Feed Your Addiction or Feed Your Recovery

Hey sober fam! I'm your Coach, Angela Pugh, here to provide you the support, community, and guidance you need to get sober and live happy.

If you can make a commitment of 10-15 minutes a day, you can change your life in a HUGE way! It sounds too simple, but it's the truth.

Today we're going to talk about the two choices you have every day of your life, you either choose to feed your recovery or feed your addiction.

You know I put a lot of emphasis on all the little tiny decisions we make throughout our day; the micro-decisions. I emphasize this so much because it's all those little tiny decisions you make all day long that create your reality.

The truth

It's one of the silliest mistakes you make; you think that life is about big moments, the day you got the big job, the day you got married or had a baby, the day you decided to get sober and go to your first AA meeting or when you graduated from college.

But the truth is, in order to graduate college, you had to make thousands of micro-decisions. Every day you had to choose to get up and choose to go to class, you had to choose, over and over again to do homework, to study, to stay in instead of going out. Not saying you always made the right choice… but you did it well enough to graduate. And that is a constant stream of choices you had to make, on a daily basis, to get to the graduation.

Think about it in the context of a relationship. Relationships are really hard. You have to choose, every day, to work on your relationship. You have to make compromises. Sometimes you have to do things you don't necessarily want to. You have to practice forgiveness and patience, and you have to challenge yourself to be a better person and be less selfish and a million other things.

These are micro-decisions that you make all day every day, and sobriety works exactly the same way. That will be our deep dive today, but first, let's do a shout out!

This is a bit of gratitude from me to all of you who have gone over and signed up for the Sober Vision workshop!

You know you need a plan, a different way to live, especially now that you aren't pumping all your time and money into alcohol, you want to get rid of the unhealthy self, critic and maybe you haven't done it because you don't believe you will get there.

In the very wise words of one of our FB members, it's like trying to run a marathon when you can't even run to the lamp post.

I'm so proud of you guys for wanting to get into this topic and figure out your vision for your future. That is my shout out, to all of you who want to get in this, dig deep, and make bold moves to ensure you get the sobriety you want.

And I can't wait to meet you at the workshop! If you want to sign up to get more information, this is not a sign up for the actual workshop, but just letting me know you want more information about it when we set the date and all of that good stuff, you can sign up at www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/108

Micro-decisions make or break your whole life

So let's get into this, everything you do, you're either feeding your recovery or feeding your addiction. I want to share this little story that has been around forever, you may have already heard it, or some version of it; it's called The Fight of Two Wolves Within You, here goes:

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life:

"A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One is evil, he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."

He continued, "The other is good, he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you–and inside every other person, too."

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf will win?"

The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

This is everything. You're either feeding your recovery or feeding your addiction. Whichever one you feed more is going to win. Think about this in terms of the committee, too.

You're either feeding the negativity of the committee, or you are fighting against the negativity and re-training it.

You know, we have talked about many times the specific circumstances your addiction needs to thrive.

It needs you to feel bad about yourself. Any micro-decisions you make throughout your day that you aren't proud of gives you ammunition to use against yourself.

Sleeping late, being snippy, procrastination, avoidance, avoiding people or bills or life, talking yourself out of exercise, talking yourself out of going to a meeting, deciding to stop for a coffee even though you are already 5 minutes late for work, hitting the drive-thru when you told yourself you were having a salad today, telling a little white lie to get out of something.

All of these little choices, make the deadline or be late, stay up late watching Netflix or go to sleep, make time for homework or put it off to the last minute, get to class on time or be 10 minutes late, yada yada yada.

All these little decisions you make all day long either gives the committee negative information about you to feed on or positive information about you to feed on.

Let's talk through a scenario; you stayed up late last night watching Ozark on Netflix. You were so tired, your eyes are drooping, you're yawning, and you know you need to turn it off and get to sleep because you promised yourself you are getting up on time tomorrow morning, and you are getting out of the house on time, so you can be on time to work or school, wherever you are going.

But, because you are so caught up in the show, you let the committee talk you into one more episode, and next thing you know, its midnight, you're exhausted and beating yourself up because you're only going to get 6 hours of sleep.

So you go to sleep, already with a feeling of uggghhh, why did I do that?!?

