A letter to an addict in early recovery.

If your life has fallen apart due to drug addiction, you may find that you are now forced to take a look at yourself and your life.

Your world is facing a catastrophic problem, and it is not vices or desires. Your world's problem is meaninglessness. Your world's problem is purposelessness. These problems, they are not accidental, they are not circumstantial, they are highly profitable.

There are choices you could have made, options you could have taken, options that those around you took to get where they are.

As to why you did not, you have a story as to why. The problem with stories is that they are just stories.

Maybe you did not because you were lazy and didn't make sacrifices. Maybe you did not because you would not compromise a part of your soul, or perhaps your humanity, because you were holding on to something important. Maybe you did not because it wasn't enough.

Whatever reason you think you did, this is only a story.

There are many roads that seem to be enough for many people. They don't need a purpose, or a deep meaning in order to take action.

Others are stubborn, they won't take action at all.

Then there are still others, who will try to do what is asked of them, who will try to do something purposelessly, meaninglessly, and they will find that they simply cannot sustain themselves in those actions and will find themselves drifting elsewhere. They ask what is wrong with themselves, why they cannot be like everyone else. Even if they try to kill their soul to conform, their soul yet resists.

It seems the more a person values the ‘energy of their life’, their ‘vitality’, the less likely they are willing to spend it on aimless pursuits.

There are the fortunate who have aimful pursuits and goals, and as such have great energy in their life to spend,

but most of us say that we do not know what to do.

Then there are those of us who do not know what to do, and still refuse to live meaninglessly, or try to live meaninglessly, and find that they simply cannot do it.

Ask yourself,

If you cannot find the willpower to move forward in pointless, meaningless directions, what is wrong with you?

Nothing is wrong with you. Somehow, somewhere, we are falsely taught that if you cannot live pointlessly, that there is something you need to change.

Now, if you have lost lots in addictions and vices, perhaps, there is much you have not lost, perhaps have covered up, but have not lost.

What addiction leads you to the end of is a forcible change, a need to do something different with your life.

There are reasons for this need to change in your life, of course you will suffer greatly if you cannot function in society at all, but there are deeper reasons too, emotional reasons.

What if, by not having your emotional needs met,

you became unable to function without what became an addiction?

Again, you probably have many stories about how you got here. That you failed. That you were not good enough. These are all just stories.

What if you are here because you were trying to live in a way you cannot live?

Take a few minutes to think about the above question.

Then, objectively speaking, what is the difference between you and the person who can live in that way you cannot live? It is my opinion that they are not stronger than you, but perhaps the reason is something like, you chose your heart more than they did.

Because people with drug addictions tend to be highly sensitive, highly empathetic human beings. I can prove my point by you, the reader. Are you a highly sensitive individual?

Do you think that it is chance that I am making the claim that drug addicts are usually sensitive people, and that you happen to be a highly sensitive person?

Let me take this a step farther. What if drug addicts are not ‘highly sensitive people’?

What if they are rational, normally sensitive people, and the ‘non-highly-sensitive’ people are actually emotionally repressed and shut down human beings.

This is to say that all people should be highly sensitive naturally, but that a majority are pressed down and shut down by their world at this time.

Can you see the world I am painting in this perspective? In this world, all people have hearts, but many of those hearts are shut down. Some people lean toward their hearts more than they lean towards the fear of others.

Then, people with drug addictions tend to be emotional beings, however emotionally impaired they believe themselves to be.

So let us say that there is nothing wrong with you, you have a heart, you're a sensitive person, an emotional being, and again, what if you're here because you were trying to live in a way you cannot live?

Let me rephrase that to put it into perspective,

what if you're here because you were trying to live in a certain way without your needs met —including emotional needs, and you were therefore unable to function?

Let me make a bold claim.

What if those living meaningless and purposeless lives are actually not okay based on this claim?

What if, no matter how normalized it seems, that purposelessness is killing and destroying and hurting the people who are living in such a way?

Unfortunately, because this is normalized, your world neither recognizes nor addresses this issue, and as such its solutions for you will not solve this problem.

Your world, —and you, being used to thinking the thoughts of your world, currently thinks in a way that is not rational. Currently, the solutions this world will offer you will not address your meaning and purpose, but will attempt to comfort you in your distress with solutions that will only agitate your problem. As this world believes that it is fine the way it is, that its normal is currently “okay”, its solution is to make your noise disappear.

