Treatment of addiction

As many of you may already know I am an addict in the process of recovery. I spent more then my share of years stuck in the grips, lost in the haze of active addiction. When I finally came to the point of surrender, I was fortunate enough to have resources available to me in order to take the initial steps in getting clean.

I had prior experience in relation to what service were available to me, so the process of finding help was not a difficult one. But I was lucky, for others this is not the case. I am often asked by people with drug abuse problems, as well as people effected by other peoples addiction problems about how to effectively approach finding a solution that works. My experience is that many people do not know how to find the help they may need or how to help someone who might require drug treatment for a substance abuse problem.

In the initial stages of treating different substance abuse problems there are a multitude of options one can choose from. But without the proper information as times this can become a hindrance in finding the help that is needed. There are many different facets in the process of drug rehabilitation that one must be aware of in order to effective begin the recovery process.

A person looking for treatment may not understand the many types of options available. For some a long or short term inpatient drug rehab may be the solution and for others choosing between a detox, outpatient or cognitive behavior therapy might be the factor that makes the difference in how successful the recovery process potentially can be.

I know how important it is to remember that many abuse issues that surround the use of drugs all have the common thread of addiction weaved through it, but that different people respond differently to the many types of treatment.

Although it is difficult to see that when enmeshed within the cycles of addiction, for many addiction is a life or death issue. People die each day and will continue to die because they are not aware of the help that is available to them if they seek it out.

The Internet offers many of the best vehicles to discover the many different treatment options and many of these services are free organizations that provide a wealth of information in regards to the available services to treat drug addictions.

A site that I refer to regularly is 1-800NoDrugs , it is a non-profit drug referral service that that provides the necessary information one would need in order to make a sound decision as to what type of treatment they may choose to participate within. They have people available 24 hours a day to specifically help those seeking treatment for their drug problems.

I know how many people I have seen die because of drug addiction and I also know that if they had the proper information available with the understanding that there are free services that would help them...maybe they could of found the help that could have saved their life.

Mental Sketches

When I started thinking about creating a home without the constraints of money to whittle away the bigger picture, I came to realize how limited my thoughts have been in relation to ideas.

In some areas my mind is so free to think outside the so called "box", but in regards to money and things I equate with money.....those areas of my beliefs have been trained to stick with what is known.

I find it difficult to think outside the experiences of what I already know.
I find that my imagination struggles to create more then I know.

But I'm practicing.

I started filling a notebook with all the aspects I would like to include into this house I am creating.....geez who would of ever though there was so much in a house.

Bedrooms.
Kitchen.
Bathroom.
Living room.
Closets.
Hallways.
Stairways.
Work areas.

I'm sure there is more that I will add to the list as time goes on, but for now just the few aspects I have written about are stretching my mind past it's current limits. When I really, really think hard and feel my way round what I want at times it's still hard to create a mental picture.

Because these are just ideas, not specifics.

I started to look through various magazines and such that relate to homes and house plans, just trying to get a few new ideas on what houses look like. What I mean with that is that I have a preconceived notion in regards to layouts of homes, based upon the experiences of being in different homes.

But I want to stretch past that.

There are a few aspects of myself that are helping me with this creative endeavor to create something from essential nothing. I know that when I start out creating a piece of artwork for myself or someone else, it starts with an idea....

I create a few sketches.
I start playing with colors.
Add in my own perspective.
Fill in details.

Step by step I use the creative process to make something come forth from within my mind and translate it into a visual picture. Without my mind and the process that accompanies it....the pictures I create would not exist.

So there is something to be said about the power of thoughts.

I have the inner knowledge of the creation process within me....I know this because I have the works of art that I have created through out my life. This process is very similar to that in respect that I am currently mentally sketching in my mind the idea that I would like to have created upon the canvas of my life....

Playing with ideas.
Adding in my own twist.
Discovering all the directions this can go in......

Realizing that there is no limits within the mind unless I allow them.

Day 2 ... When it began

I have been thinking lately about when I actually started to measure my desires of what I wanted in life through the measurement of money.

When did I stop thinking I could have whatever I wanted?
When did I start thinking I can't afford that?
What idea was planted within me that stopped my train of thoughts from expanding?

When I was a little girl I did not pick and choose the experiences of my life through the lens of money. I did not limit what I wanted or desired based upon the idea of if I could afford it or not. But somewhere along the line, when I began to observe the interaction of money as a trade off of sorts, did the idea that "I can't afford that" begin to play it's now familiar tune in my mind.

