wear long sleeves.

The problem that I had was that I was the only one that could do his role. It was just me and him. So when he wasn't doing his stuff, I had to pick up the work. I was doing the job of two guys. It used to bug me. It used to bug me.

If I didn't like you, I was gonna befriend you. I was gonna make you feel like you were my bestie. I wanted to know all your secrets. I wanted to know everything that I could get from you. My character wasn't as sharp as it is now. So I started to play this guy, well, it turns out I found out that this dude's about to get married to his fiance and she doesn't know that he's a heroin addict. All I had to do was expose it and he would lose his job, then the girl would find out and I would "solve" my problem.

It's called conviction in the church. I call it correction. My God told me, "why are you gonna go to tell on him when you can't even tell on yourself." At the time I was still participating in actions and things that I really shouldn't have been. It was three years into getting clean from heroin. So I started to drink a lot then and that conviction came out.

How are you gonna expose the dude for being a heroin addict to his shorty? And you can't even expose yourself to yourself that you drink too much. Somebody that I was living with used to call me a half pint because I was keeping a half pint with me all the time, exposing your secrets is hard.

So here are the tips that I have for you. One stop trying to hide it and stop trying to run from it yourself. If there's a secret that you are being reminded of constantly, you need to address it.

The two main requirements, you must trust them and there must be non-judgment around this topic. That's gonna be your new confidant. What I had to do is use my confidant consistently. It started daily. Check in with my confidant on it. At the end of the day, they would ask "did you use? did you drink?" every other day, four days, then every week I'd tap in, you need to expose your secrets. So that means if you're telling, whoever's helping you out, whoever's supporting you. Whoever's along this self-recovery journey for you. You need to have the respect to tell them, "Hey, you know what? I'm not gonna drink today." And then if you drink, tell them "I drank", expose your secret.

I'm not here to do recovery for you. I do want to share my tips, my tricks that have allowed me to stay successful for so long so that hopefully you can Recover the person that's inside of you. Remember the best version of yourself is never on display when you're intoxicated. The goal around here is not to be an angel. It is to do better.