So, that is one journey of authenticity.

Feb 15 2021

The Potential Fallout of Suboxone Treatment

Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, The Future of Addiction

What to Expect:

Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) uses prescribed drugs to help individuals struggling with opioid addiction manage their withdrawal symptoms and stay engaged in treatment.
Suboxone (or Subutex) is popularly prescribed to save lives and reduce the harm of opioid addiction.
What are the potential long-term effects of Suboxone in an individual’s overall quality of life?

Understanding Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)

Opiate use in the United States is at a crisis level–too many people are dying from abusing and overdosing on these powerful drugs. Opiates are highly addictive and a single overdose can prove fatal.

As a result of the opiate epidemic, lives are needlessly lost or destroyed, families devastated, and the socio-economic impacts widespread.

In an effort to save lives, medications have been developed as a means of harm reduction.

Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) gives an individual struggling with opiate addiction a fighting chance to recover and return to a normal life. That being said, a simple medication is not going to solve all of one’s problems–it is often a starting point where extensive counseling and therapy is necessary.

But is MAT just substituting one drug for another?

Not necessarily.

Drugs like heroin are unregulated and dangerous. Even prescription opiates are very dangerous when not taken as directed.

MAT offers those struggling with opiate addiction safer, FDA-approved medications. MAT medications–like Suboxone–help reduce or eliminate withdrawal symptoms without producing that euphoric high.

Using Suboxone to Treat Opiate Addiction

Suboxone is one commonly prescribed medication to treat opiate addiction. It is actually a combination of two different drugs–buprenorphine and naloxone. Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist that blocks the brain’s opiate receptors to reduce urges. The effects are similar to an opioid, but weaker.

Naloxone is an opioid antagonist. It counters the effects of opioids in the system. In fact, Naloxone is a commonly used medication by first responders encountering an individual experiencing an opioid overdose.

Suboxone is usually self-administered once a day as a film or tablet placed under the tongue to dissolve.

Potential Future Challenges for Suboxone Users

As a result of the opiate crisis, we have a percentage of young people that are on some sort of opiate blocker or opiate substitute–the most common being Suboxone.

The first crisis we may face in the future of addiction is the vast number of individuals taking Suboxone or Subutex for up to 10 years. We don’t really understand the long-term effects of these drugs.

We don’t know how these medications affect people’s development. What happens when an 18-year-old is put on Suboxone. How will it affect their development as they reach the mid-20s? Maybe it’s hardly at all. Maybe it’s a big deal. BUT…we don’t know for sure.

Will it be a future challenge?

Will people start having mental health challenges as they reach their 30s, 40s, or beyond? Can it be related to Suboxone?

And then there is the issue of getting off Suboxone. It’s well known coming off Suboxone is harder than kicking heroin. So, Suboxone may be saving an individual’s life, but the detox and resulting depression can last months if not years.

So, in a nutshell, we are putting a band-aid on a gaping wound to help save a life. If we don’t tend to that “wound” with counseling, treatment, and teaching life skills, that “band-aid” may save lives, but not QUALITY of lives.

Will we have the capability to deal with these issues? If we think proactively, there certainly is a potential.

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Feb 01 2021

Keys to Living Authentically

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Recovery Blog, Therapy, Yeshaia Blakeney

One of the most challenging concepts for, I think, all of us–but obviously I am speaking in the area of recovery–is the notion of authenticity.

What does it mean to be authentic?

How can I be authentic?

My dad, he likes to say, ”You are authentic when you are dead.”F

So his definition of authentic has to do with congruency, meaning your insides and your outsides matching. And this is a little bit cynical.

So he says, ”That is only happening when you are a skeleton, because the skeleton is really authentic at being a skeleton.”

Authenticity

Obviously, that is not useful for those of us who are living. Authenticity is one of those concepts that also comes from a particular type of experience.

A related notion–to me–is that we talk about this today: the notion of “flow states”. It is where I am in a state of being where I am not in my head trying to decide how I am going to be. I am not in the future necessarily tripping on whatever anxious ideas I have. I am present. I am here in the moment. And I am being without effort. Being is flowing from me without effort. That is generally authenticity.

