Addiction: What It Is & How To Get Out Of It

Hello.

Welcome once again.

My name is Doug Gromins and today I want to discuss with you a very difficult subject for any spiritual person or person who's trying to make a change in this world to talk about and that is addiction.

It's all too easy to use chemicals to take a thorn out of another thorn that's stuck in your foot.

So today I want to dive into this subject and discuss with you what are your options,

What you're facing,

What happens if you keep going down the same road you're going down,

Or what happens if you change your mind and decide to get out of the ditch.

Because when you start taking the substance,

Everything starts with laughter,

But usually it ends with disaster.

So in this world of chemical dependence,

We use chemicals every day.

Everything you take into your body is some sort of chemical,

Some sort of substance that can alter your mind or alter your physical abilities and change your state of mind.

And for the most part,

The chemicals are working and they're actually helping a lot of people.

I know that the medical use of marijuana has many,

Many benefits.

I think there are downfalls to it too,

Because there are addictive qualities to almost every chemical out there.

Not just physical,

But there's also mental addictions that you have to face.

But I'm not trying to discuss or bring in the use or pros and cons of using marijuana or any other chemical.

This discussion is about someone who's actually gone off the deep end and used the chemical so much that it seems like there's no hope.

It seems like there's no way out.

There's no future for you.

That's who I'm trying to talk to today.

That's who we're trying to address and let you know that there is help.

And to let you know that these chemical substances have become demons.

They didn't start out that way.

They started out being,

Like I said,

Like a thorn,

Trying to take another thorn out of your foot.

But the problem is now is that the thorn that you used to take the other thorn out is still stuck in the foot and you have not resolved the problem anymore.

So these substances have become like demons.

And if there's any devil in the world,

Then it's these abusive ways of using these substances.

Like a song goes that I love very much,

It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.

And this is so true because it's hard to live,

It's hard to be in joy,

It's hard to be peaceful,

It's hard to be calm and serene when there's always this tension of this substance always pulling you into the ditch and keeping you into not just a ditch but basically a cesspool of nasty substances that you wouldn't want anyone else to ever have to experience.

I'll share a little bit with you about my life.

And I've had sleeping problems for many years,

But I went to the doctor and they prescribed me Ambien.

Now this was years ago before Ambien was developed very well into time release capsules.

But basically Ambien is a controlled substance.

And it's a controlled substance for a purpose because it's very addictive.

And what happens with the Ambien when I was taking them was that they would help me get to sleep most of the time,

But I'd only sleep for two hours or three hours and then I'd be wide awake again.

And then I'm like,

What do I do now?

It's a controlled substance.

They only give you 30 tablets a month.

So for 30 days,

31 days worth of medicine,

I was ended up taking more Ambien to try to get a one full night sleep.

So what that did was that left me with 15 days of a month where I didn't have any Ambien and there's no way to get any more.

So what happened was it just got my sleeping patterns just got worse and worse and worse.

And I thought I had to stop and I talked to my doctor about it.

And the doctor said,

Look,

If you make a deal with the devil,

Then you have to pay the price,

Right?

And and all these chemicals that are designed to help us and help us survive in the valley.

Let's say it's just surviving in the valley.

All these chemicals are,

Like I said,

They were meant to help take a thorn out,

But you weren't supposed to leave the other thorn in there.

Right?

It's supposed to help you climb out of the ditch.

And like I said,

It's hard to dance with the devil on your back.

So you need to basically focus and have determination.

And then also give yourself a reward system.

Every time you go a day or a week or longer without using this,

The substance that is in the ditch,

Then reward yourself.

Do something nice for yourself.

Go take a yoga class,

Go take a Niketo class or a karate class or something.

But use a reward system and reward your body because your mind feels like it's being rewarded whenever you take the chemical substance.

And the reason the mind feels that way is that all these substances take the stress off the mind,

Take stress off of your life,

And they make you feel like life is more easy to deal with.

It's not always the case when you're in the ditch.