6 am rolls around; your alarm goes off. Of course, you don't want to get up because you're tired, and the blankets are wrapped around you just right. You just can't summon the energy to get up, so you hit the snooze button. You can skip doing your hair, or skip breakfast to make up the time (that's what the committee tells you),

Next thing you know, it's 6:30, now you're effed. You jump out of bed like a crazy person; you rush through your whole morning routine taking a 10-minute shower, skipping your hair, throw on the first clothes you see because you don't have time to find a good outfit or even a clean outfit, you grab your things, skip breakfast, and head out the door.

You've only been awake 30 minutes, and you're already disheveled, irritated, rushed, probably a little embarrassed because your behavior and choices are that of a sophomore in high school, and all the way to work or school you are kind of beating yourself up for not doing better.

You knew you shouldn't have watched that extra episode, you wanted to get up on time today, so you could have a nice hot cup of coffee and get ready like an adult, not rushed like a crazy person, but take your time, look nice, have a nice hot shower, and not be rushed. You know better. You do this every time. Now you're going to be late for work, again and you know the manager has been watching you because you've been late a few times.

Okay, you see how all those little tiny choices put you in a really big crappy position and gave the committee a TON of ammunition to use against you.

In that scenario, now you are walking into work feeling embarrassed and inferior, probably feeling regret and guilt because your head is feeding on all the choices you made that weren't great, and your whole day has started on a negative note.

ALL of those negative thoughts and feelings because of one split, second decision to not turn the television off and go to sleep.

Micro-decisions make or break your whole life.

Then, what happens is, we lose trust in ourselves. If I tell myself I'm going to bed at 9 pm, lights out, and then I talk myself into staying up later, despite the consequences, then I have just put myself in a position that I can't believe myself.

When I let myself down, I will no longer trust myself. Then, you start telling yourself this story; I never follow through when I set a goal for myself, I always give up, I always do the wrong thing, I don't know what's wrong with me, I just can't do it.

And all of that is bullshit. You can do whatever you want to. Start telling yourself a new story. What if you are NOW a person that does follow through on things? You are the person that goes to bed on time and gets to work on time; maybe now you are the person that brings coffees for your workmates because you got out of the house 15 minutes early and had plenty of time to stop at the coffee shop.

What if that's your new story?

This is what I'm talking about; you're either feeding your recovery or feeding your addiction.

Stop telling yourself you can't do it

If you are telling yourself a story that says you can't stay sober, you've done this a million times before, and you always screw it up. You're going to lose the battle anyway, so you may as well drink and get it over with, or it's just too hard. How will you ever have fun again or relax? What will you do for your birthday?

THAT is feeding your addiction.

And let's put this in perspective for a moment, if you were diagnosed with a deadly illness today and told you couldn't drink anymore, you would figure out a way to get through all those things.

If you had to do chemo tomorrow, you would muster up the strength to get your shit together, so don't tell me you can't do it. And for god's sake, stop telling yourself you can't do it.

You can totally do it, it's not even that big of a deal, and guess what? You do have a deadly illness; by the way, its called addiction.

Let me give you some stats real quick. I got these from addictioncenter.com

Every year, worldwide, alcohol is the cause of 5.3% of deaths (or 1 in every 20)

On average, 30 Americans die every day in an alcohol, related car accident, and six Americans die every day from alcohol poisoning.

An estimated 88,0005 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women5) die from alcohol, related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.

And what other categories do a lot of addicted people fall into? A lot of smokers, eating like shit, and not exercising.

We're a freaking statistic! If you are an alcoholic, you are in the top 3 preventable causes of death. Maybe some of you don't smoke, but smoking is another form of self, hatred, just like addiction and overeating, and everything else we do, on purpose, that we know is causing harm to us.

Feeding your addiction or feeding your sobriety

You can't make a decision every day to do things that you know are killing you and have healthy self-esteem. Obviously, you don't like yourself, or you wouldn't be killing yourself.

That was a very eye-opening piece of information for me in my 20s. And I think it was Oprah talking about it on her show. And she said all those things we do, anything we over, do, anything we do to ourselves that is harmful, is a form of self-hatred.

And I get that because I absolutely hated myself. I was really pretty and funny and outgoing, and from the outside, you would have thought I loved myself. But on the inside, I hated me. Because I made crappy choices every day. I did things I knew weren't right.

