If you're trying to stay clean and sober, you will probably relapse unless you've done this to prepare yourself to handle that next craving. Let me tell you a story I heard recently at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting from somebody who is both an alcoholic and a drug addict. This person told me that they were doing well on their sobriety and then they had a relapse on some drugs. To me, it looked obvious that they were going to relapse, because they were hanging around with people who drink and do drugs, and these beings, these bodies, and these minds are very social. I started drinking after I hung around a bunch of other people who were drinking and making it look great in college, and after years of being brainwashed.
What you need to do if you don't want to relapse is proactively train. Train and program your brain ahead of time to be ready to help you stay sober and clean the next time the desire to get drunk or use comes up. This person I talked to was not ready. They weren't prepared.
The Number One Thing Is Honesty
The number one thing you need to do to get prepared is get honest. They courageously shared about their relapse and were very honest about it in front of a whole meeting. They said, "I'm going to relapse right after the meeting," and all I told them was that they needed to keep doing exactly that. I asked them exactly how their relapse happened, and they said that they went to a meeting of AA and then went out and relapsed on drugs right after going to the meeting. I asked them if they shared at the meeting that they were planning to go out and use drugs right after. They said no. I said, "Why?"
All the other stuff that was said at the meeting was almost pointless. The whole meeting is there so that you can confess that you're about to do something dumb before you do it, and then you have a choice and you can go a different direction. I said, next time, all you need to do is tell on yourself and ask for help before you do it.
The Spiritual Awakening: I Am the Driver
This is where, for me, the spiritual awakening happened. The goal of working the 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the easy way to not succumb to any kind of addiction, whether it's alcohol or drugs or a behavior, is to have the spiritual awakening and realize that I'm controlling this thing. It doesn't just drag me around on a ride. I have control over it, just like I have control over my car.
My son and I were having a conversation very relevant to this, and it got some huge laughs in the meeting last night. I was talking to my son, while really I was listening to him. He's four years old and he was telling me he's been reading these encyclopedia books for kids that tell you how the body works, and he says, "And daddy, this controls that and that controls that." And his grand finale is, "And the brain controls the whole body." Then he stops, and he's done. So I say, "Son, what controls the brain?" Because I was really curious to hear what he thought. What controls the brain? He doesn't have anything to say for a minute, and then he says, "Jesus. Jesus controls our brains." I was like, "Son, they just tell you that in the Christian school you're at. Jesus does not control my brain. I am the controller, the creator. I am the spirit who controls my brain. That's me."
Yep. That's me. That's who I am. I'm not a body. I'm not a brain. I'm not a mind. I'm not a story. I am that which operates this body. It's the same as when I get in my car: I don't think I'm a car. I know that I'm the one who's driving the car. Now yes, the car has its own life to it, it has its own parts. Occasionally the car will malfunction, or I will have trouble controlling it. But I know at all times I'm the one operating and bringing life and moving that car.
For this body, the spiritual awakening is knowing that I decide where we go. It doesn't matter if my brain wants to drink, or if my brain wants to use drugs, or if my brain wants to engage in some harmful sexual behavior, or if my brain wants to eat endless food. It doesn't matter what it wants to do. I make the decisions. And if you really want to prevent the next relapse, for me, it's very effective to have a spiritual awakening. That's what the goal of the Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and many other 12 Step Fellowships is: to reclaim your power. Because if you don't know that there's anything more to you than just a brain and your story and your body, then it's like you're powerless. You're just getting dragged around by everybody else who is actually making decisions and operating their brain and their body, rather than just being dragged along by it.
Honesty Is the Key That Unlocks the Door
The way that I've found, that we've found in recovery, is that the gateway, the key that unlocks the door to a spiritual experience, is honesty. To share what my inner world looks like. To share my feelings, my thoughts. And from there, I'm able to connect with other people. From there, I'm able to realize that I can reprogram my mind. Through my actions, I can reprogram my mind. My actions will generate my thoughts and my feelings.