Another way in which we understand the concept of authenticity has to do within the interpersonal realm. Am I being authentic with somebody? Am I presenting myself to the best of my ability as I actually am? Am I authentic?

Which is related to the notion of being truthful. And I also like the notion of being truth, meaning am I living and being truth. Am I embodying that to the best of my ability?

Now, as humans–because we are living in time and space and in this cognitive realm where we are thinking and feeling and we have bodies and all this stuff–the reason why my dad says something like you are authentic when you are dead is most of the time we’re not operating from that authentic place. Neither can we just choose to be authentic in the moment, right?

Level of Authenticity

Some level of authenticity finds us in the journey at a particular moment. I mean that deep authenticity that we are talking about.

And so if, as a whole, you understand that you are not completely authentic at your work in progress, which is another phrase we could dissect. If you understand that I am a work in progress–that there are parts of me that are inauthentic but I can be authentic about that–that is a solid foundation to build on towards authenticity. So being authentic about your inauthenticity is a huge part of the journey of recovery and transformation. I think probably at the higher levels but in general.

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Jan 24 2021

Awareness: Know When You Check Out and Need to Check In “Being Present”

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Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Yeshaia Blakeney

There is a term you will hear in yoga, in therapy, therapy groups, in the transformational arenas, in recovery, in treatment–it is this idea of “being present.”

It is not something that was a common phrase twenty years ago–when I first started out in the arena of recovery. But it is something that has become more and more popular. And so has notions of disassociation.

So people, being aware that they check out–people are more aware of that, generally. In the population now–and people are more aware that–you might need to check in which we call “being present”.

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Jan 18 2021

Does Everything Happen for a Reason?

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Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, Yeshaia Blakeney

One of the things you will commonly hear with people that are working in the domain of spirituality or working on transforming and recovery is you might hear the term, “Everything happens for a reason.”

For me, working in a treatment setting, it is something I usually hear from somebody. And when I hear it, I actually think it is a good sign.

The story will go something like this

Somebody comes in and there is almost always some difficulty that has happened. Some challenge that has happened that brought them into treatment–a DUI, an issue with a spouse, an issue at work. Something has coerced them to go. Okay. Okay. Okay. I need to get some help.

It is very rare when somebody just comes in because they had a revelation. So I will be working with somebody in treatment and, you know, essentially they have a lot of wreckage in their life. Something has been devastated.

“I think that everything happened for a reason”

So they are depressed and they are having a difficult time. They do not want to be there and [wonder] what the hell happened to my life and all this stuff. Then you will see the mood start to shift and you might hear something after a couple of weeks when you are sitting in a group.

I am facilitating a group and somebody will say, “You know, this has been really difficult. This has been one of the hardest things that I have ever had to go through…But now looking back at what happened and having found myself here, I think that everything happened for a reason.”

So for me, that is where the phrase came from. I think when you have those kinds of phrases when they stick and they are passed down, it is because they are pointing to a certain kind of experience that people have.

That is not just people in recovery. Anybody can have that kind of experience.

Revelation or spiritual awakening

The experience is: I am going through a difficult time, but somehow the way I am seeing it and understanding it has changed.

I mean, from a spiritual point of view, we would call that a revelation or spiritual awakening. Suddenly, I look at my history and I see a consolidated cohesive story that I did not see before… And I look back and I go, “everything that has happened brought me to this moment”.

It is all for a reason. So for me that phrase–that is the truth of it. The truth of it is that experience. The phrase itself is not completely true. Some people make the mistake of allowing that phrase to become an ideology, to become a philosophy that they live by.

But it is a limited philosophy. It is limited in a couple of areas.

I will give an example, in my mind, you are sort of a fundamentalist spiritual or religious person if you have a young child, God forbid, that gets sick. Let us say terminally sick. Let us say a kid that has cancer and you are living by the philosophy everything happens for a reason.

What reason is that? I mean, you could give some religious reason, God has a plan. I do not understand. Okay, that is great. But if you were that God, you probably would not plan that. I do not know if I jive with that completely in the way I understand religion and spirituality.

