Because All Addicts Need REAL Recovery!

Tsefan Josef
April 19 at 8:17 PM ·

If you really want to recover from addictions, then please read every word of this Note.

There are several recovery and multi-step programs supported by credentialed Western society “professionals” that teach you the following: you are powerless over your addiction; it is a disease that can only be regulated with medicine and intensive psycho therapy; once you’re an addict, your always an addict / once you’re an abuser, your always an abuser. This standard Western understanding of addiction applies to both the knowing and unknowingly addict or abuser.

Because this set of beliefs is so recovery industry “standard,” doctors and therapists prod their subjects towards admission of weakness and acceptance of programs for reaching salvation from this weakness. In the recovery setting, this is achieved by seeking validations in patients to these credentialed Western beliefs – by guiding these patients into exploring their own memories of trauma towards validating this goal.

Once sufficient painful images have been dredged from a lifetime of memories, the drawings having been made and group story-telling achieved, and wailing, crying, and getting angry are sufficiently displayed by their patients like an exorcism in progress, these credentialed recovery specialists pronounce their patients ready to restart life. So long as these patients devote themselves religiously to preserving these conjured memories and remaining in step programs that keep them in contact with like kind (addicted/abusive recoverers), validating their sins of victimization for a lifetime.

You only here about the success stories, which is about 10% of those going through these programs. The other 90% are labeled with excuses as to why these recovery programs did not work for them. Constitutionally incapable of being honest, too many psychological issues requiring pharmaceutical regulation, etc. Honestly now, how many know of an addict/abuser who has successfully completed rehab programs (coming back to life like a new happy person), only to return again repeatedly to the addiction/abuse every single time they’ve gotten out of recovery treatment? What good was all that conjuring up past trauma experiences, if it hasn’t fixed the addiction/abusiveness problem within the suffering individual?

This is bad medicine! Pseudoscience practices, if 90% have to keep re-entering these programs again and again. But, is there an alternative? The answer is a “yes”! I know, because I am living proof of other less Western approaches to addressing addictions.
I know that addictions CAN be broken, completely (never to be returned to), and NO ONE is defined for a lifetime based upon one struggling period in their life. Credential Western minds often fall into the trap of thinking that Western medicine is the only right and best approach to dealing with human problems. Whereas, they can legitimately make a case for this with physical traumas (illnesses of the body), their understanding when it comes to the mind is greatly lacking in (outside of present society) scientific research.

Sure there are the DSMs to diagnose you with and medicines to prescribe for each diagnosed condition, but these cannot treat the memories or the patients perception of what is memory. Nor, the underlining illness of mind that persists within patients, so long as the patients continue to justify their existence! Thus, for all its research based focus, Western psychology is always on the border between science and pseudoscience – and where the mind practitioner can be found in this spectrum is based on how Western society indoctrinated the “professional” doing the treatment is.

I WAS an alcoholic, but I will never be again. I WAS a two pack a day smoker, but I will never use tobacco again, in any form. I WAS addicted to sexual exhibitionism online, because I had no outlet as a child to address my inherent taboo sexual nature, but I study online to educate the mind now. Education, self-compassion, and seeing yourself as a survivor DESPITE your challenges is a real game changer! So is learning how to step back from yourself long enough, as many times enough, to achieve making small steps of change to your life one established step at a time.

Trauma is no joke! And it takes a lifetime of healing to overcome the most serious/challenging ones. Because, I WAS trapped in my mind, in a world of fantasy relationships, while trying to survive and navigate real life (dual perceptions of reality coexisting at one time in one body), I apologize for any times where the real world and the mental world collided, and shame was caused in others over my addressing traumas.

Though many Western credentialed psychologists would beg to differ (based on the Puritan Western outlook about life), as to my sexual orientation and inherent erotic nature, there is nothing sinful about this, nor any need to have shame about. As well, as to my lifelong leaning to social nudism, that was healthily normal at all times. Nudism is not sex, it’s not even erotic – except to those deprived of this experience, having been taught early in life that nudity is a sexual sin and that clothes that cover the sex parts is the only solution to this sin. The only time physical nudity is a moral problem is when there is an outcry of discomfort with nakedness by children who are addressing issues of mental imbalance or instability (so says even the Talmud).