When I was about 90 days sober, I had the delusion, just a few days before, that I would never obsess over a drink again. That I'd gone to AA, that I made the decision to change my life, and that I would never want to drink again. And when the obsession to drink suddenly filled my mind and my body, I was devastated and scared. Like, oh my God. I thought this would never happen again. This must mean I'm hopeless. This is when lots of people relapse. When that obsession comes back, the hopelessness sets in: wow, I'm going to AA, working this program, and I still want to drink. And that's when I started praying.
Prayer is a very good tool to tap into yourself as a higher power. In my experience, I don't need some God that's theoretical. I need to remember who I am, that I am a higher power, and that I'm here because of my choices. My brain works the way it does because of my previous choices, and then I have a choice in where I go in the future. It doesn't matter what I'm thinking about. However, if I want things to be easier, it helps, because it is miserable when the mind and the body have been programmed and all want to do one thing, and I am in here deciding that I want to do something else.
Reprogramming Takes Time
After 11 years of programming my mind and my body to drink, my mind and my body automatically drank. I didn't have to suggest taking a drink. It just drank. And then when I'm saying, "No, we're not going to drink anymore," the mind is still saying, "I'm going to drink. I'm going to drink again." The body and the mind don't instantaneously change directions. It takes time to reprogram. That's where things like Alcoholics Anonymous are very helpful to reprogram the brain, because we got our programming through other people. To drink, we learned from other people how to drink and use drugs, and from movies and advertisements. Those things were the programming we accepted.
For me to never have to relapse again, all I need to do is accept new programming and then keep staying on top of that spiritual experience of who I am. Because just like one can get sober and change their life and reprogram, to stay sober the opposite can happen, which is what happened to me in college. This is why I consistently see people relapse if they don't get rid of people in their life who are still drinking, using drugs, and in the middle of all these addictive behaviors. These bodies are social, these minds are social, and when you see somebody else doing something, it's likely to create a desire within you to do that same thing.
This person who just relapsed, it was a sad, heartbreaking story, and I'm so glad they came back to share it. They got in significant amounts of legal trouble, and I could see that they were very likely to relapse because they were out at the bars, hanging out with people drinking and using drugs. I don't hang out with people at bars. I keep people who are drinking and using drugs as far away from me as I can, even family members and friends. I set boundaries, and I even let people go. I try not to talk to people while they're drunk in any situation, even if it's on the phone. If I know someone I love who is a drunk, I try to find times to talk to them when they're sober, or when they've just had a beer or two, and not when they've had 15. I set my entire life up around being sober, and it's through actions that I've been able to stay sober for over nine years.
Prayers Are Instructions to My Mind
I was able to get through that craving and not relapse because the actions I took were to pray. At the time it helped me to say, "Please God, I'll do anything to stay sober." Now I just say to myself, as I am God consciousness, "I intend to stay sober. I will do whatever it takes to stay sober." Prayers are instructions to my mind. Ultimately, I hear a lot of people in AA talking about how their mind is their worst enemy, that their mind is a dangerous place, that they shouldn't be up there by themselves. That's crap. Your mind is neutral. It's not good, it's not bad. The mind, just like the body, simply does what it's been programmed to do, what it's expected to do, and what it's asked to do.
If I've asked my mind for 11 years to figure out ways I can drink and get away with it, then it tries to present me more of the same. But once I got sober and I started asking my mind to show me how to stay sober, initially there was resistance getting through that old programming and rewriting the old code. Now my mind shows me how to stay sober by default. It's just like when I learned to drive a car. It was scary, it was new, and it was a struggle to try to make the car go where I wanted it to. Now the car easily goes where I want it to, and I don't even have to think about it. I just get in my car and I think, "Drive me to yoga," and I just end up at yoga. Now, I do pay attention to the road, and I intend to arrive where I'm going safely, but my mind and my body can drive automatically without me, as a higher power, intervening. They know how to do it.