The other way that it does not work is all of the mundane and randomness of our reality. The garbage bag breaking. I got a toothache.

Is that happening for a reason?

Yeah, I did not brush my teeth well, or I did not take care of this cavity but is it happening for a cosmic reason? Not one that I am interested in.

One of the ways that I approach the spirituality period is being able to draw a line as to where I am applying a spiritual lens and where I am not. If I know somebody who has a sick child, I do not go to the hospital and say, “Hey, this is happening for a reason.” I keep my mouth shut and say, how can I support you? Right?

So that term points to a very important, I would say, spiritual reality of: Wow, there is something here that has allowed me to be in this harmonic moment coming from a really difficult period.

There is something very essential, important, and spiritual about the experience, but it is not a life philosophy.

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Oct 30 2020

Boundaries, Assertiveness, and the Right to Say “NO”

1. In Recovery you need to have boundaries, assertiveness, and use your right to say “NO”

Addiction, Recovery Blog, Rehabilitation Process, The Field of Treatment, Therapy, Video, Yeshaia Blakeney

What to expect in this episode:

2. People that can’t handle boundaries, are going to leave your life relatively quickly

3. How to be a little more authentic and assertive

4. What happens when you start to draw boundaries

In Recovery you need to have boundaries, assertiveness, and use your right to say “NO”

Usually, people don’t want to be in a relationship because they don’t want to be with that person anymore. The question that the party asks that is being broken up with is usually, Why? But they don’t mean it. Because nine times out of 10 there’s only one answer because I don’t want to be with you anymore.

Human beings are naturally kind of narcissistic.

So somebody breaks up with me, and I love them, and they don’t love me that I don’t understand. But I do understand because there are people who have loved me who I didn’t love in the same way. So I get that, right? We have all of these complicated interactions that require a lot of clarity, about what my rights are. And when I do that, it’s sort of like cleaning my room.

People that can’t handle boundaries, are going to leave your life relatively quickly.

You’re going to attract people that have good boundaries, and so, your whole life system changes real quickly when you begin to do that. It’s hard work and it’s uncomfortable.

I usually start back when people smoke before they vape I used to start with people with cigarettes because there’s a whole game of cigarettes and everybody smokes. And a lot of them don’t have any money. So ever got the cigarettes, it’s like, you know? if it’s not Newport’s. Now, they’ll come up to you and be like, “Oh man, can I bump a cigarette.” you know, and it’s like, eventually, like, Oh, my God, I’m giving away all my cigarettes, you know, what do I do? So you start making excuses. You know, so people come down and say, “Look, I get a cigarette.” and you say, “It was my last one.” And that’s the common responsible distributed rehab.

If you don’t want to, you don’t want just say no, right?

You say, “Oh, it’s my last one. I left the box in my room.” you know, I’m not going to go up to get it, right. One of the things that I have people practice with cigarettes and things like this are plenty of examples, is say no without qualification. And if they keep harassing you about it, ask them if, if you have round heel the right to say no.

If you want to learn how to be a little more authentic and assertive, be honest with people.

If somebody wants something from you, and you don’t want to give it to them, and you can’t justify giving it to them, except for that you feel bad. That’s not a good reason to give somebody something most of the time, you know unless it’s saving their life or they’re hungry or something like this.

So basically, it’s training people how to be authentic.

I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hang out with you. And training people how to say that. No, I’m not going to give you a cigarette. Why is your last one? No, it’s not my last one. So why aren’t you giving me a cigarette? Well, hang on before we go down this road of why I’m not giving you a cigarette. Can we agree, that I have the right to say no to you about it? If they say yes, that’s the end of the conversation, you say Oh, great, then we don’t need to discuss this other thing because you just get that I have the right to say no. If they say no, my direction will be just Walk away. If somebody doesn’t think you have the right to say no in a relationship, I would just walk away.

A great part of recovery is when you start drawing those boundaries and being respectfully assertive in your life, and seeing what it does for your life.