Western society is flat out wrong on the clothes issue, and the nudity-obsessive focus of Western teaching is the root of the mental sexual ills of modern society. But, you can’t convince the indoctrinated or religious of this self-evident fact. Thus, nudity equals abuse or sexual depravity to the Western mind, and the real underlining issues for addictions that drive the patient recovery industry goes unaddressed. Mindplay replaces working towards real solutions. Hence, Western mind medicine is always teetering on pseudoscience, rather than remaining in objective science.

Why do I say that I WAS addicted? Why do I address the experience if trauma as something that no longer defines me?

Modern mind medicine teaches you that you are sick with disease, and that you will always be victim to your disease. I see it time and time again, with near everyone leaving a “recovery” program. And those who buy into the teachings of these programs, project their “sickness” onto others when they are released. Especially the ones blamed and labeled as contributors to the patient’s diseased mind. I say I WAS, because that Western alternative is pseudoscience at work!

I say I WAS an addict in my formerly self-punishing ways, because “others” are NOT to blame for my struggles in life. I must stand on my own two feet, and walk again. I am a survivor of my own conditions, despite these challenges. I chose to be resilient. I choose to accept my present reality (level of recovery, it’s lifelong). And, I choose to release the hold that these past experiences has on me in the present.

Now, don’t get me wrong, healing is a lifelong process with ups and downs. But, the more you embrace being defined by who you are today, the less the past issues and “sins” have to hold on to you. The answer to addiction/abuse, to addressing the underlining traumas that lead to this, is to empower your own awareness that you CAN be free of these challenges, and working towards goals that achieve this. Patience and persistence builds resilience.

In my approach to recovery, I am proof of what is demonstrated in some African tribal groups that are still in the world today. Traumas are treated as outside threats trying to invade the mind, and the solution is positive social togetherness on living life happily and normally. It’s a group approach with them, no one to blame, no mental disease to be afflicted by all your life, engagement in the here and now REAL life – and it works! I am proof this works! So, before doubting like a Westerner, at least put in the years long effort towards being truly free of addictions, one addiction at a time. It’s the only effective path to recovery I have ever seen and personally experienced. If only 10% achieve recovery in Western rehab and step programs, isn’t it worth exploring other demonstrably effective methods – if the Western ones don’t work for you?

Reliving traumas, breeds more trauma. Declaring yourself an addict, keeps you an addict. This is what keeps the Western pharmaceutical industry in profit. And good doctors desiring real healing in patients, have to struggle with an industry that keeps patients always sick! I know, I’ve had a couple of good doctors, Western medicine trained, but awoke enough to try what Western mind medicine refuses to embrace. They have contributed greatly to my personal rediscovery and healing! I am in debt for life to these true healers and teachers.

If it works for African tribes, dealing with members with severe traumas in their life (many war traumas, with others sickness of mind), and if it works for a European male who has struggled with severe lifelong self-punishment over his experienced upbringing, then there must be something to this for others in Western society who are struggling. There is a REAL path to healing for everyone!

We are all precious in our resilient struggle to successfully survive and overcome our own issues of limitations and debilitations. And, everyone has these to some degree of severity. And, personally, I refuse to be defined by my past. The past is the past! I am defined only by who I am today, and who I want to be tomorrow.

Probably, the most important lesson I’ve learned on the road to real recovery is to NOT place much belief, faith, trust, nor importance in my “memories” of the past. Modern neuroscience has shown quite clearly that we humans recreate our memories of the past into new slightly different memories every time we emotionally reconnect to these remembered experiences. Our mental states of focus that we are presently in define our perception of memories. And, neuroscience is showing that we can very easily fabricate memories in our heads that seem to us as absolutely accurate, but are nothing more than fictions created in our heads (based on previous experiences, but not now so accurate) that now serve as the latest version of our memories of real life.

