Addiction Recovery: A road less traveled

During the darkest hours of World War 2, England found herself all alone. Nazi Germany had knocked France out of the war and turned its focus on England. The events that followed were known as “The Blitz” (1940-1941). This was an attack on England using long-range bombers. Day and night, Nazi Germany waged a large scale assault on England. One can only imagine what it was like during that time in England. Parents sent children north to Scotland. Adults would take shelter in underground bunkers to find safety. It was at this time the prime minister of England, Winston Churchill, gave a powerful speech to rally England. Here is an excerpt from that speech: “We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guar

Finding recovery isn’t simple and it isn’t easy. It is the most worthwhile thing anyone who is addicted to anything can do. I find it interesting when people say things like, “I thought it would be easier”, “I just have to have faith and it will all be better”, and other similar comments. For each of those comments, I remind the individual that there is a lot of work in recovery and in being a disciple of Christ. In James’s epistle, he states the following: “Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.” ( James 2:17-18 ) James is very clearly teaching us that our actions and thoughts should reflect our faith in Christ. If our actions and statements do not align, there is something amiss. What does this mean for a recovering addict? It means when we say ‘I believe in Christ’, our actions should align with that statement. Our thoughts shou

One phrase my dad used always to tell me was “If you get knocked down, dust yourself off, and get back up”. To a kid, this often meant if you fall down, you get back up. To a recovering addict, getting back up if a relapse occurs. This isn’t the easiest thing to do. There is a whole shame cycle that comes from relapses. I know when I would relapse constantly, I would have regret, then anger, then resolved I would never do it again, go some time without a relapse, then relapse. It was a never-ending cycle. I tried to keep my relapses to myself, but I’m sure a lot of people saw something was off. I would try to make light of it, but I know they saw something was off. Making sure to get back up after a relapse, in my mind, has several steps to it. First, it is important to communicate a relapse has happened. This is a hard thing to do. Talking about mistakes and weaknesses is not a strength among most humans. In fact, most of us, myself included, would rather go to great lengths to hide

Growing up, I always heard my mom and dad say “it’s not good to keep up with the Jones’s”. I struggled with that comment. There was a close family we were friends with that had the last name of Jones. I didn’t understand why we were trying to keep up with them. I saw we had completely different lifestyles and traditions. We had many similar goals, but a lot of goals were vastly different. It wasn’t until later that I realized what that phrase really meant. “Keeping up with the Jones’s” is a comment that indicates an individual is trying to keep up with a different individual in worldly possessions. It suggests an individual is living their life above and beyond their means. Many people find themselves in difficult situations because they try to obtain things others have. It is evident in society today people are trying to chase things they aren’t ready for. The same underlying idea of “Keeping up with the Jones’s” can be found in addiction recovery. I remember seeing men with years a

Each decision made in life is either playing the long game or the short game. The long game is focused on long-term progress, improvement, and stability in the future. The short game is focused on immediate success, gratification, and risks stability in the future. These two games are played every day from every direction in life. Addiction teaches the individual to have their focus on the short game. The idea is to get an immediate fix and gratification. There is not a lot of thought about the future. The focus is right now, at this very moment. The thoughts about the future are only recognized after acting out, usually accompanied by shameful feelings. What happens next? Well, addiction teaches the individual if they are feeling any negative emotion to take another hit and feel better. Thus, the vicious cycle of addiction thrives when playing the short game. So, what happens when the focus goes to the long game? The individual aligns with a goal and works towards it. For the purpos

One of the most difficult things to do as an addict is to ask for help. There seems to be a wall between the addict and anyone who could help. In fact, the addict builds the wall and insulates themselves away from the rest of the world. Why? There is a shame factor to addiction. I know when my wall was still up, I would say things like “Why can’t I stop my addiction by myself?”, “I started this, I need to finish it”, and “No one is going to be willing to help me if they truly know what I have done”. All of these are real things I have said to myself. So, what changes? Why do addicts begin to ask for help? There is a common phrase addicts use to describe the darkest, loneliest place they have ever been: rock bottom. This situation is when the addict finally realizes they can’t do it by themselves and the only way to improve is to think outside themselves. Little thoughts like “Can God really help me?”, “Does God want to help me?”, “Am I worthy of God’s love?”, and “How can I feel God’s