A little territorial about how much of yourself your going to give, you suddenly start to get clear about who you are when you stop and start then you begin to have a sense of self, then you begin to have a moral code you made to feel good about yourself and you attract people around kind of people you want to hang out with, that also know how to say yes or no and appropriate wise. Next thing you know you got a different life.

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Oct 13 2020

The Role of People-Pleasing and Codependency in Addiction

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The Role of People-Pleasing and Codependency in Addiction

When you’re working with people that are in early recovery, they suffer from the same kind of orientations and disorders that exist in the culture at large, just usually in a more extreme way.

Over accommodation or people-pleasing

So one of the things that come across a lot is what we call over accommodation or people-pleasing, and it means sort of overextending the boundaries of myself in a way that causes me a deficit for the sake of the other, you know, psychologically call that kind of co-dependence, it’s on that spectrum. And it’s a really big deal.

“A lot of people that you find coming into recovery have felt that they’ve been living for the world and they don’t really get theirs. And so there’s becomes using drug and alcohol.”

Straightening out what your boundaries are

You know, the metaphor for me is like, okay, I do everything I’m supposed to do. I mean, the world asks of me during the day and at night, I hide in the closet and drink vodka and smoke meth, you know, or whatever it is, that’s for me, the rest of its for the world because the world’s been demanding on me since I was born. You can think about that dynamic. And so one of the things that needs to happen in treatment is you have to straighten that out.

You have to help people become more assertive.

Assertive is a tricky word. I don’t mean asserting your will on others. But I mean, being clear about what your boundaries are, and being clear about how to draw those boundaries in a way that’s effective in your life. So if you’ve been people-pleasing for a long time, you have to get clear about how to assert boundaries. And you have to be clear about what your rights are and asserting those boundaries. So where people are confused, is they’re confused about where their rights stop and start in the interpersonal reactions. I’ll give interactions.

When I was working in treatment

I remember I walked into a lobby, and there was a woman who I liked quite a bit, who was working there. And she said, “Hey, I sent you a Facebook friend request. Did you get it?” And I said, “Yeah, I got it. I saw that friend request.” And she said, “Well, are you going to friend me?” And I said, “No, I’m not going to accept your friend request.” And she gives me this look like you know, she’s offended. And she says, “Why not?” And I said, “Well, I don’t, you know, I don’t want to.” And she said, “Well, my roommate, who you know, she sent you a Facebook friend request, and you accepted that friend request.” And I said, “Yes, I did.” And what did she say? She said, “Why didn’t you accept my Facebook request?”

And you should know this a teaching from my mentor. When somebody says “why” to you and interpersonal reaction. They don’t really mean it. They don’t want to understand it. It’s really a complaint. Right? And so you go, is that a question or a complaint that “why”. I need to clarify that. But in that circumstance, I said, “Can I ask you a question?” She said, “Yeah.” And I said, “Do I have the right to decide who my Facebook friends are?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Okay, good. We’re clear.”

Let me ask you another question. “Were you ever married?” She said, “Yes”. I said “Did you have a wedding?” She said “Yes.” I said, “Did you invite some people to your wedding?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Were there other people you didn’t invite?” “So the other people I didn’t invite?”. “And did you ever have somebody who didn’t invite to your wedding come up to you after the wedding?” And say, “Why didn’t you invite me to your wedding?” And she said, “In fact, I did.” And I said “What did that feel like?” She said, “It didn’t feel good.” I said, “Great. Now you understand this interaction. Right?”

And now I’m being a little bit you know, humorous or whatever. But it’s an example of how we get confused in our boundaries of what we’re obligated to do. Where do my obligations stop and start? If I’m in a relationship with somebody, and I don’t want to be with them anymore, which is usually why people break up out of relationships, right?

Usually people don’t want to be in a relationship because they don’t want to be with that person anymore.

The question that the party asks that is being broken up with is usually “why”, but they don’t mean it. Because nine times out of ten there’s only one answer, “Because I don’t want to be with you anymore.” Obviously, on the other end, that’s hard for you to understand because human beings are naturally kind of narcissistic. And so somebody breaks up with me and I love them and they don’t love me that I don’t understand. But I do understand because there are people who have loved me who I didn’t love in the same way.

