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Seattle, Washington James Ronin, Author "The Great Game" |
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So why do hundreds of alcoholics and addicts contact me every month? It's because they're tired of traditional
recovery methods that don't work. They're tired of people
telling them they are an "addict." They're tired of the
guilt. And they're ready for something that
works. My name is James Ronin.
Every day I receive letters from more people who've tried everything
else, and were about to give up... until they found me and tried my
method. Now they can't thank me enough. No I'm not some famous psychiatrist or hypno-therapist with some fancy new technique that will magically make you stop smoking, drinking or whatever... AND you won't see me on some infomercial. I just want to share my method with those who are ready. The internet makes that easy. Keep reading, and I'll show you exactly what to do for your situation. The first thing to do is understand what you're up against. And its more than your addiction to a particular drug or behavior. You may have become addicted to strategies that actually work against you. Here are four strategies that work against you. Which of these strategies are you trying right now? 1) The first strategy that works against you: JUST TRY HARDER! If you have tried hard to quit your addiction before and failed, then you may be experiencing the Swing Effect: Take a moment to imagine a painful and embarrassing experience caused by your addiction. And you say: "That's enough! I am
done with this! I am going to change my life before it's too You make a resolution and begin to pull away from your addiction. You try really hard, but sooner or later, gravity kicks in and you swing back to your addiction. "If I can't quit, I might as well party for all I'm worth!" You shop till you drop, or you book a gambling junket to Vegas and max out your credit cards, or you buy that chocolate cake you have been dreaming about and eat the whole thing in one sitting. At some point you are faced with the consequences of your actions. You feel sick and disgusted with yourself again. "How can I have allowed this to happen again? I can't stand being like this. I don't want to live like this anymore." Again your desire for what your life could be and your disgust for what it is pulls you back in the opposite direction again. Have you ever felt caught in the Swing Effect? Is there anything more exhausting? You never win! You keep swinging from one extreme to the other. You get sick and tired of your addiction, so you decide to stop and you swing back the other direction. But your willpower only lasts for so long, before gravity pulls you back towards your addiction again. Does it feel like the more effort you put into quitting, the harder you swing back in the opposite direction? Does it feel like your craving and desire just keeps building – growing stronger – waiting to be released? Listen carefully No matter how strong you are, if you are caught in a pattern like this - swinging back and forth will wear you down. When you feel that all your efforts to quit actually works against you that is really discouraging... Then Strategy 2 starts to look pretty good. 2) The second strategy that works against you is : "I CAN KEEP IT UNDER CONTROL." Once you have felt the pain of the Swing Effect, and the disappointment that comes with it, you naturally will try to minimize the violence of the swings. You feel like, "Why am I putting all my energy into quitting? It's obviously not working! I will put my effort into just keeping it under control. " You try to keep the Swing Effect within narrower limits you can live with. You try to manage out the Wildest Swings and keep your life together.You try and make a truce with your addiction. When you use this strategy you are likely to hide your behavior from your spouse, your kids, your boss, and the neighbors because you measure your success by how much you appear in control. But with this strategy you will often feel like you are somehow giving up on yourself. You may not be going overboard on your addiction, but it still seems like you're losing what is most important to you. You begin to accept that you'll never have the life you really want. You may even start telling yourself that you don't need or want a great life - you begin to settle for the limited pleasures of your addiction. The harder you work at keeping your addiction hidden or "under control," the more you feel the essence of who you are - is slipping away. 3) The third strategy that works against you is: "I AM POWERLESS." Many recovery programs begin by getting you to agree that you are "powerless" over your addiction. And if you have been losing with the first two strategies -- if you have been unable to stop or control your addiction, then it is very easy to buy into the belief that you are indeed powerless to do so. If you resist accepting the belief that you are powerless - you are often told that you are in denial. If you don't want to "surrender to a higher power" - you are often told how selfish you are. Now your experience may have been completely different…But let me ask you this: Have you felt that accepting yourself as powerless and surrendering has been the condition of you moving forward in a program – the price of admission even? Some of these "experts" actually want you take on the life-long label of "addict" or "alcoholic!" As if that is who you are! (It isn't!) If seeing yourself as a powerless victim to your addiction is what you really want, then this strategy works great! But do you really want that? I don't think so. I