But if I had the capacity and ability to think beyond the idea of money as a limitations of sorts, I know that it inherently still exists within me. If I look within I can begin to peel away the layers of observations and ideas that have constructed the beliefs I hold about money and I can begin again from that place where I knew and believed firmly that......

In some way, shape, or form...whatever I desired would come to me.

Because in truth there is more then one way to achieve material desires besides trading money for them. I forgot this as I grew older and I allowed my experiences of this aspect shrink into the confines of my salary and budget and did not allow other ideas to play in my mind.

I lost the principle of hope embedded within the framework of "What if?"

One by one, item by item, experience by experience I stopped thinking in terms of what I would like to have and started thinking in terms of what I could afford. Through the years this line of thinking slowly whittled away the idea of anything more than what I had. It actually suppressed my natural ability to dream in the realm of possibilities.

I have been working through these "wrong" ideas about money for a bit of time now and am always pleasantly surprised when I discover how I have been thinking myself into a state of "have" or "have not" because of my beliefs.

When I started thinking about living back out on my own again, I kept running into a wall of ideas and thoughts that screamed in my mind....

"You can afford that."
"Too expensive."
"Settle for something small"
"You don't make enough money."
"How will you afford that"

These thoughts, a steel door that slams down on the possibilities of anything more then I have now. But thoughts that were allowed to roam freely were one's of....

"You ONLY can afford, if even..."
"If you work X amount of hours for X amount of time then you can afford X"

Not a lot of room to explore possibilities and allow my imagination to roam free.
Not much more to see then what I already know.
Not much room to expand in a place of confined thought.

These same thoughts now define, shape and create the actual reality I dwell in....

But I have a choice....and if I change how I think in terms of what I want...will these thoughts again begin to redefine, re-shape and re-create the reality I will dwell in???

What if I could have whatever I wanted without one thought of money getting in the way?
What possibilities could I dream?
What reality could I shape?

Until tomorrow,
Mighty Morgan

Smorty

Well I signed this blog up for Smorty! For those of you who are unfamiliar with the service here's a quick breakdown.....

Smorty is a service connecting advertisers with bloggers.
Advertisers can pay bloggers to write opinion posts with links back to the advertisers site.

But it also offers an opportunity for advertisers to latch onto some very quality inbound links from all over the Internet...another form of blog advertising made easy!

It has it's similarities to other paid to blog services abound throughout the Internet that offers bloggers to get paid to blog. For me I have found that it is much easier to navigate and use then some of the other services. I signed up my other self hosted site for use with their services when I had only been posting for a little over a month. It seems that it allows newer bloggers on the Internet to sign up, where as other services may require that a certain amount of time be put into your site before being approved.

Although it's not guaranteed that every site will be approved, I did find for myself a much smoother sign up and registration process then some of the other paid to blog sites. In fact after filling out the standard "fill in the information" forms, after submitting my blog I was delighted that within 48 hours I had a decision. (They stated it would take at least 72 hours…so what a bonus!!) In my case...blog approval, along with the opportunities available to post.

The navigation through the site was pretty straightforward....in a nutshell I didn't get lost in a maze of different pages that lead me nowhere that I really needed to go. I find that sites that are simple and designed with navigation in mind makes the ease of use much more appealing.
When I sign into my account, all the information I need about new opportunities as well as all my account information is readily available for me to review.

I don't know where others stand in regards to getting paid to blog of services, but if this is a direction you would like to go in with your own site or if you are an advertiser that is looking for a service to promote your own site. My experience with Smorty as of this moment is one in which I would recommend!

Day One.. My Intentions

From the results that I am now living through the process of the first experiment, I have decided to kick this up a bit and go all the way out onto my own branch of uncertainty to try something very different for myself.

I write of the beliefs I have carried and the results that they have produced in my life. I also write about my willingness to embrace new beliefs that offer better results....that offer me the chance to create the world I choose to live in and not be subject to live a life drowning in the default hopes and misplaced dreams of others.

I learned that this is a world of action based results.

But my experience tells me that this is not correct, because the results I achieved through my actions have at best been mediocre in comparison to the effort I put forth.

There are specific situations and circumstances in my life that came about when I followed my heart and my emotions. When I did not adhere to the ideas and beliefs that have been shoved down my throat since childhood, when I opened my mind life seemed to just open itself wide to offer an amazing buffet of opportunities.