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Sep 19 2020

The Moral Aspects of Treatment

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Remove the Moral Aspects of Addiction Treatment?

I talk a lot about the moral aspects of treatment and I am very resistant to removing morality from the conversation about addiction and recovery. I understand why people want to do that. It’s to bring down the stigma to address the confusion around the free will issues, for it to be covered by insurance, I agree with all that. I agree with the reasons. My hesitation is that there is a huge moral component to addiction and recovery, and let’s talk about what that looks like in recovery.

In recovery, the moments where we gain the most growth are the same moments where we gain the most growth in life.

One of the most pivotal moments of growth in my life, there are moments when I’m in a moral conflict and I’m not sure what to do. What is the right thing to do in this moment? If I’m in a marriage and I don’t know if this marriage is working and I have kids and I’m trying to figure out– I’m- some of them in this world conflict, what is the right thing for me to do? If I’m tempted to go into a career largely for money, but it’s not my passion, I’m in a moral conflict what is the right thing for me to do.

The most serious conflicts in our life are these moral conflicts with competing claims on each end.

The reason why I’m hesitant to remove that from the conversation is, it is the moral conflicts that induce inhuman beings the most important parts of ourselves. In order for me to wrestle with a moral conflict, I have to draw on all of these different parts of who I am and my personality. Right?

So a common conflict and treatment that happens is, my roommate snuck out and got drunk and I know. My roommate comes back and says, “Don’t tell anybody,” and suddenly there’s a couple of things happening.

One, I am asked to keep a secret. And in general, secrets, those kinds of secrets are not the healthiest things to keep inside of us.

Number two, I’m in this interesting quandary around loyalty to my friend, but on the other end I’m in an interesting quandary about being honest with the people that are helping me: counselors, therapists, the community at large and treatments. I have these competing claims. I also have me. I don’t want to be walking around with lies in myself. I don’t want my friend to get in trouble, which is a normal thing, but I don’t wanna be dishonest, and suddenly I’m in the midst of a moral conflict.

What somebody does in a predicament can be the make or break moment in somebody’s treatment experience.

When somebody can say, “Hey, you put me in a really bad position by asking me to keep your secret because you act it out and I’m not willing to co-sign that with you, and it wasn’t okay, and you need to go work this out because you’ve put me in a bad situation. You’ve put you in a bad situation. You’re an alcoholic who allegedly is here to get sober. I get that you don’t do this thing perfectly but you need to straighten this out,” right? That’s a high level response. That’s not the government’s fault, but imagine if somebody is used to cosigning everybody’s everything all the time in life, they’ve engaged in a program of recovery. They strike them, they built what we call a moral core, some center about what the right thing to do is. They’re challenged, they’re in the middle. They’re stuck there in the hallway. They don’t know whether to go left, whether to go right. Right? Suddenly it’s like, okay, and they have that conversation. You know what that does for me. That’s everything. That’s the turning point for people’s recovery.

The moment when you have the difficult conversation with your parents or your loved one that you’ve never had, we build that moral core.

Begin to put yourself in the equation. That’s where we get the most growth. Not only do we get that growth morally, we also get it psychologically. We are moral psychological beings that come hand-in-hand. Right? To be– if you meet somebody who’s evil, which is a moral term whether you believe in evil or not, but behaves in evil ways depending on their level of narcissism and the way in which they act out, you would have a difficult time saying, “Well, that person is mentally healthy. They’re just evil.” Right? In general, those things come together. Right?

So, you know, to use the extreme example. Adolf Hitler was not only evil. There’s such a thing exists. He was also mentally ill and a methamphetamine addict. Those things come together. So our moral behavior in our psychological wellness, they’re integrated with each other. We have to understand that. So we cannot remove morality from the equation of recovery addiction. We have to figure out how we incorporate that in the conversation about well-being, psychological well-being, spiritual well-being, etc.

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Aug 21 2020

Do You Need to Dumb it Down in Treatment?

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Do You Need to Dumb it Down in Treatment?