I lied to people all the time. I 'borrowed' money from people with no intention of ever paying it back. I picked horrible boys to date even when I knew they were horrible. I smoked cigarettes. I drank like a crazy person, I ate like shit, had no education or ambition, was incapable of functioning as an adult, and all I cared about was myself, what I wanted when I wanted it.

How do you live like that if you like yourself? You don't. Now that I like myself, I go to bed early and get up early because I want to do a lot of cool things for you guys. I want to record videos for you and create cool worksheets and workshops, and I want to interact with you and support you.

I exercise because I want to take care of my body because I abused it for so many years. I want to eat healthier because I want to nourish my body, who has never given up on me, and I want to be kind to it.

I want to have healthy boundaries and healthy behaviors because I don't have time and energy for drama and chaos and gossip, and grossness. I would rather be alone than be around people who are unkind or gossipy. That's my healthy boundary. It's just not my vibe. I want to love people, not beat them up and drag them down. That only makes you feel bad about yourself because you are being shitty.

Do you see what I'm saying? All these little choices are feeding your addiction or feeding your sobriety.

When I was living as an unhealthy person, I would isolate myself from healthy people because I felt inferior. And I felt jealous of them, and I felt guilty and undeserving because I wasn't as good as them.

And when I was hungover and going through all the drama of the night before, I would definitely isolate myself because I felt like a loser and embarrassed by whatever I did or whoever I made out with or told to fuck off. Who knows.

But I would isolate and sit in all that shame and beat myself up.

This goes back to that certain set of circumstances that addiction needs to thrive. Not only does it need you to feel bad about yourself, but it needs you to isolate and be alone. Because that's how you are most vulnerable, and it can take advantage of you.

When you are making these decisions, throughout your day, that's how I want you to think about it: Am I feeding my addiction, or feeding my recovery?

Take extra measures to protect yourself and your sanity

When the committee tells you to do things that you know aren't the right things, like when it tells you it's okay to have a drink, YOU KNOW BETTER! When it tells you you don't have to go to meetings or connect with other alcoholics, YOU KNOW BETTER! And you know better because you've probably tried 150 times to do it 'on your own' and all it gets you is drunk again! Stop lying to yourself and stop letting the committee lie to you! You know the committee is like an ornery mischievous toddler, it needs constant attention, it chatters non-stop, it turns everything into a mess if you give it a chance, it's a toddler.

But when you have a baby, you baby, proof your home, and now, you have to committee, proof your life. When you look at a 3-year-old, you know he or she is going to do something crazy, climb something they shouldn't climb, throw your keys in the toilet, and you go out of your way to make sure they can't destroy themselves or your house, to the best of your ability because those little toddlers are fast and they're crafty little offers.

The committee is the same way. Crafty and fast. So you have to take extra measures to protect yourself and your sanity.

When you are having a moment of struggle, are you going to feed your recovery? Or feed your addiction?

Feeding your recovery would be going to a meeting or going online and connecting with other alcoholics, reading or listening to something uplifting, going for a walk,

Feeding your addiction would be getting angry about being an alcoholic, feeling resentful that you can't drink like a 'normal' person, feeling envious of all the other drunks getting drunk and secretly hating them for it, isolating yourself and not talking about having those feelings or isolating yourself and staying away from everyone because you are too scared to tell them you aren't drinking anymore.

Why secrets will kill you

You know there is a huge difference between being private and being secretive. Being a private person and protecting your personal details is perfectly acceptable.

Being secretive is a different story because when you are being secretive and hiding details, it's because you feel shame or embarrassment about those details. You don't want to admit something or tell something because you are judging yourself for it, and that makes you believe that others will judge you the same way. That's why secrets will kill you.

Secrets are feeding your addiction because they make you feel bad about yourself. Hiding who you are because you fear judgment or fear people won't like you anymore. Let's go back to the list of the evil wolf and see how many of these defects we've got.

What were they: anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

Wow. That's a hell of a list, and I bet, if you are spending more time feeding your addiction than your recovery, you are doing most of them.

Anger: angry, you can't drink like a 'normal' person and angry at yourself at failed attempts to stop and angry at your friends, family, and partner because they don't understand.