None of these started with any type of action...just possibilities and the thought of ....

"What if?"

What if I could stop doing heroin?
What if I could be drug free?
What could I do if I was clean?

Possibilities prompted by a mind that was willing to open itself up.

The best results I have ever delighted in has been through this process. Wondering, dreaming, fantasizing, imagining the possibilities and feeling the freedom and joy that was made available during the process.

Many people call this process The Law of Attraction. Which states that what you think about, you bring about. Sounds sort of simply and it is...once I get the hell out of the way.

Because this way of thinking goes against the grain of everything that I have been taught. But when I actually utilize it and really apply it...amazing things occur.

Back to the experiment.

So at the present time I am living back home with the folks. If you read through my first experiment then you know that at the beginning of that experiment I was on my way to being homeless, but was offered the opportunity to come and live at my parents home until I got my head back together.

Now I enjoy my family and I am very, very grateful that they have offered me the opportunity to live here and to work on my writing.....but I miss having my own place. I miss my privacy and I miss the freedom of living on my own.

Now in the interim I have been working part time and doing the typical thing of saving money to eventually move out. But the other day I started thinking how that is exactly the same thing I always did...work to get menial results.

I started to see that I was limiting my capacity to see any possibilities around the concept of money or the "lack of". So I began thinking what if money was not an issue or a limitation, what if I could live anywhere I wanted, in any place I wanted, design a home any way I wanted, purchase anything I desired without thought to money.....

What would I create?

I certainly wouldn't be thinking of creating a small one bedroom apartment in someone's basement. I would create something beautiful. So my intention is NOT to save money and simply move into a place I can afford...but to ponder the equation backwards.

Create where I want to live with no limitations and discover if the universe will bring it into my experience.

Just the process itself feels a whole lot more empowering then thinking in a few months I will move into a small apartment all my own. It feels a lot better to think outside the constraints that the idea of money presents.

I know that whenever I set forth to begin something a whole new world becomes revealed so I think that if anything this could get interesting...not only for me but for you as well!

Until Tomorrow,
Mighty Morgan

A New Experiment

Now that I have a self-hosted blog I've been pondering what to do with this site and for the most part I have not done much with it. When I was offered a new site, sponsored by someone I grabbed that opportunity and passed this one onto someone else.

Initially I had the hope that other people would want to follow in the footsteps of this experiment much as the last author Soul Dancer did. But found out that wasn't going to be the case. So after posting some duplicate content of my own for the past few weeks, a new idea popped into my head today.

Start another experiment.

This site is where this entire journey began and it was here that I worked out some of my deeper misconstrued ideas about life, my beliefs and myself. Through my acceptance and surrender to a new way of life and desire for a new experience within this life, the begining of the journey was here. This is where I set forth so many of my intentions about what I wanted in this experience of my life.

This in a weird twist of understanding this became a planting field for the aspects of my life I felt I never embraced.

The original experiment was very broad but not so specific. I wanted to change my life in such a drastic way that it could only be described as miracle, by myself as well as others. I would say that the conditions of my life at this moment in time, by far exemplify the intention I set forth in order to change my life. And the changes that I wanted to see have in their own way manifested.

So I have the inner workings and proof, for myself, that within me is a force that has the capacity to create more then I have permitted myself to experience in my life so far. Now I want to see how much further I can push it.

What else can I accomplish?
What else can I conceive of?
What other limitations can I surpass?

I am a firm believer that I am the master of my own life....except that I am missing some key and integral bits of information in the actual process of "mastering" my life. But I do know that the more I look within, the more I listen to the voice within, the more I follow my heart and my gut....

The more that is revealed.

So now that I have decided the direction I want to go in....now all I have to decide is what I will choose to manifest in my experience and harness the creative forces within to have "it" manifest upon this canvas of my life.


Until Tomorrow,
Mighty Morgan

Best Online Casinos

Mother nature has officially declared that the cold, bitter days of winter are on it's way into the New York area. With that in mind many of my friends and I have been begrudgingly shoved into the warmth of our homes.

The one thing that we all have in common is card games and gambling....we'll they do anyway.

I myself am clueless...poker....blackjack....spades. For all I know they are speaking a foreign language. My knowledge in the area of card games and gambling is "Go Fish"....if that even qualifies!