One of the things that’s common in some therapeutic communities, when it comes to recovery is telling people to dump it down. And I understand what they mean, but I don’t like it. Because I like to think.

If you learn to reason well, which is not about coming to the conclusion that I had before I started reasoning, that you’re actually trying to figure out the truth of the situation. That has been an incredible asset.

Recovery is cognitive

In my recovery, in many ways, a lot of my recovery was cognitive. It was an intellectual endeavor. I was trying to reason whether or not this made sense to do. Now reason alone won’t do it.

I have to have some foundation, some axiom there. And my axioms are to live is better than to die and to be healthy is better than to be sick. I don’t know why that is. I can’t tell you why that is. It’s a choice that I make. It’s the foundation for the rest of my reasoning.

Once I start there I could build up reasons to get clean, that makes sense to me, reasons to do things I don’t want to do, reasons that I can transcend my ego desires.

A part of what I do when I work with people, is I try to harness that.

If you ask questions, and you’d like to learn, instead of telling people like, “Hey, dump it down. Don’t think. Just show up.”

You can actually harness that asset that people have and use it.

Now, the reason why people don’t like it is because people have the capacity to reason their way into what they want. But just means you’re not reasoning, good enough, well enough. It doesn’t mean don’t use your reason. It means use your reason better. Right? And that’s a huge part of recovery.

If you know, I need to make reasonable decisions to have a healthy life and if I don’t know how to think well, I can’t do it and there are techniques and ways to think well.

They don’t teach you that in school. You memorize a lot of facts in order to figure out how am I supposed to be in my relationship with this person when I’m in a moral conflict between using drugs and my parents, you know, coming into town next weekend. How do I weigh those competing claims and come to a decision, you know. We don’t teach people how to do that, but we can.

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Aug 01 2020

Mindfulness in Treatment: Getting to Know Yourself

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Mindfulness in Treatment: Getting to Know Yourself

The other area that’s important that’s come into the treatment field, when we’re looking at kind of how to recover and become whole and become healthy, is what I would say the Eastern practices and I’ll lose the categorize them as mindfulness and of yoga.

Mindfulness is around intention and attention.

If I meet somebody who’s suffering from addiction, demoralized, who’s ashamed, has some traumas in their background, often they’ll be sitting in my office, and you can kind of tell the level of trauma by body posture, and eye contact, and their ability to stay connected and intentional and paying attention in the interpersonal relationship.

The first thing that I have to do with this person is I’ve got to figure out how to help them feel safe.

That’s the beginning. You build on that a little at a time in relationship with them and groups and individual work in casual kind of covert, nurturing and caring in the hallway, this kind of thing.

Then eventually, when somebody is kind of here and they’re awake, that can take two, three months to blossom and start to change.

This is a great sign when their affect changes.

Then work on the directing people’s attention and having people being mindful of the things that they’re engaged in that’s right in front of them.

That goes to a very subtle level, eye contact, of focus, of being aware of what’s happening in my face and my shoulders, my neck and my back and that’s an endless route, both recovery and growth and wellness.

You can move deeper and deeper into the mindfulness attention and intention, by knowing what’s happening inside of your mind.

Not just of what’s happening outside of me, but what’s happening in the dark, creepy recesses of my unconscious mind. The whole thing about recovery to me is to help people to move deeper into a process and become deeper people.

Get addicted to getting to know myself and working on myself

Not just me, but working on myself in relationship to all the people that I care about, to understand myself in the context of my work.

That’s the “Wow. How can I be a better husband? How can I be a better father? How can I have a meaningful role in my work? How can I make a difference?”

That kind of thing and when you get a little bit obsessed and curious about that, then recovery is not that hard.

Then it’s this endless journey of getting to understand yourself, getting to understand the world, and interfacing with your reality in a way that’s meaningful, where you wake up and you look forward to it.

Those are like the deeper realms of recovery.

Getting to understand yourself schematically. How you process stress and all that stuff. And actually, it becomes fun. It doesn’t become this chore. Then it’s not about, you know, when can I leave treatment,. Then it’s about what are the other ways I can get to know myself and I can get to grow learn to change.

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