Jerry Weaver - The Addiction Manifesto

This book is dedicated to

David Ohlund

18 September 1998

to

7 May 2018

Please give us strength and wisdom if our hearts & minds are ever weakened by our addiction

W hat a wicked web we weave when we allow our addiction to deceive . Life is hard. Addiction makes it harder. We tell ourselves anything to make excuses for our dark behavior. If we can lie to ourselves then lying to anybody else becomes second nature. I have lied, cheated and stolen to feed my addiction. Each time it got easier because I was slowly losing faith in myself, piece by piece I was selling my soul to keep the drugs coming so I couldnt feel anything inside, I hated myself and I blamed everyone but me for making this monster. Recovery has opened my eyes to where I was, and has given me a chance at a truly amazing life, it hasnt been easy by any means. Recovery takes effort. Do I go to every meeting with a big smile on my face? No, some days I just want to skip the meeting and do other things. Although I may drag my feet going to a meeting, I usually leave them thankful that I did go. Most times you will hear something that strikes home and be like wow I needed to hear that. When I first started going to meetings I was guilty of not really paying attention to what others were saying, I thought I knew it all. My recovery was weak and I let my demons break free and eventually relapsed. My last relapse was July 2017 and it didnt last just the planned weekend, it lasted 4 months. It took every ounce of strength to sober up. Do not ever be afraid to face your demons, to be afraid is exactly what they want you to do, that gives them power over u to keep you enslaved. Find out what keeps you sober and do more of that!! Stay proactive, dont talk about wanting a better life, get out there and put forth the effort to make that happen!! This is your life, you decide how youre going to live it, free to live or chained to a habit that will kill you or jail you. Your choice.

Addiction: Destroying us from the inside out. Imagine this, something so powerfully deceptive that it blinds us to the chaos that comes with it. We get so blinded by the illusion that addiction paints for us that we fail to see all the things it takes from us. We lose self-control while doing its bidding so that we lose touch with reality. The reality is our addiction is stripping us from everything we love, our families, our friends, and sadly our life. How do we allow this to happen? For some of us its a slow change in behavior, it slowly tears us away from our families and children. How many of you blindly walked out of their lives? We may have started using recreational but we are programmed different, one drink or one drug is all it takes to send us off to the races, we binge and we binge hard. Thats how I was wired and Im guessing so was you. We cant do just one so dont ever let your addiction trick you to believing that again. Our addiction is the puppet master, it controlled us to the brink of our own destruction. We all know people that couldnt stop and they paid the ultimate price. Somehow those of us in recovery must take the lead and bring others to share the stories that led us to wanting a better life free from active addiction. I challenge each of you to not get complacent and reach out to the still struggling addict, I know ultimately its up to them to want recovery but sometimes they just need a little push.

Dig Deeper. AA/NA/CA works, it builds the foundation for a better life. Newcomers to the program often overlook the obvious. It's not about just reading the simple steps, it's about rebuilding your life to something that will always give back to you. It teaches you how to appreciate yourself, when I first entered the doors to AA/NA I wasn't there for the right reasons. I was there because I was 'told' to be there. I rebelled, as some of you might be doing, I wasn't allowing myself a fair chance and receiving what was really being offered, a better life. I attended about 70 meetings in 90 days, and foolishly didn't follow any suggestions, didn't embrace the fellowship, I thought that since I had a few months sobriety that I had beaten my addiction. That's what my ego was telling me. My ego couldn't have been more wrong. Relapse followed. I regret not embracing my recovery from the start but in reality that last relapse made me 'dig deeper' into my recovery. I lost my ego and fully accepted that I had a serious problem and that I needed help. Everything I tried using to sober up before failed miserably and I was more desperate than a drowning man. I opened myself up to my recovery, I had to 'dig deeper' so I committed myself to getting better and the positive results starting showing up. Recovery doesn't happen overnight, it's a daily process to rebuild everything that our Addiction destroyed. As I approach my first year of sobriety (nov 10th) I am able to look back at my former self and remember a time not that long ago when I totally believed that I couldn't sober up, when I hated the monster I had become. I had no Hope, no faith and no chance at living a life worth living. Those thoughts are no longer welcome here, but I will keep the memories as fuel to always 'dig deeper' in my recovery as if my life and future depended on it, because they do.

I am writing this book to show people that addiction is a serious disease and that it doesnt care about color, gender, religion, or race. Easiest way to describe what addiction wants from us? It wants our SOULS!!! Im hoping that my experiences will help fellow addicts regain their life or help enlighten friends & family about what addicts have to deal with on a daily basis. Random House defines addiction as the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma. Addiction will destroy your life like a wrecking ball, it doesnt care what you have do to feed it. Crimes? Robbing? Stealing? Tricking? It tells you to do whatever it takes to get that next high. Most of us have seen the dark side of our addiction and what it brings us. The destruction, chaos and even the deaths of people we may have known. We lose our willpower to fight it and we end up losing ourselves, our families and maybe even our lives. Why? Why do we have to finally arrive at that ' make or break point ' to realize the damage we have inflicted on ourselves, our families and society? Why wait until we are 'sick and tired of being sick and tired?' Why is it so hard for us to finally reach that 1st step and even admit to ourselves that 'Houston we have a major problem!!!?' The best answer I can give is we just weren't ready to get help, part of us still believed the BS that our addiction was feeding us. That the next hit was going to be the hit of hits, or the next drink was going to make everything we didn't like vanish. That's the power of our addiction and sadly most of us addicts have been there or knew others that have been misled to doing anything & everything to keep the drugs coming. One does not control addiction despite what addiction may lead you to believe. It will tell you that youre different than all the other drug users or alcoholics. If you think you can play around with drugs or alcohol and not worry about the consequences then youre only fooling yourself. Most of us addicts believed we were smarter than everybody else, that we were hiding our addiction. *** NEWS FLASH*** Everybody knew we were addicts, and that we were using, but they were also hoping and praying that we could snap out of it on our own, but we couldnt because we werent ready , we were still believing what addiction was telling us, that we could slow down or control it, it played us like fools.. Obsession with drugs and alcohol led me to always wanting more, more, and more. There was never enough to satisfy my desire, I could never stop chasing them, physically or mentally, it almost destroyed me. I just couldnt live like that anymore. Addiction changes each of us, we literally become monsters to our true selfs. NO MORE!! Believe in yourself, look in the mirror and tell yourself that you can do this! Yes, sobriety is great but lets talk Recovery, Recovery will open your eyes and hearts to a life that is amazing, you learn to be happy again, you laugh again, you have fun again! I was telling my amazing friend that I dont want a normal life, I didnt take on my demons and rebuild my life to just be normal - I want incredible . Battling addiction makes us such a warrior, you took back your life and thats some epic Spartan warrior stuff that made us strong inside, this real life stuff that comes at you next is playground stuff, you got this!!