If it isn’t written down and documented, then the memories we have are likely faulty or distorted. To learn this from modern neuroscience was SUCH a gift for my road towards recovery. We are defined by who we are NOW, not our distorted past in emotionally ladened memory form. Thus, without empirical evidence to support, we cannot place faith in our memories – for they can be easily manipulated, by us and by others trying to affect us! So, why is memory dredging one of the core methods used by recovery programs?! How is this not re-traumatizing patients, hampering the recovery effort?

I have never attended an AA meeting as a declared addict. They are too Christian religion for a Jew like me. Their book is nothing more than a pseudosecular rewrite of the Christian theology. They reaffirm personal powerless in the face of addiction challenges. They require a belief in a human imagined “God” (that not everyone believes exists) to save us from ourselves. And they preach and encourage the proselytizing of addiction salvation through always being an addict for life. Most that go into recovery rehab or 12 step programs still struggle daily with their original addiction (it’s the focus for the rehab/step mind!), and pick up one to two new replacement addictions while there. Go in for drinking, and come out a full fledged smoker. This isn’t recovery!!!

We who have or HAD life debilitating addictions are worthy and strong, despite the addiction or the history of having been addicted! We are survivors within the human condition. And THIS needs to be our daily present awareness! I know of no other way that actually works. Believe me, I truly doubted daily that I would ever overcome the addiction to cigarettes, seeing how it was infused into every adult memory of my life, all the emotional highs and lows and in-betweens. I’m truly done with that addiction, it was my past.

One addiction overcome led to another overcome, and another. Each in its right time, when the patient is ready for the healing. Patience, self-love, refusing to be a victim, honesty and acceptance of my present state, and having a resilient desire to overcome the challenges in my present, and to not be ashamed (publicly open about) my humanness. This one day at a time forward-looking approach is the only way I know of that works for true recovery!

You have to acknowledge and let go of the old thoughts (daily!, for however long this takes), before you are ready to embrace the desired new thoughts. Our thoughts lead to our choices, and our choices determine our actions. There really are no quick fixes in life! Living life is an enduring overcoming process.

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Tsefan Josef
Yesterday at 12:55 AM ·

Some, who apparently don’t know me very well, have said that I must not know much about addiction, all because I question American rehab and step programs, and dare to say that American addicts are coming out worse than when they actually went in to these recovery programs. That they aren’t getting the proper tools and teachings to overcome addiction, and being taught that they are victims, further hindering their desired recovery process. I guess you’ll never know whether I understand or not, unless you read my recent note. … But, no matter, here’s a close-up look at one of the addictions of my past. Note, this WAS an addiction, because recovery should surpass struggling with abstinence, and full freedom from addiction can be a thang.

Hmmm, do I know what addiction is, and how debilitating it can be? 30 years a smoker, a two pack a day man. Trying to hide it, for a good half of those years. Ashamed of how much money that I’m wasting on a nicotine high! 15 of those years trying to quit this nasty habit that ruled my every waking moment. In everything I did, a stinky cigarette had to be part of the scene.

The best I ever got down to, in my attempts to quit – at times – was a pack and one or two. The longest I ever went without a cigarette was 12 weeks of basic training, but I still thought about smoking a cigarette every fricken day of those twelve weeks. My first chance at the store, what was the first thing that I bought? Outside of this military training forced abstinence, the longest I ever went without lighting and smoking another cigarette was less than a day.

For fifteen years of my thirty years of smoking, I tried to quit and kept failing – one attempt after another and after another. I tried medicine. I tried therapy. I tried nicotine substitutes of many kinds. I smoked cigarettes through all of it! Along with all of it!

Addressing addiction is not about changes to diet and whole food lifestyles to replenish the body, therapy and social lifestyle changes, finding and embracing god or religion, mantras and self-love while accepting your addicted fate. All these avoid the real issue of why people develop addictions and persist in addictive lifestyles. For some, a very small few, it’s a chemical thing that just got terribly out of hand – beyond self-help control. For many of us, there is a trauma hidden behind our addiction(s) – recognized or unrecognized – that drives us to continue with the unhealthy coping mechanisms we embraced.