A common phrase about faith goes like this: “Faith is believing without seeing”. I’ve always heard that phrase tied to scripture. I always struggled with this phrase's silent undercurrent of blind faith. Having to just believe then the miracle appears. I always tried to reconcile the idea of “believing without seeing” with other scriptures. For instance, the Lord makes an invitation through the prophet, Malachi. We are invited to make donations to the storehouse and see if God won’t open the windows of Heaven. ( Malachi 3:8-11 ) Things like this make sense to me. God makes an invitation, I act on the invitation, and then God blesses me for following that invitation. At that point, I see my faith grow because I see God keeping His promise as I obey. Then I listened to what Elder Joseph W. Sitati, of the Quorum of the Seventy, said: “Whenever we care to notice, we see that Heavenly Father has given us sufficient witnesses of truth to govern our lives so we will know Him and have the

 In the animated series, “The Justice League”, Wonder Woman and Batman are flying to the Fortress of Solitude to deliver birthday presents to Superman. Wonder Woman explained her gift to Batman. When Wonder Woman asked Batman what he got for Superman, Batman remained silent. Wonder Woman then said something to the effect of ‘Did you get him a gift card?’ Batman paused and replied ‘What do you get someone who has everything?’ This question of ‘what do you give someone who has everything?’ has plagued me for years. In fact, it was the cause of many relapses. I saw myself as insignificant and worthless. I looked at God, who I saw as having everything, and wondered what on Earth I could do to show my love to him. Yes, the primary answers can easily be applied here: pray, study your scriptures, be a good person, serve, go to the temple, etc. For some reason, I wanted more. I wanted some grand expression of love to show God I truly loved Him. It wasn’t until later I realized the problem wi

  Matthew 8 is a powerful chapter in the New Testament. In this chapter, the apostles are crossing a body of water with the Savior. During the crossing, two things are happening. First, there is a great storm raging during the crossing. Second, the Savior is sleeping on the ship. The apostles begin to fear looking at the storm. Driven by their fear, they wake the Savior and ask for his help. Jesus, sensing their fear, stood and calmed the storm. Then Jesus says one of the most piercing questions in the New Testament: “Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith?” ( Matthew 8:26 ) Earlier today, I began to feel a lot of anxiety in my life. I was focused on work, life struggles, money, and other things. I found myself beginning to panic and immediately tried reaching for my phone. I have found my phone is something I use to cope with anxiety. Worse yet, my wife and I were driving home. I immediately put my phone down and held my wife’s hand. The anxiety began to grow and I found that I nee

In college, I thought my career would revolve around mathematics and statistics. Looking back at my career, a great deal of it is in analytics. What has entered into my career that I didn't think would be so influential is a focus on business excellence. This methodology is an approach to analyzing a process or product, identifying a weakness, researching how to improve it, implementing the improvement, then monitoring what has been implemented to really identify the actual benefit. It's a fascinating study that requires as much business acumen as data analytics and statistics experience. During my studies of business excellence, I came across an idea that really impressed me. There are two competing forces in business excellence: improvement and control. These forces often limit the growth of the other. When a process has been identified for improvement, the team approaches the owner of the process and asks for control. The reason for this is that team needs to make an impleme

 Great mentors and leaders have a profound impact on those they interact with. One such mentor and leader would use a phrase that has stayed with me. The phrase went as follows: “Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good”. When I first heard this phrase, I was confused. I had always strived for building the perfect product or analysis. This leader explained the goal of every project was to improve the client’s outcome, not produce the ideal solution. I caught hold of this vision and began to execute against it. My work improved. My focus improved. My outcomes were better. More importantly, the clients I served started to have better outcomes. I began to see this phrase impact my life more than in the work sense. My thoughts began to turn to my addiction recovery journey. I found myself focusing on the perfect outcome. I was focused on that ‘perfect day’ when I had nailed the perfect outcome. I was so focused on finding the perfect solution that I didn’t allow myself to see the good im

  In my addiction recovery journey, I have learned the ability to pivot when I feel inspired by the Holy Ghost to do something. This ability to pivot is essential to not only addiction recovery but to life in general. A favorite example of mine in the scriptures is about the man, Gideon. A disciple of God, Gideon was called upon to lead an army against the Midianites. After gathering a powerful army, Gideon was told that he needed to reduce his force. After two trials, Gideon’s force of ten’s of thousands was reduced to 300 men. Why did the Lord reduce Gideon’s numbers? The Lord taught Gideon that he reduced the force to show that he, the Great Jehovah, was responsible for the victory. ( Judges 7 ) Being able to pivot is an act of faith and trust in Christ. I learned this the hard way many times. I recall many times in my life when I felt prompted to avoid a situation. The situation wasn’t sexual in nature but it was dangerous. He is how those situations usually played out. I would fe

