As with any life change program, you must be willing to grow and to hear As As with any life change program, you must be willing to grow and to hear things differently than you may be used to and you must be willing to start taking responsibility for and doing your full part in your recovery. You will start by paying closer attention to your responsibilities, decisions and self talk, as you quit making excuses for your past ways of thinking and living, because the past does not need excuses, it needs forgiven, by you.          

It is also time to stop hiding behind misinformation and to see that self-recovery and a better life is for all who are willing to work for it, including the first time or casual drinker who mistakenly thinks that they can be responsible drinkers, or the 20 year compulsive drinker that knows better, too the foolish new drug experimenter trying to fit in to be cool, or the chronic addict trying to get out before they are cold, it is for those who are tired of old ways of thinking and who want to see change in their lives and those who are willing to learn and grow and realize that all people need and are capable of true life change.          

If you drink, or use drugs, or just choose to live miserably, through entertaining learned negative behavioral conditions, than you need to realize that the decisions about your life that you made this morning, yesterday and over the years, has nothing to do with your next decision, your today, your recovery, or your life in the now. So stop dragging these bad decisions, bad thoughts and bad pasts around and letting them influence or oppress your good decisions, as it is time to realize that the past is like an ice cube sitting in the desert; it disappears fast and is gone forever.  Now you can start digging for it, you can drag its memory around and can complain about it all day long, but it is not coming back, you cannot change it and it will never do anything more for you, so do not bury it to be dug up again later, learn from it, forgive it and throw it away, to melt away and be gone forever.

You must learn to make your next decisions wisely, regardless of the past, as you are now looking forwards, not backwards and you must let your past melt away within self forgiveness, as it is time to see that torturing yourself will not fix the past, nor help the now. So make amends when feasible, but not at the expense of harming your now life, as now is the time to heal, forgive and stop dragging any hard times around with you.          

You do not have to wait until you cannot stand anymore pain to make the decision to change directions, stand up and face what is ahead. It becomes a matter of realizing that the mind thrives on what you feed it, so start feeding it well and it will do well, but keep feeding it poison and it will become poisoned.

Make the decision to eliminate poisonous thinking and do not keep reaffirming, “the bad days”, bad thoughts and bad feelings, while wondering why you cannot get feeling better; because bad days are created, they do not just happen; though bad moments and bad decisions may, but dragging them around or dragging yourself through them will not help your day get better. Walk through them with the right attitude, change them if you can, dispose of them as you must and move on with your new day, which starts right now.           

Remember to continue your positive productive self-talk, as you cannot start a new day reinforcing negative thoughts and feelings and then expect the day to be a positive event, but you can take control of it and feel good through your own thought processes and decision to do so.

Change your thought processes and choose your words and attitude carefully, as it is time to start making conscious decisions about taking control of your present condition and realizing that your next decisions are the life decisions that will affect your life and continuing recovery in the now.