When you're so addicted to these certain chemicals that this addiction has become a disease.

And you can split the word disease into two words,

Dis and ease.

So you're not at ease with yourself.

You're at war with yourself.

You're at tension with yourself constantly.

So like I said,

Give yourself a reward system.

Now,

In a different world we could say,

If they made the drugs better and made illegal drugs better,

Let's just use that for example,

And scientists worked on making them where they weren't active.

Or they helped you to realize nirvana or samadhi or enlightenment.

If you had a glimpse of light,

That would pull you out of the ditch.

But that's not the way the world works.

And that's not the way everything is centered around greed.

So this whole idea of making better drugs sounds like a utopian dream.

And I don't think it'll ever happen.

And in a way,

If we use the utopian drugs,

There's still the mental addiction that we need to face.

I mean,

Not just the physical addiction,

But I don't know if there's any shortcut.

Because you're using a drug as a shortcut to help you to cope with the world and to basically try to live in the valley.

And as a mystic,

As a spiritual influence,

I want you to know that I feel for you and I feel your pain because I felt this addiction with these ambience.

And I also smoked cigarettes for a year.

And it got to the point where it just is horrible.

It just made me feel so horrible.

If I smoked more than three or four cigarettes a day,

It gave me a bad headache,

It made my body feel sick.

And as a surfer,

That doesn't jive.

That doesn't work too well with being a surfer.

But there are a lot of surfers that smoke.

And it's kind of an interesting thing how they can use the capacity of their lungs.

With me,

It didn't bother me too much.

But I feel so much better and so much more energy and so much more vibrant when I stopped using the cigarettes.

And with the Ambien,

Like I said,

The doctor told me,

If you make a deal with the devil,

Then you got to pay the price.

So yeah,

So I quit the Ambien.

I mean,

I just cold turkey quit taking the Ambien.

And yeah,

For about a week or two,

Things were a little rough.

I didn't sleep a lot.

And it was,

You know,

Very disturbed sleep.

But after a couple weeks,

My sleep started returning to normal.

I was getting no four to six to seven,

Sometimes eight hours a night sleep.

And I was like,

Wow.

But what happened also was that I realized that something else was causing my sleeping problems.

And once I stopped doing these things that caused the sleeping problems,

Then the sleep returned to normal.

And I didn't have to take that stuff.

So in my eyes,

You know,

At first Ambien was this great,

You know,

Drug to help me out.

It's like a thorn,

Like I said,

To take out another thorn,

But in the long run,

It caused more harm than it did good.

And I think you're not supposed to take Ambien over long periods of time.

And if you are,

I mean,

I feel for you.

But there's light at the end of the tunnel,

If you can dive into meditation and face your problems,

Face these demons.

If you face the demon,

If you face your vice,

And put it into the light,

Put it into the light by bringing awareness to it.

If you can bring awareness into your life,

And face your addictions,

And bring light into the situation of recovery and getting over using these substances.

It is using a thorn to take another thorn out.

But this time,

Awareness,

You can keep in place.

You can keep using it and keep growing with it.

There's a whole nother life living in the valley.

I mean,

You're in the ditch right now,

And it's hard to cope with life.

It's hard to face life.

But there's a whole nother life when you face the valley,

Because beyond the valley,

There's a mountain,

Or there's an ocean.

And these things are mystical places.

They're mystical in the sense that if you climb the mountain,

You won't be in the ditch anymore.

You won't even think about the ditch.

And I know I've said this in another video,

Or another audio track,

But you won't even think about it anymore.

It becomes a thing of the past.

And if you keep your focus,

Your awareness,

Your concentration,

And basically your essence focused towards climbing the mountain,

Or you could say flowing with the river downstream and not fighting the currents and fighting the currents and going upstream all the time.

Because that's what you're doing.

You're basically trying to say that you know better,

Or this I,

This ego knows better for yourself than what God or what awareness can mean to you.

So if you think of it like this,

There's a hub in the wheel.

