A New Year, Another Opportunity To Get Your Life Back

The whole New Year’s resolution thing is getting to be a bit of a “Hallmark Holiday” for me. I suppose it’s a good time to make a fresh start at the beginning of the calendar year but who says that its the only time to fix things in your life? And now it’s sort of a joke when people make their resolutions and then shrug their shoulders 3 weeks later after they’ve broken it…aww well.

It’s not that I think it’s a bad thing to try and make a change for the better at the beginning of the year; it’s the scope of the resolution that I’m opposed to. The “resolutions” that people make are so granular and single minded of purpose that they almost become a parody; “Ok well no more chocolate for me starting Jan!” Wow, that’s great! But is chocolate really the most profound problem that you have in your life? If we’re going to go through this whole ritual why not make it really mean something? For those of you who are visiting this site, there are certainly bigger issues to tackle than eating chocolate, sucking your thumb or not remembering anniversaries. I think the new year is really an opportunity to take a time out and really re-evaluate your life; try and figure out the one thing that can have the most profoundly positive impact on your emotional and physical state.

Again, if you’re on this site, we all know what the elephant in the room is eh? But here’s the deal; we should be doing this every day! And believe me when I say that I’m probably the worst person to talk to when it comes to tackling my barriers to happiness on a consistent basis. But that right there is a truly worthwhile resolution if you’re going to have one. Why not promise yourself that you’re going to take a more active role in addressing the things that negatively impact yourself and those that you love? Don’t just focus on one idiosyncrasy; focus on the big picture. Focus on the focusing!

Again, I need to get better at this too. Even though I’m clean now, it doesn’t mean that everything’s all better now. There’s always going to be issues in life but I’ll tell ya, life is hard enough without being addicted to pain killers…believe me. Think about all of the time that you spend on either doing something to feed the beast or thinking about how when or where you’re going to do something to get your pills. It’s really a lot of time. Some people may shrug it off and say, “How long can popping 35 Vicodin a day take??” Well, I’m here to say that it took up most of my time both physically and emotionally. Never mind all of the negative things that go along with pill addiction that I talk about repeatedly on this site, just think about how much all of that lost time and energy impacts your ability to focus on and engage the other issues that you have.

It’s an almost impossible task to take pills AND focus on the issues of your everyday life. So what happens is the pills always win out and all of those other problems begin to simmer and fester in the background. And as many of you know, they eventually come to a head after its too late to fix. That’s why this whole pain killer addiction thing is so insidious, there’s no time for anything else so when things go awry; they really really go awry.

So as you think about your ritualistic New Year’s resolution, try to widen your lens a bit. Take a look at some of the things in your life that are truly affecting your ability to be happy. If it’s the pills…well…then I suppose that may be something you need to think about taking care of. In fact, unless you’re being shot at right now or have 15 days to live I’m supremely confident that the pills are probably at the top of the list when it comes to the most potent negative force in your life.

Let me be blunt, nobody lives to a ripe old age of 85 as an opiate addict. William Burroughs did it but have you seen pictures of him??? Nope, there aren’t a whole bunch of happy old opiate addicts out there. At some point it has to be dealt with or it will deal with you. Sorry to be a bummer but it’s true. If you have read any of the other stuff on this site, you know that I am a big advocate for planning your detox and using all of the tools that you have at your disposal to making sure that you can get through the detox as quickly and painlessly as possible. You should be in control of your withdrawal; not the other way around.

So I guess if you have finally come to the determination that the pills need to go, why not take the next couple of weeks leading up to the new year to strategize on how you are going to get this screaming monkey off of your back.  I know I know it’s the holidays and you want to be pleasant but it really is the perfect time to do it because you probably have a few days off here and there and then when January comes around it’s back to the grind. I promise you that if you want your New Year’s Resolution to really count; if you want it to truly be meaningful then you have to quit the pills. Take this time right now to map it out and try to get excited about starting the New Year truly refreshed…truly NEW.

And while you’re at it, just get the Withdrawal-Ease and read the Survival Guide. There’s a whole section on how to plan your detox and do it on your terms. The product works and you’re far far better off with both of these tools at your disposal that doing it cold-turkey. Have a Happy New Year and if you make a resolution; make it count.

-George