I've had Alcoholics Anonymous meetings help reprogram my mind and body to stay sober, along with reading the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, the Twelve and Twelve, Living Sober, all kinds of other AA literature, and all kinds of books generally.
The same advice from every corner of life
I've noticed a consistent theme across a lot of self help books, and even in books by celebrities talking through their lives. It's amazing how many different people offer the same advice: if you want to reach your highest potential, do not drink, do not smoke, and do not do other things like drugs that destroy your health. I was listening to a book about a girl who escaped North Korea, and it was talking about how one of the human traffickers who was managing prostitutes was advising the prostitutes not to drink, use drugs, or smoke. The book is called In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park, and it was really good. So in there you've got a guy human trafficking prostitutes who's encouraging them not to drink and smoke so they can stay in better health and produce more income for him.
Then you listen to Curtis Jackson's book, aka 50 Cent, Hustle Harder, Hustle Smarter. Even though he's done all these songs about drinking and drugs, and has taken all these sponsorships from alcohol companies, he says in the book that you want to limit, or better yet abstain from, alcohol and drugs, including marijuana. His reference in the book was this: what if you get some opportunity of a lifetime? You're a rapper, and Dr. Dre ends up coming into the studio you're in that day, and you're all half baked or liquored up and you can't really perform at your best. You just blew that opportunity.
It seems to me that most people who are successful, who are healthy, who have the things you'd want to have, know that you don't use alcohol and drugs. Especially if you've ever had any kind of history with addiction, in my experience totally abstaining is the only way to go. Once you realize it, you see that not only does not everyone drink, but most people who have the kind of life you'd want to have don't drink or use drugs or smoke. We take great care of ourselves. We eat mostly a whole plant based diet.
What the people at the top actually do
It's amazing when I talk to other YouTubers. These are the people I talk to, people who make lots of money, who have huge followings and influence, and guess what? Most of the time they either don't drink, or they very much limit their alcohol intake. They're not controlling it like some alcoholic every day trying to draw lines on a bottle. They don't hardly think about it or engage with alcohol. It means nothing to them, and maybe occasionally they'll have a drink or two.
That's how my wife is. She's what alcoholics think of as a normal person. She doesn't care about alcohol. It's meaningless to her. If she doesn't care about alcohol and her friends are drinking, maybe she'll have a drink, once a week at most, or once or twice a month, and normally a drink, maybe two or three if she's getting absolutely crazy, and then she regrets it, and that only happens every few years. In my experience, alcohol, drugs, eating outside of a whole plant based diet, and hanging around people who are doing these things will often take your entire energy level and your life downhill. That's exactly what I found.
Get ready for the tests
So I want you today to be prepared. A lot of newcomers, like I did, think that as soon as you go to AA, it's cured. No, you need to get ready and be prepared, because the way I see it, life offers a lot of tests. When you get sober, or you try to get clean and change your life, you're often going to be presented with a lot of tests that will try to take you right back to where you were before. If you aren't prepared for those tests, just like in school, you'll struggle. I did very well in school because I prepared for tests. I knew what was coming and I got ready for it.
So I've shared this with the hope that you can know what's coming. Getting sober and getting free from drugs is much easier than drinking and using drugs, but it's a new kind of challenge. It's one that you have to study for and get ready for, or you can suffer the pain of relapsing, potentially rack up some new criminal charges, lose your family, and have a miserable life. To me it doesn't seem like a choice. Where's the choice? I can have a great life, I just need to study and get ready for the trials ahead, or I can have this miserable, painful existence that sucks.
That's why I carry the message every day. The final thing is: carry the message and keep helping others. I'm sober more than nine years now because I'm constantly carrying this message in everything I do, to everyone, everywhere, however I can. If you want to keep going deeper with me on this, the best way to work with me today is to join the Jerry Banfield Family, where we walk through this together. You can also follow along with more of the story in my Life playlist.
I really appreciate you being one of the few to make it all the way to the end of this, or to listen to it all the way through. Thank you for being here, and I hope you carry the message too.