think what you really want is to experience yourself as powerful. You naturally want to see yourself as the hero in your own great comeback story…and go on to create the life of your dreams. So... Never give up your power Don't just say "No" to your addiction. Say "No" to giving up your power! There are ways to overcome your addiction without surrendering. I want you to feel the rewards of being your own hero. I want you to know that you are in fact, not powerless. You really are Powerful, and you really can Create the Life that you want and deserve. But not if you're using poor strategies. The fourth strategy, that people sometimes try, takes ALL of their power away! 4) The fourth strategy that works against you is: " I SUFFER FROM THE DISEASE OF ADDICTION." Often, the belief that you suffer from a disease can seem like a great relief when you are exhausted from using strategies that don't work. It can seem like a life-line when you feel like you're drowning in a sea frustration, confusion, guilt, shame and disappointment. If you believe your addiction is a disease, you can stop blaming yourself as much and get a little relief from the guilt and shame. If you are a victim of a disease then at least it's not YOUR fault. You can also be accepted in support groups that also believe that addiction is a disease. So this strategy succeeds in making you feel less guilty, and more supported. The problem is that once you convince yourself and the people in your life that you are a victim with a disease, then you never see yourself as "normal" again. You see yourself as somehow broken. These days, it seems that everything is being a called a "disease". Addiction can cause a lot of problems, some of them with severe medical consequences that require treatment. But addiction is not a disease. Addiction is a TRAP you fall into when you make a habit of giving up your power for feelings of comfort. Addiction is a trap you fall into when you begin to compromise what is most important to you in life and settle for strategies that provide short-term relief from the pain of giving up your most precious dreams. You Don't Have To Take
On The Label of "Addict" or "Alcoholic" How can you possibly win with this strategy? Or with ANY of the above strategies! Using these types of strategies is like playing a game where you can't really win, because deep down you feel like you are still losing. Aren't you tired of playing losing games?
Four Things You Can 1. STOP PRESSURING YOURSELF. Stop getting mad at yourself Stop trying to force yourself to quit. If you are trying to quit in order to live up to someone else's idea of what you should do, then at some level you will also rebel and sabotage your own progress. The harder you try to conform, the more you will feel the need to resist - in order to balance out the scales. How many times have you felt that resistance building up in your gut when somebody close to you tells you what you "should" be doing about your addiction? That's even true when YOU are Trying To Discipline Yourself, often using the very same words and negative techniques used on you when you were growing up. It's as if you stride to the center of your own mind and say to all your competing desires and drives, "All right, there's a new sheriff in town...and what I say goes!" What feelings come up for you when you take on that role: Harshness, Coldness, Anger, Disgust, even Self-hatred? The more you take on the role of Sheriff, the more your inner Rebel will be empowered to righteously battle against the injustice of your (or anyone else's) iron discipline. We all have a little bit of rebel in us - that's healthy, you can use that spirit to help you get free. But to win over your Rebel Heart, that part of you must feel that this new possibility is the ultimate expression of your loving-kindness toward yourself and not some straight-jacket method of coercion. If you try to force it, you become the enemy of your own Rebel Heart - the part of you that still yearns to be truly free and whole. Give yourself credit, there is a part of you that would rather die...than submit to outside pressure. What if you could begin a new journey where you felt free maybe for the first time in your life, to choose for yourself the way you want to go in life. What would that be like?
2. ACCEPT WHERE YOU ARE... AND WHO YOU ARE... NOW. Accept where you are at this point in your life. Be honest with yourself about your situation without judging yourself. There is a habit that is not serving you, it is costing you more than you want to pay. It's time for a change, right? OK, now once you've accepted your situation, you're ready for the next step, which is...
3. FACE THE CHALLENGE. Freeing yourself from your addiction is nothing to make a quick decision about. Most people who try to "quit," make the decision without really understanding the challenge that lies before them.
People unknowingly train themselves to settle for passive, momentary pleasures over actively pursuing what is most important to them. The risk of falling short of your dream, and what people might say (and what you might say) about you is very uncomfortable. Telling themselves they are going to quit can be just a way to make themselves feel better about their situation. It's not something they really are committed to. Not really. So, of course, as soon as the going gets a little tough, they go right back to their addiction. They never really Faced The Challenge. They don't really want to climb the mountain. But the mountain of challenge is where all the real juice of life is hiding! It's where all the joy and the passion and the meaning and purpose in life are hiding!