Envy: envious of others who are drinking without consequences, envious of the escape, and envious of the ease with which they put the drink down and walk away from it.

Sorrow: feeling like you are breaking up with your true love, bewildered that it turned abusive on you, mourning the loss of a long-term relationship that turned toxic.

Regret: regret for your behavior, the lowering of your standards when drinking, regret for the loss of time, the years of your life you sacrificed for it, regret for the type of partner or parent you've been, regret for friendships lost or damaged, bad decisions, and for being a miserable jerk.

How about self-pity? Feeling sorry for yourself that you have to actually put some effort into something, like your life is over, how will you ever relax or have fun again? Woe is you; your life is so hard.

You see how you feed these ideas and feed your addiction? And I didn't even go through the whole list! I bet you heard a lot of yourself in the things I said, though. Not even realizing the toxic emotions and thoughts you are putting out, the negativity and self-loathing that the committee is feeding on.

Go the other way, look at the positives

First, I want you to get really aware of your actions and your choices. How many micro-decisions are you making on a daily basis that you don't feel great about? How many of the thoughts I just went through are swirling in your head?

I'm going to make you a cheat sheet for this, too, a quick list of the evil wolf feelings and a list of the good wolf feelings. I want you to print this thing out and keep it where you can see it. As you go through your day, let's say three times a day, take 2 minutes and look at the cheat sheet. How many of the negatives have you been caught up in?

Really think about your thoughts over the last few hours. Have you been angry? Resentful? Envious? Have you been selfish? Which, to me, is in the same category as greed. I want what I want when I want it.

Have you felt inferior or had thoughts of being inferior? Thinking you aren't ready to take action on something, or you aren't good enough or smart enough or strong enough or fast enough? Any kind of you aren't enough thoughts? That's inferiority.

What about lies? Have you told lies, or are you lying by omission? It's just as much a lie when you conveniently leave details out to get the response or outcome you want. It's very manipulative, lying by omission. It's a way to control people and circumstances to feed your ego.

Three times a day, grab the cheatsheet and do a little 2-minute inventory of your thoughts over the last few hours. How much are you feeding the bad wolf? Your addiction?

Then, I want you to look at the positives. Oh, by the way, you can get the cheat sheet at www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/109. I guess it doesn't do us any good if I make you a cheat sheet and then don't tell you how to get it, geez. www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/109, and I will link it in the show notes.

Anyway, let's look at the positives; the good wolf is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

Damn, you know I love this list! There's a ton of ways to work service into this list, my friends!

Joy, how often do you catch yourself feeling joy or thinking joyful thoughts? If you struggle with this, I want you to stop everything and do my Bliss List exercise. Did you see my video where I talked about the Bliss List?

Make a list of 25 things that bring a smile to your face instantly, the moment you think about them. Of course, Henry is at the top of my list, my nieces and nephews, the ocean, I love the ocean, and it's power and all the magic that it holds, and I have had some of my greatest life moments with the ocean, scuba diving all over the world. My mom's house on the holidays, all the family there, the happiness, it's cold outside and warm inside, the food, the love, the laughter.

Make a Bliss List, 25 things that make you smile and feel joy instantly. And don't F around on this; if you want to do better and feel better, then you have to do the things that are suggested to you to feel better. If you immediately thought, oh, that sounds silly, I don't need to make a list, I can keep my list in my head.

If that was you, get your shit together, practice some humility, and do the work. If you keep a list in your head, you're going to come up with about 3 or 4 things and think of them over and over again. There's a reason I say do 25 because I want you to have to really think about it, take stock of your life and what it really is, and write down those things that make you happy, 25 of them. Stop thinking you are too good or too smart to do the work or thinking you aren't one of those people that has to write it out, that's arrogance and superiority, and that goes with the bad wolf. That's the committee lying to you again.

What you are capable of 

I promise you you are no smarter or better than me, and I do ALL the work because there's no such thing as too much help. There's no such thing as too many tools. Hush, and do it. Just do the damn work.

How about hope? Do you feel hopeful at the possibilities your future holds? Do you see the kind of life you can create and the kind of person you can be? Do you feel hopeful?

If not, spend a few minutes daydreaming about the possibilities and what you are capable of because nothing can stand in your way. You can be anything you want. That's the absolute truth.