Every wheel has a hub in the center,

And the hub doesn't move.

And then there's spokes of the wheels,

And the spokes go outward,

Away from the center towards the periphery.

And basically when you're addicted to chemicals,

Or any type of,

There's more than just chemical addiction,

But let's just say chemical for now and keep it simple.

Because there's also physical addiction,

There's addiction to sex,

There's addiction to gambling,

You know,

There's all kinds of different addictions.

And you could actually address those two and think about those in this discussion as well.

Because the farther away you get from the center of the hub,

The center of the hub is love.

Let's say it's God's essence.

It's the essence of all that exists is at the center of the hub.

And the closer you get to the center of the hub,

There's more love.

Each spoke as it goes away from the center is less and less love.

So you're basically,

When you're addicted to something,

You're going away from the center.

You're going away from the core.

And you're going out this hub into basically mental illness.

And the farther away you get from love,

The farther away you get from the center,

The more ill you will become.

The more harder,

It will be much harder for you to accept that this I,

This ego is trying to rule your life.

And,

You know,

If you can make a 180 degree turn,

And just 180 degree turn and head back towards the center,

Just the center is,

You know,

You're on the right track when you're practicing awareness,

And you have more compassion,

And you start to feel the love within you.

And that love will beat the love that you're feeling from the chemicals,

The higher you're feeling from the chemicals,

The love that radiates from the center from God's essence.

God's trying to talk to you in the ditch and trying to help you out,

But you need a little help,

Maybe from me or maybe from anyone that you listen to that helps pull you out of the ditch and then gets you far enough focused on something else.

Like I said,

You have to have a goal,

You have to have something to look forward to.

A very sad story about Layne Staley,

The lead singer of Alice in Chains,

He became addicted to heroin.

And like I said,

When it all starts out,

It's fine and dandy.

But heroin is a horrible chemical.

And like I said,

All these chemicals are thieves and they are liars.

In the beginning,

They make you feel wonderful and euphoric.

But Layne Staley got to the point where,

I mean,

He couldn't even walk 30 feet without shitting his pants.

He said it was the most horrible thing.

He couldn't even cope with life anymore.

And he prayed and he wished that he had never even started taking heroin because it became and it did kill him.

He died a horrible death.

He was found decomposed for two weeks on a couch in his apartment.

And he was found with a needle still stuck in his arm.

And he lost so much weight,

Nobody could even barely recognize it was a human being.

I mean,

It was horrible.

I mean,

It's just the worst thing in the world.

And I don't want that to happen to you guys.

I don't want you to go down that road because it is a dead end road.

I mean,

You're either going to wind up in jail or you're going to wind up dead if you stay on this path and you stay feeling like you can control everything when you can't.

Turn around,

Face the hub,

And just keep heading towards it.

Even if you have to close your eyes and head towards it.

Spend time meditating.

Spend time doing things that bring love back into your life.

Find that something that will motivate you to want to be in this beautiful thing we call life.

Like I said,

I've been down in the ditch a couple times in my life and I've learned my lesson.

And now I mean,

I've been completely chemical free and I have no vices and everything like that.

And I choose to stay this way because I've climbed the mountain so many times.

I've been up and down the mountain so many times that now I just,

I almost decided to stay at the top of the mountain.

I mean,

I bring my essence into the valley so I can share it with you guys and girls.

And this essence that pervades me always has something of the mountaintop within it or something of the ocean within me.

And I bring it back to the valley.

And I mean,

Like I said,

If you're living in the valley,

You know,

It's okay.

Everything's fine.

There are many benefits of using chemicals to keep you in the valley,

But we're not talking about the people that are surviving and doing okay living in the valley.

And you can't look at them and say,

Well,

They're doing it and nothing,

Look at them.

Nothing's happening to them.

They're not you.

And you need to face yourself and face life.

And the best way to do it is,

Is like I said,

To find something that will motivate you find something that will help turn you around.

And like I said,

Meditation has no side effects.

And you can feel very blissful after meditating.

