How Do You React?

You're down, kicked in the teeth by a bad event and emotionally drained. Nerves are frayed and, psychologically, you're not in a good place. Everything seems to be coming apart at the seams. You're irritable, stirred by things that normally wouldn't bother you and it's affecting relationships with those close to you.

What will you do? How will you respond, and how quickly? Do you wallow in self-pity, allowing yourself to be held down in that dark place by regret and anxiety, agonizing over a bad decision or life event? Drown your problems with alcohol?

The answer should be a resounding NO.

No matter what it is, you're not the first to go through it and you won't be the last; those words were spoken to me by Dad several decades ago and they still ring true today. To borrow a treatise issued by retired SEAL Jocko Willink: "When things are going bad, don't get bummed out, don't get startled, don't get frustrated...take that problem, take that issue and make it something good...you go forward. If you can say the word 'good', it means you're still alive, it means you're still breathing. And if you're still breathing, it means you've still got some fight left in you. So get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage....and go out on the attack."

Learn from mistakes and setbacks and move on. Don't allow yourself to become stagnant, running in place on the treadmill of regret and your past actions. You start dealing with the issue now, not tomorrow or whenever you think you'll feel better. Assess the issue or situation, develope a plan and execute it.

And move forward.

Jocko Willink's video, entitled 'Good', can be found here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdTMDpizis8

The Choice of Addiction

We are faced with them every day, from the minute we climb out of bed until we next crawl into it. They can change our lives or have no effect at all, from the minutest of moments to the most monumental of times when they can change the course of human history.

Choices.

They come at us by the hundreds daily, from what to have for breakfast or what to wear for work to what time we decide to retire for the evening, each decision having an unseen ripple effect in both our lives and those around us. The choices we make can also destroy us.

Bad choices have consequences.

It is a widely-held belief that drug addiction is an illness; that's a lot of crap. It's bunk, a falsehood, a myth. Addiction doesn't become an illness or disorder until you make the choice that it is. That first decision to upload some mind-altering substance into your body is on you.

You, and only you, own it. You made the decision to smoke that first joint, snort that first line of coke, take that first pill, jab that needle into your arm for the first time.

It was your choice. You weren't 'ill' until you decided to become so. Stop leaning on that crutch called disorder/illness and take responsibility for your choice. What you do about addiction is also a choice: you either attack the problem with treatment and counseling or you don't.

It's your choice.