In my addiction recovery journey, I have learned the ability to pivot when I feel inspired by the Holy Ghost to do something. This ability to pivot is essential to not only addiction recovery but to life in general. A favorite example of mine in the scriptures is about the man, Gideon. A disciple of God, Gideon was called upon to lead an army against the Midianites. After gathering a powerful army, Gideon was told that he needed to reduce his force. After two trials, Gideon’s force of ten’s of thousands was reduced to 300 men. Why did the Lord reduce Gideon’s numbers? The Lord taught Gideon that he reduced the force to show that he, the Great Jehovah, was responsible for the victory. ( Judges 7 ) Being able to pivot is an act of faith and trust in Christ. I learned this the hard way many times. I recall many times in my life when I felt prompted to avoid a situation. The situation wasn’t sexual in nature but it was dangerous. He is how those situations usually played out. I would feel

In Mark 12, Jesus was approached by a scribe and asked this question: “Which is the first commandment of all?” I always found this funny. Scribes were religious leaders in the old world. It feels like this question is trying to catch Jesus in a trick. Luckily for us, Jesus was not easily tricked and gave us a most beautiful answer: “The first of all the commandments  is,  Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this  is  the first commandment. And the second  is  like,  namely  this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.” ( Mark 12:28-31 ) When I think back on this interaction, I find myself asking this question: “do I love my neighbor like myself OR do I treat my neighbor better than I treat myself?” It’s an honest question that really haunted for me a long time. I have previously talked about b

  One of my favorite stories from the Old Testament is about Naaman ( 2 Kings 5 ). It is a powerful account that our faith in Jesus Christ is often shown through our simple actions. Naaman had leprosy and was commanded to bathe in the river Jordan seven times. The simpleness of the task of bathing in the river Jordan upset Naaman. In his mind, Naaman was looking for something important and powerful to do. He was taught, by a simple servant, that it wasn’t the impact of the task that mattered. It was doing what God commanded so he could be healed. Naaman went to the river Jordan, bathed seven times, and was healed. Addiction recovery has so many similarities to Naaman’s story. As an addict, I would have done any great and impossible task to find recovery. Analyzing those feelings, I realize now that my resolve was founded on pride and not faith. I wanted to bang my chest about the amazing things I had done. I wanted the glory. I wanted to be great! This attitude ultimately led me to re

 As a missionary in Oklahoma, I heard of an interaction between a fellow missionary and someone on the street. The conversation was related to faith in Jesus Christ and how it can power us to find hope and peace in this life. During this interaction, the missionary was asked, if God commanded you to move that mountain, could you do it? The missionary smiled and said yes. The missionary said he would need a shovel but knew that God would give him the power to complete the task. I have often considered this interaction and how it relates to addiction recovery. It often reminds me of the prophet Nephi and how he reacted to God’s commandment to build a ship. When Nephi received the commandment, his first response was “Lord, whither shall I go that I may find ore to molten, that I may make tools to construct the ship after the manner which thou hast shown unto me?” ( 1 Nephi 17:9 ) Nephi didn’t look at his own physical constraints as a problem. Nephi knew that if God had commanded him to b

 One of my favorite invitations from the Savior, Jesus Christ, is this: “ C ome unto me, all  ye  that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke  is  easy, and my burden is light.” ( Matthew 11:28-30 ) For a long time, I didn’t understand what a yoke was. This limited my understanding of this invitation. So, let’s unpack this invitation. A yoke is a tool used to join large animals, usually oxen, to pull plows and carts. It is a strong material that allows the animals to push against it to move another object. In the case of large animals, in order to pull straight, the animals have to work together and be consistent. It requires the animals to trust each other as they work. This means that the animals need to be matched on strength and size to be efficient. With this in mind, let's circle back to Jesus’ invitation. The Savior invites us to yoke

  Hope and feelings of anxiety and depression As I began the journey of addiction recovery, I had a false impression that when I found recovery I wouldn’t have feelings of anxiety and depression. False impressions are like the individual who built their house on the sand. When the storms and floods came, the house was washed away. ( Matthew 7:26-27 ) I soon learned how true that analogy was. I fell into this trap so many times. I couldn’t understand why these feelings of anxiety and depression never went away. I continued to feel them even though I was working on my recovery. Here is what I realized: the feelings of anxiety and depression served two purposes. First, these feelings are trials and temptations. Just because I was working on my addiction recovery didn’t mean that God was going to remove my trials and temptations. Rather, God was going to teach me how to be resistant to trials and temptations. The words of Elder Jorge F. Zeballos from the October 2022 General Conference r