You don't look for the for the blissfulness.

Basically,

You meditate for no purpose or no reason at all.

You just go in and do it.

But if you spend your times meditating and use that as a reward,

Then you'll get yourself out of the ditch.

You've got me to help pull you out.

I'm going to be around for a long time,

I hope.

And if you guys ever need help or want like a private discussion with me or anything,

Just let me know on an insight timer that you know,

I'm on Facebook under Douglas Douglas Grumman's.

And if you ever need,

You know,

Just send me a private message or,

You know,

Let me try to help you.

Let me help you out of this ditch.

And your life will be much better.

It'll be so great.

I mean,

It life life is so beautiful under.

I mean,

Like I said,

I got to surf for the last few days.

And I love surfing just that's one of my favorite things to do.

I might be a little addicted to it,

But it's not harmful.

It keeps me help.

Surfing actually helps me climb the mountain.

It helps me be with the ocean.

And then,

Like today,

I'm getting ready to go skydiving.

And I've skydived for quite a while now but I'm getting ready to go do a night jump and I'm scared poopless of you know,

Doing this night jump but it's something that you know,

You have to face your fears and get past it.

Anyway,

I hope this discussion helped you guys out.

I know there have been other mystics like Alan Watts,

Ram Dass,

Who have,

You know,

Experimented with LSD and psilocybin mushrooms and stuff like that.

And,

You know,

It altered their lives too.

But I don't think they ever really fell into the ditch.

They use these things to expand their consciousness.

But I think they,

You know,

Realize that,

You know,

It's only like a window.

You can chemical can be like looking out of a window of a house of a dark house.

And you look out the window and everything looks beautiful and psychedelic and pretty and everything.

But you don't experience it in reality.

You're just seeing it through through perception of your mind.

And if you meditate and you face,

You face that hub,

And you bring awareness into your life,

Then the door you'll start searching for the door basically you'll start you'll start sending your energy saying,

Hey,

I want to go outside where it's so beautiful.

I mean,

It's dark in here and there's no there's no love and there's no life that you know,

Inside this house.

And I need to I want to experience you know,

What life is like,

You know,

Outside in the beautiful sky.

I mean,

There's birds flying,

There's there's trees blowing in the wind.

There's you know,

So many beautiful things outside.

And you want to be a part of that.

And drugs will give you basically a glimpse into what it's like being outside,

But you won't ever really experience it.

It's just a it's a it's just like a lightning in the dark and in the valley.

And you want to climb to,

You know,

Get to the next mountain and climb it.

But you can't see at night and you're blinded and drugs will blind you.

And they'll keep things dark and keep things dark around you.

And I think that's why most drug addicts like to come out at night because it's easier to feel like,

You know,

You're not being watched.

And,

You know,

Turning around,

Facing the light facing,

You know,

Looking for the door search,

Meditation will help you look for the door,

It'll be in darkness at first and you won't feel anything for a little bit.

But eventually you'll start feeling it.

And if you grow up around in the darkness enough for the for the for the door,

You'll find the door,

Then it's up to you to go outside and enjoy the beautiful sunshine and beauty.

This beautiful sunshine we call life.

This beautiful sunshine we call love and happiness and joy and,

And serenity.

And I mean,

There's there's,

There's so many things that you know,

Life has to offer you.

But you're gonna have to find,

Like I said,

Some sort of pull some sort of reward to help pull you out of the stitch.

Hopefully,

Maybe this this audio track helped a little bit.

Anyway,

I think we should wrap it up there.

And just want to say I love all of you guys and girls and and I know I'm,

I'm actually I could be committing spiritual suicide by sharing what I'm sharing with you.

But I feel it's important that everyone who has facing addiction or is in an addiction and would like to help get out of it could grow and listen to this audio track and grow and,

And find that courage.

And like I said,

Remember remember that it's hard to dance with the devil on your back.

So shake it off.

Hi,

Take care y'all.

Bye.

Transcribed by https://otter.

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