This makes addressing addiction that much harder, because we mistake the withdrawl symptoms from substance abuse for the angst we experience as generated by our unresolved traumas. The two feed on each other in our thoughts and feelings, and in our every day activities and lifestyle. The longer you abuse substances, the harder it is to quit. It becomes part of your very life. So, what do we do to recover?

I truly did believe that, despite my desire, I would always be smoking some kind of cigarette – whether store bought or handmade. This addiction was tied into every aspect of my living life. It was as necessary to me as breathing. Talk about contradictions! And, worse yet, it was not my only addiction in life. Imaginary gods and religious beliefs systems were no more effective as treatment as self-help groups and programs. There was only one way for me to address this. Be a survivor of addiction, despite my self-destructive ways, and hope that one day I will actually be free. And that’s where I was for the longest time, struggling and failing to quit, and always asking: “Why?”

Therapists wanted me relive my past traumas. Saying to me that, if I would only relive them, then this underlying trauma and the addiction that it supports would be manageable – and, eventually, I could abstain from using and abusing. To me, this was ludicrous thinking! Why would I want to relive trauma, when my whole goal is to let it go – to detach from its informative hold on me?! Why would I want to be an abstaining victim all my life, ever wrestling with addictions that were poor coping mechanisms for trauma? Why would I look to a religion’s god that I know does not exist for strength to abstain from an addiction that I never had any real control over?

I rejected such self-defeating ideology. It teaches you to be a victim, and to accept struggle as your inherent price in life. ‘It’s a disease!’ ‘You’re not a fault (this part is true!), but you’ll always struggle (a self-defeating lie!).’ Instead, I chose to be at peace with me, chose to struggle with being present in this ever-changing moment now, chose to question every thought and feeling that stirred an addictive desire with me, and I chose to accept me as a survivor and victor – even when I failed again and again to achieve my goal.

One day, I walked away – for the last time – from one of my addictions. This led to me walking away slowly over a year’s time from this addiction to cigarette smoking. I simply reached that point where I am present enough to decide that I am done. Where I am choosing to be free of this addiction, and enjoying this experience of being free.

Trauma is an outside thang trying to invade your mind. Get this in your head, it is a memory perception on the past that is invading your present. In this moment now, it is only as real as you are carry its reality within you. It is not “my” trauma anymore than this is “my” addiction. Stop owning it, and start questioning and rejecting it! Trauma begins with an experience that is outside of us. It is like a virus trying to invade the body. The healthy approach to resisting it’s damaging effects upon you is to acknowledge it, trust you will survive it, and to redirect your thinking towards the motivating desires of your present. Desires that empower you with resiliency and hope.

For many of us, this process of recovery takes a lifetime of wrestling with what we accept as our reality, but I know of no more effective treatment or way of being in real recovery and learning to live addiction free. 30 years a smoker, and now that was my past – I’m done and I choose freely, without struggle, a different lifestyle for me. … But, some don’t think I know what I’m talking about. And that’s okay. When the student is ready, the teacher can begin to teach. It’s just the human way of things. I hope someone reading is ready. We are all a work in progress, throughout our entire lives – there are no gurus, no messiahs.

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Tsefan Josef
23 hrs ·

“If you knew what you were talking about and it were only a difference of perspective, I would be able to respect what you’re saying. But, in this case, you have no idea what you’re talking about, and I do not respect your misinformation!”

It is okay to hurt someone’s feelings, when their beliefs are just plain wrong! Sometimes the only way to wake them up, is to show them that they need to wake up! When they are ready, they will ask “why” you said this to them … if they haven’t already figured it out from self-questioning and study.

A teacher is a student that is always willing to doubt him/her-self, question his/her own beliefs, and study more to get just a little bit closer to the actual truth. A teacher will uplift the feelings of those who are in this path; and hurt the feelings of those who should be on this path, and is capable of handling this challenge. To those unwillingly to learn, don’t even waste your breath – pick your battles!