What about kindness, empathy, and generosity? When you are doing your 2-minute inventory, three times a day, how often have you gone out of your way to be kind to someone, or been generous? Have you given someone your time, maybe listening to a friend on a phone call, or supporting someone in the FB group, volunteer somewhere, being patient with your co-workers or spouse or children? This is generosity in its own way.

What does your inventory look like? This is when you start to recognize patterns, and you can start to be intentional in how your thoughts are.

If you catch yourself being envious, turn it around and say something good about your life and self. If you've been running around all morning being a jerk because you are grumpy because you got up late and didn't get your morning coffee, maybe you should spend a few minutes forgiving yourself, hit the restart button in your brain, and go to 2 or 3 people and say something nice.

If you are in self-pity, go online and sign up to volunteer somewhere. Be intentional. Your thoughts are not an accident. They are just wild and out of control because you haven't trained them. Being intentional means, you are now training your thoughts to be the way you want them to be to feed your recovery and support you in creating a new life.

Stop hoping for results with no work

You can't sit on your ass and 'hope' the committee changes. No! You take the action to change it!

Someone the other day wrote about being in super high anxiety and being uncomfortable in their first few days of sobriety, and they wrote, "I hope this doesn't last."

What the F does that even mean? Hoping for something will get you nothing.

I hope someone gives me $10million, too. You see where that has gotten me. Not a damn thing.

You don't HOPE it doesn't last; you take action to make sure it doesn't last. You don't HOPE you don't relapse; you DECIDE you aren't going to relapse, then you take ALL the actions to ensure it doesn't happen.

Stop hoping for results with no work. That's what you are really hoping for. You're hoping some magic fairy dust is going to fall on you and fix everything so you can get back to Netflix and feeling sorry for yourself because you're an alcoholic.

My friends! We have to take action! If you want to feel better, then do better things to feel better.

If you don't want to be a victim of relapse, then do the things you need to do to feed your recovery instead of feeding your addiction!

You got it?

Okay, let's recap, go to www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/109 and sign up for the cheatsheet. Print the thang. Okay? Print the thang!

Progress, not perfection

Three times a day, whenever you want those times to be, I say once mid-morning, once mid-afternoon, and once before bed, three times a day, take 2 minutes, set a timer on your phone if you want, for 2 minutes go over your thoughts for the last few hours, which column are you spending more time in? The good wolf or the bad wolf?

If you can't come up with ideas to be more of the good wolf, then Google it. Google knows everything. Google 'how do I become more joyful' or 'how can I be more generous,' 'how do I get over envy,' 'how can I practice empathy throughout my day,' Google it. There is endless information.

You want to put as much energy into feeding your recovery as humanly possible. If you tell yourself lights out at 10 pm and you decide to stay up an extra hour, that's okay. But you better not hit that snooze button the next morning.

None of this is meant to be done perfectly. I want you to really hear that. That's why I call it practice. We continue practicing. I'll get really good at being on time for things, then I catch myself slipping on my bedtime, then I'll get over there and get to work getting back on track with my bedtime, and I'll catch myself slipping at home, cleaning up, doing laundry, putting things away, then I'll get over there and start focusing on the house, I'll get everything in order, and I'll catch myself slipping on paying the bills on time,

It's progress, not perfection. And I want you to be intentional. I want you to choose how you are in your life, how you think, how the committee talks to you. I want you to make all those things the way you want them so you can live happy and healthy and drama, free.

That's what I'm talking about!

www.myrecoverytoolbox.com/109 and get the cheat sheet, three times a day, do a 2-minute inventory of what the heck you are doing, are you feeding the good or feeding the bad?

Then, let me know what you find out! Which ones are you pretty good at, and which ones do you need some help with?

And don't forget we are in the midst of the Double Down on Your Recovery with Double episodes each week! So look forward to your bonus episode on Friday!

As usual, I will put all the magical links in the show notes to join the Inner Circle Membership. It's the best $25 you can spend with tons of great content and two online recovery meetings every week. I look forward to meeting you there!

And links to work with me privately, and to find the cheat sheet, and to all the free resources I put together for you, too.

I hope you are having a fantastic day, and I'll see you next week!