You can choose to become a master climber which means: You expect to stumble. You don't give up when you stumble. You learn from it. You get back up, and keep going. That's how you become a master mountain climber. The only way to master any skill or art is to be FREE to experiment and make mistakes. You build your skill and confidence by trial and error. But in recovery, any stumble only reinforces the belief that addiction is an incurable disease that can only be treated by going to meetings for the rest of your life. Don't "try to quit" anything. Don't be obsessed with trying to "never" fall down again. Because if falling down means your losing, you are more likely to give up in discouragement. Instead, build the life skills that will naturally squeeze addictive behaviors out of your life. Commit yourself to becoming a powerful, master mountain climber--climbing this mountain called LIFE. As you begin to seek out new challenges, your sense of power and confidence will naturally grow - like when you learn any new skill. You really can do this! If you slip or stumble, you don't have to tumble all the way back down the mountain. Just get back up, honestly look at what happened, look for an improvement in your strategy and move on. You simply begin to use every experience to accelerate your progress on the path to mastery. Your life is no longer about just stopping your addiction. Your life becomes a true hero's journey - an epic tale that is a source of inspiration for you and others. 4. FEEL THE FORCE. You know how guilt feels right? How about shame? These are feelings we are intimately familiar with, and for good reason...they were programmed into us by parents, teachers, priests, ministers etc. as tools to control our behavior. But answer me this what feeling is the opposite of guilt and shame? Think about how deep and dark the feelings of guilt and shame can be. Think of the lives twisted and destroyed by those feelings. Guilt and shame are destructive tools meant to control and guide your actions. What besides guilt and shame make up that thing called your conscience? A conscience is supposed to help you tell right from wrong. Does yours only activate on the negative, like a fire alarm? Are you like most people - with only half a conscience? Imagine a navigational computer on board a 747 airplane. Unfortunately for the passengers, this guidance system only tells the plane where it "shouldn't" go. How would you like to fly on that plane? Isn't there a positive emotion (at least as powerful as guilt and shame) that you can use to effectively guide your actions? You might think of love right? And no one can deny that love as an emotion is powerful. But love is primarily about affection and relationship. I am talking about a feeling that is completely yours, stronger than guilt, based on your own values, a feeling that can fill up the empty half of your conscience, AND reliably guide you to fulfill your destiny. And if that feeling isn't on the tip of your tongue right now... why do you think that is? Amazing isn't it? You would think that if we wanted children to grow up learning to guide themselves effectively we would educate them in how to use the most powerful feeling on the planet, right? But people who learn to use this feeling as a self-guidance tool can no longer be controlled by anyone or anything. That's a pretty dangerous, revolutionary feeling - no wonder its not widely taught anymore.
It is an ancient feeling...
This feeling is a primordial force in human consciousness, and in human history... This emotion is the power behind greatness - the fuel that drives heroes beyond all expectations... And it is your absolute birth-right. Why were you not taught to guide yourself through life by using it? This emotion has been largely forgotten, but ancient warriors in every culture knew its power. They knew the power of: It is the deepest sense of love and respect for yourself. It can come as an intense rush, kind of like feeling “in the Spirit." Or HONOR can be a deep wave of inner peace that calms you from deep within. Sometimes it feels like a righteous rage that comes when you know you deserve to win. Let HONOR be your inner guide and your life will never be the same. The feeling of HONOR can overcome and replace anxiety, doubt, fear, shame and guilt. It really is that powerful. You just weren't taught to use it. It's time to learn how to feel this feeling and lead your life by it from moment to moment. Imagine using this "natural drug" called HONOR to give you that deepest sense of purpose and inner peace.
You can use this natural drug to ignite the fire in your soul right now. You can use it to fuel your spirit everyday to take back your life, your health, your family, your financial future. HONOR comes from facing your challenges head-on, like a warrior. It is a force that continues to build within you as you begin, right now, to take a stand for your life, and for what is most important to you. What are the most important things to you? What above all: love, adventure, faith, beauty, nature, community, justice, peace, enlightenment, knowledge, passion, puppies, family, business, creativity, impacting the world, raising your children to be truly happy and strong... What is it for you? What are the values that are the most powerfully attractive to you? Whatever they are - the more that you take action in line with those values, the more honor you can generate, and experience... every single day. You don't have to give up pleasure to let go of your addiction. As simple as it seems, it works.