Such for example, Depression is treated with drugs, while the depression exists in the heart, for reasons no drug will ever fix or repress.

It is possible that if you take your problem of not being able to live in a normal, purposeless reality to this world, this world, unable to recognize this problem, may classify that something is wrong with you for not being normal, such as it is.

Perhaps it says that you have reached a point of cognition, of consciousness, where you are capable of determining whether this is true, that it says that you are too awake or alive or human to live in a completely pointless existence,

and that you have reached a point of necessity in your existence where this issue must be addressed.

To say this again in a different way, in this text I am not saying that the cure to drug addiction is purposefulness,

but that the cause of all addiction in this modern world is correlated to purposelessness!

The first step is that you must focus on gaining purpose or meaning. Focus is the first step to anything, not just focus but a priority of your focus, the priority of your focused intention.

Do not be similar to those in the parable of the sower, when better seeds did not take root because you were distractible,

Do not make this such as one thought in your mind you considered for an hour or a day, and went back to what you were doing, when the consideration enters your consciousness, saying, "I wonder what would happen if I actually did take this seriously", wake yourself up! This text has nothing to gain from you, I will never know what became of you or what you did with this information, it is only you here in private, with the consideration of your own life and whether or not it pursues meaning and purpose as a focused intention.

Do not set this just 'up there' in your priorities, decide and commit and set this as your highest commitment until you see it through and know for yourself if it was true or not, if you were worth the commitment.

Focus on finding the answer to your meaning. Until you have meaning, what do you have?

There are many ways. The first may not require your participation. As it is known, to hit an absolute rock bottom, one may have passed through the dark night to the new day, and they may find meaning in their life. It is possible that you find meaning through surviving your own rock bottom.

To find meaning on your own, truly, you ask the question and you seek it earnestly.

This brings up truth. What is your truth? You probably believe that everyone has a truth. Even if this is true, the question is, are you living your highest truth?

One thing I have learned about those in this world, I learned that there are not men who believe in God and do not believe in God.

I learned that there are men who, in strength, are currently following the God they believe in, and men who, in weakness, temporarily are not currently following the God they believe in.

A man who is not in his strength, afflicted, he walks in darkness, unable to shine in the sun.

Even the evil man, if he is in his strength and living his truth, what problem does he have, or help does he need?

What this means is that man is either living up to his ideas and principles or is not, regardless of how righteous or corrupted those ideas are.

So are you living each moment true to your ideals? If you are, you may find meaning in this.

I do not even know that you must have purpose so much that you must have a direction and be focused on it. This means that you may be where you are because, like many, you had no direction at all.

Now, if you are in “Recovery Circles”, you may hear of all of these groups, with all of these different focuses, and you might wonder which one is for you. I believe that it is your focus in a direction that matters.

This means that I believe that the reason why these groups work is because they focus you in a direction. I believe that if you have no direction, you wither and crumble. Not all directions are good directions, but perhaps any direction is better than no direction.

You may say, “I have large goals, I have dreams”. If you are going to stand by that, then stand by that today and pursue those today. If this is so, then you have no problem.

Most say, “I don't know. I don't know what I want to do, or I don't know how to get there.”

Well, focus towards a direction does not only mean a direction toward worldly success and achievement. You can focus on a direction for your life. Surely you have been told you were selfish, surely I say there is nothing less selfish than working on your life. Your life is your world.

The more you invest in your life, the more you invest in your world. Your life starts with your wellness, your betterment, your mind, all of you.

Your self-empowerment and improvement is not the only kind of direction you can focus on.

How about the following as a focus in a direction,

Perhaps an intention to lead a life of compassion? Or to grow more compassion?

This might be what I would call a spiritual direction.

Do immaterial goals such as increased actively practiced compassion or kindness count as focusing on a direction? I believe they absolutely do and may matter more than other goals and directions.

Consider, if I say, 'I will focus on compassion as my goal', it does not sound very impactful. Practicing a little more compassion, how is that going to help me make more money? How is that going to really improve my circumstances?

But if I say, 'Compassion is my purpose.' Suddenly, this has become much larger than me. This has become much larger than many goals that seemed big, but in contrast, is there a purpose greater than compassion?

When your purpose is for larger aims, there is no end to the goal, and the goal itself will change you.

You yourself are the only person who could know what you must do to find your purpose and meaning. What matters is that you intend to pursue that search above the concerns of your world.