Interview with an Alcoholic part 1

INTERVIEWER: I work as a behavior analyst, which is someone who helps others change their behaviors, and I have been contemplating the challenges of drug and alcohol addictions. I personally have never tried any drugs and I am not an alcoholic, but I want to help those who may be struggling with these challenges. I tend to view addictions in terms of only behaviors and then create ways to overcome those behaviors.


QUESTIONS

1) How did you do it? What made you decide nearly 20 years ago to leave the life you knew and set a course for this one?

2) What do you believe needs to be the catalyst to shake up addicts and live a more purposeful life?

ANSWER

First of all I did it one day at a time. I didn't just wake up one day and decide that I was going to quit and set a goal of 20yrs. When I quit I was so close to death. In fact I wanted to die. The thought went through my head that if this is all that life has to offer then I want out. For me alcohol and drugs were my god and my god had my full trust. So it is a spiritual thing more than behavioral. When my god quit working for me I was screwed. I would say that I was blessed to be given the gift of desperation. It was out of desperation that I became willing to do some things. One thing was to get honest with myself. The second thing this desperation helped me to do was become open-minded enough to think there might be a better way. HOW – Honesty, Open-mindedness, Willingness is an easy acronym to remember this.

For those out there who know someone who is suffering from addiction: I believe the prayers of those who cared about me was a big factor in helping me. In my case, it took an average of 15 people praying for approximately 3 years before I got desperate enough to get sober.

Pressing On with Excellence,
Keith
Dr. Worry

Introduction to Interview with an Alcoholic

I am getting ready to start a new blog idea. I have someone that knows little about addiction at least from a thought process side, such as what causes an alcoholic or an addict to continue to keep going back even after things get bad. So he is going to ask me questions and I will answer them. Then I will share that interview on my blog. I think that this is a great opportunity to help him better understand the alcoholic mind and also help others do the same. I also think this will help me to better understand myself. It will help me to crystallize my story so that I'm a better communicator. Win-win, I believe. I told him my life is an open book and that I would answer any question that he might ask. Along with that I have decided if any of my blog readers have any questions that you might like to ask concerning addiction or if you need any clarity on something that I give for an answer, please comment on the blog or submit any question to me at Keith@drworry.com. I am looking forward to this interview. This will be an ongoing topic for a while or until he or you run out of questions. I won't give any answers about things that I don't know anything about. This is a living interview, not an opinion. My experiences, no bull.

Pressing On with Excellence,

Keith a.k.a. Dr. Worry

What a Waste!

My brother has a 1976 Cosworth Vega he bought about 25 years ago. It is a very rare car and it only has around 30 or 40 thousand miles on it. Every once in a while, on special occasions, maybe a couple of times a year, he would pull it out, wash it, and wax it. Then he would drive it around a little and park it back in the barn. For a while he parked it in my Grandpa’s garage but somehow it got put back into the barn. He put a tarp over it and then it’s almost like he forgot about it. The car has been sitting there for more than fifteen years. The tarp has rotted off. It’s completely covered with bird dirt and dust. Mice have gotten in and built nests on the engine, in the air breather, in the glove box, and who knows where else. The whole car smells like mouse pee. There is even mold growing on the steering wheel.

This is perfect illustration of what can happen when we allow worry and fear to go unchecked in our lives. They don’t just go away, instead they get worse and turn into anxiety and depression. If they’re neglected long enough they become insanity. What a waste. It doesn’t have to be this way. Take action now while the problems are smaller so that you can be the rare and precious person that you were meant to be in the first place. Don’t waste your life. Just like my brother’s Vega, if you neglect working on these things now it will cost you much more to fix later.

Pressing On with Excellence,

Keith

New and Better Life

With the events over the past few weeks, I don't know, but it looks like I need to change my focus. I'm in a transition where I think one part of my life has to end before a new one can begin. I've been looking forward to this but, none the less, it's still kind of scary and I'm tempted to worry. I wished my boat would have been a little closer to the dock before I had to jump, but it is what it is and I'm trusting that God has a plan.
It's kind of exciting not knowing what God has next. I've been out of work before, but never like this. Really, I've been praying about this new and better life for at least a year now. Yet, sometimes my thinking can go negative. I've been in the process of trying to change the way I think for a couple of years, so I know what to do when my thinking is negative. I've been envisioning a new and better life for the last couple of years. I don't know exactly what that is going to look like but I do know that for sure I was never going to be able to see it from where I was at. Sometimes we need a little push out of the nest to take the next step.

Pressing on with Excellence,
Keith

Red or Orange?

I'm trying to decide on the cover for my new book and would appreciate some feedback.
Red?

or orange?

Living in the Unknown

Well, I don't know what to write about. First, I want to apologize that I haven't written a blog for a couple of weeks. We went on a family vacation and then I was in an accident at work. Now I've been thinking about the unknowns. I have a lot of unknowns in my life right now.

1)         I don't know if I will be able to go back to work

2)         I don't know if I want to
3)         I don't know if the woman that I hit is okay or not
4)         I don't know if I want to know

I'm doing okay under the circumstances. I haven't worried about what's going on very much. I've really had to practice what I've been preaching lately. And I'm glad to tell you that it has been working. I know that God is in control and I have had a lot of peace, no matter what happens.

I've been suspended from work while they investigate and that has given me time to process through a lot of things. I've been doing all that I can do and that is all I can do. I have to let God do the rest. Whether I have a job or not does not matter to me. I just pray that the lady is okay. Pray for her right now please. That is all that really matters. Everything else is replaceable.

Pressing on with Excellence,
Keith

The Little Foxes

Solomon said in Song of Solomon 2:15, “Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards, our vineyards that are in bloom.” What was he talking about? I think that he was telling us to watch out for the little things. Be persistent in living a life of excellence in all areas of our lives.

It is easy to slip back into mediocrity. Am I doing the best that I can? Can I do better? Persistence is sometimes hard to muster. I have found that if I do things with excellence in one area of my life, it rubs off into other areas. This also works the other way around. If I slack off in one area of my life it affects the others.
That is why it is important to practice excellence in small unseen ways, so that these little foxes don’t creep in and ruin my efforts. It seems like I wasted parts of my life by having big breakthroughs only to mess them up again. By not being persistent in my actions, and slipping backwards, I had to make another trip around the mountain. If I persist in what I learn, and don’t fall back, then I’m free to learn something new instead of having to learn the same thing over and over again. Have you ever had that Groundhog Day feeling? You don’t have to have that. Practice excellence in the little things. Ask yourself, can I do better here? Then do it.
Being diligent in the little things will have a payback. Check out Matthew 25:29. The New Living translation says “to those who use well what they are given, even more will be given.” It has to do with sowing with excellence and reaping what you’ve sown.
Pressing on with Excellence,
Keith