These simple
strategies I know, because these strategies and others are working for all kinds of people just like you. Your Situation Is Not Unique More importantly – Your Situation Is NOT Hopeless. The strategies I use have been developed over years and years of successfully working with people in all kinds of situations and circumstances. You are more than your addiction. You are much more than this problem you are struggling with. In fact, recognizing that you have a problem, rather than thinking you are the problem, can be very freeing. Recognizing that you have a serious, even life-threatening, problem can mobilize all of your survival instincts. Imagine seeing your addiction as a dangerous tiger crouching silently in the tall grass 30 feet away. See the tiger and feel your energy rising to counter the threat to your life. Now try to mobilize your forces while seeing yourself as the problem. Feel any energy rising to the challenge? I didn't think so. Lance Armstrong saw the tiger threatening his life when he learned he had cancer. His bicycling career ended, he lost all of his sponsors. Everybody thought he was finished. He could have easily quit. But he set his sights on winning the Tour De France bicycle race - the most physically demanding sports challenge on earth. And he just won his sixth championship in a row! You are not the problem. You are the solution! Don't set your sights lower in life because of your challenge. Heroes are the ones who come back when everyone counted them out. Has anyone counted you out? Let that fuel your rise, like Lance did.
Now there are two levels of addiction you have at the same time. One is the addictive behavior itself, and the other one is the addictive mindset. We get the two confused. We think we're going to stop the addictive mindset by stopping the addictive behavior. The more you try to stop your addictive behavior and actions, the more rebellious you feel. The more you use pressure, the more stress you feel, and the more you want to escape back to the addiction. Most people, professionals and non-professionals alike, think that in order to free yourself from your addiction, you have concentrate on the behavior, you have to fight it head-on. But I say that fighting the behavior head on just causes more stress to the addictive mindset. And what's the first solution that occurs to you when you want to relieve the stress...? Exactly... that old familiar, tried and true, short term solution to any stress... your addictive behavior.
You want proof Stop all of that, and watch your situation get better. Stop all of the fighting. Allow and accept, one hundred percent, whatever your thoughts, feelings and behaviors are. Where you are right now is perfectly okay. It's perfectly
okay! And watch how you begin to heal yourself and become whole again. Your reactive thoughts and feelings will weaken rapidly, because they need something to react to. You will find that you want to take more personal time to take a walk or enjoy a sunset. You will begin to value that quiet space to breathe and want to enlarge it. You will begin to cherish your freedom to just BE.
You've begun to honor
yourself. The next step is to start fighting for yourself, rather than fight against yourself. It's a different way of dealing with yourself, but it is very healthy Haven't you been divided long enough? It's time to awaken your inner warrior, your heroic spirit. Stop punishing yourself, stop trying to control yourself. It just doesn't work. Stop what doesn't work. Try something that has a chance of working. If you are currently in recovery, that's great! But hold on to your identity. You don't have to carry those labels around forever. Become a warrior for your life and values instead. Become the hero of your own life story. My e-book is called "The Great Game". It is a totally different path through your addiction. You will find that: Freeing
Yourself From Your Addiction Can Be Play the game of fighting for yourself, for your future, for your family, for your own brief and precious life here on earth. Addiction is all about giving more and more of your personal power away. Take a stand for your life right now
Begin to take your power back.
Here's How I Can Help You
I have not created this program alone. I am part of an alliance of researchers exploring the human mind. What you will discover about how your own mind works...will absolutely astound you. You will find yourself viewing the challenge of your current struggle with addiction in a totally new light. You will be both EMPOWERED and INSPIRED to burst through your addiction like never before. Say goodbye to the guilt and shame that comes with most addiction programs. This book honors you, and brings real power to your life. Join the thousands of others who are discovering this new path.
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I've just finished a new e-book
called "The Great Game: Secrets to an Addiction-Free,
Pleasure-Filled Life" that will show you how to create your
own pathway to freedom from addiction. It's different than any book
on addiction that you have ever seen.
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