The Sober Plug

In this episode, Connor talks about gratitude and how to overcome certain challenges that come with being sober for the holidays. Happy Thanksgiving!

In this episode Connor talks about the negative aspects of addiction and where it leads to. It's important to be reminded of what is waiting for us if we were to go back to old destructive behaviors. Sometimes we can trick ourselves into romanticizing drug/alcohol use but there is nothing sexy about it. Addiction is cunning, baffling and powerful.

Life is full of obstacles and challenges. For the most part, these obstacles are placed in our lives to help us grow and become the person we are meant to be. Sometimes when life throws things our way, it is a test to see how well we handle it. Drinking and using will never help me get to a positive outcome. We can't handle situations in our lives by trying to escape them. If we want to reach our potential in life we have to be willing to have Faith in the process and welcome challenges by dealing with them head on. Don't trick yourself into believing that using will fix anything. It always makes things worse.

One of the hardest things to deal with in early recovery is the constant urge to use your drug of choice. When we are used to repeating a behavior over and over on a daily basis it becomes programmed in our mind to repeat that behavior, even when we're trying to change. Urges or to be expected and there's no shame in having thoughts of using. But there are things that we can do to help ourselves when we are having these mental obsessions. In this episode Connor goes over 6 different tips that can help alleviate cravings.

Sometimes it's easy to feel overwhelmed in life when things seem to be going in a negative direction, especially when we're trying to do well for ourselves. But a lot of times we find that tough situations and circumstances in life end up being exactly what we needed in that moment, even though we didn't feel that way. We can't understand the importance of a moment until it becomes a memory. We can't connect the dots moving forward, we can only connect the dots looking back on our lives. The universe tends to give us exactly what we need at exactly the right time. We develop Faith in the process of our journey over time, and eventually, we realize there are no coincidences in life.

Life can be full of twists and turns. Sometimes things happen that you can't possibly be prepared for. In times like this it's important to focus on the things that we do have and are in control of. Perspective is so important in life. The direction of our lives is not going to be determined by what happens to us, but it will be determined by our mindset and the perspective we carry moving forward. Even tragedy can be a building block in our journey in life to become our best selves.

When people have certain things in their life; a nice car, beautiful house, good career, a social life etc. it can be easy to justify how drugs/alcohol isn't a problem. The truth is materialistic gains has absolutely nothing to do with having an addiction or not. Some people excel in certain areas in life while maintaining, and hiding, a brutal addiction behind closed doors. In this episode Connor talks about what a functioning addict looks like and the obstacles functioning addicts face.

You ever feel like there's no point of getting sober or staying sober? Sometimes life can get so overwhelming in our addiction that it feels hopeless to even try to turn things around. The truth is doing the right thing isn't always what we WANT to do but it is what we NEED to do. Sobriety gives us the option of choice while active addiction only leaves us with one choice. Life can get really good in recovery even if it doesn't feel like that in the beginning of our journey.