So instead of admitting my apparent lack of knowledge in these areas I decided to "school" myself in the various types of gambling games that are actually around by taking a quick tour around the internet

Wow...there's a lot of stuff, a lot of rules and more stuff that just reeks of someone wanting to take my money! A multitude of information that is very misleading and leads me to think that something fishy is up.

I wanted to find a safe type of site tat provided information that wouldn't try to suck me into playing games or signing up for things I wasn't sure of. So after searching for a bit I came across this particular website called top us online casinos

This was more of an informational site that basically it offers more of a free guide to assist US Players find safe and fun online gambling destinations. This is what I desperately needed in my search for the information I was looking for.

It has a listing of particular casinos by rank as well as reviews submitted by other users, some of whom are pro' poker and blackjack players! You can easily preview the reviews before visiting the particular site. Overall the site was easily to navigate and very straight forward with a clean layout, no pop ups or banners flashing in your face to cause a distraction. And with each link followed a new window opens up so you don't get lost in a maze of sorts.

For those of you who are looking for something like this, if you want to check it out here's the link top us online casinos

Graham Crackers and Milk

It was a little corner wing of a hospital where I stayed in my last and final detox. The walls painted in a creamy peach brown mix. Clean, sanitized and locked away from the rest of the hospital.

Safe from the world and safe from ourselves…for at least a few moments in time.

The windows were screwed shut and all we could do was to look down at the world. Watching as the people below rushed back and forth to the here’s and there’s of their lives, while we each went through our own individual hellish nightmares of the detox process.

Read More of this Post.......

Hope

Tiny bubbles dancing in the wind, bursting with the vibrant colors of wonder, splendor and awe. Painting upon the canvas of our lives the infinite possibilities of our dreams.

Hope has been the fuel that has allowed me to persistently strive to change my life, improve myself and to be more then the very limits I have experienced.

Even when I was caught within the grips of my addiction, there was always that little something inside that whispered to me……that there was more.

More then the hopeless state I existed in.
More then a life chasing after the next one.
More than a life lived wasting away in the cesspool of addiction.

When the moment presented itself; that place within me of wanting, dreaming and wonder, allowed me to step onto the path that would lead me from the life of addiction I had lived for so long to a life I had forgotten was possible.

Hope paved my way to freedom.

Read More of this Post......

Acceptance

My word for today is:

Only when one can truly experience the moment through the eyes of acceptance. The path of change that leads to healing will never be seen, nor can it be traveled.

I held a solid 4.0 grade point average studying Anatomy and Physiology I & II, Calculus, Physics as well as other classes.

I worked as a home health aid caring for a 78 year old woman recovering from congestive heart failure as well as a broken hip.

I was one of twenty students chosen to study within the Physical Therapist Program.

I was listed on the Honor roll as well as the Dean’s list.

But beneath these pretty little decorations I adorned myself with..I was a full time lying, thieving, stone cold heroin addict.

I thought I hid the “other” part of my life from those around me…..but I was the only one who couldn’t see the truth that I desperately tried to camouflage beneath my academic accomplishments and care taking responsibilities..

Read more of this Post.....

Surrender

My word for today:

Surrender to win.

Give up, let go, relinquish control and feel the true essence of powerlessness. Within the the depths of inner surrender comes the greatest power of self-freedom one can ever experience.

I grew up with a lot of preconceived notions about the meanings of many words. It never occurred for me to look any further then the various vowels and consonants words were composed of or the limited meanings I held of them within my conscious mind. I never looked beneath their subtle disguise to embrace the greater truth they held within them….

To grasp the potential power they held within them.

The idea of surrender went against the grain of my being that demanded that I never give up, never relinquish control, never let em’ see me sweat and never ever, ever admit to defeat. I spent a lot of time hiding behind the masks of self-control that I wore on a daily basis, lost in the idea that if I could just convince the world at large that I was okay, then I would be okay……..but I wasn’t.

I was a big emotional cesspool…toxic to myself and toxic to others.

Read more of this post.....

Day 30 ... Arms wide open

My last day - I have spanned my month of fame long enough. Being someone who has always followed the rules..............I asked my friend, "what do I do if I want to keep writing?"

DUH - I KEEP WRITING!!!!

And so I will. Having worked on my book for a while, I think I need to take some real time to develop an action plan. I thought I would share the title of my book with you all.

Marry Me Justin, or if not How About an Affair? A 30 Year Old's Journey to Inner and Outer Beauty

Are you hooked? I am trying to get to triple digit pages. Trying to send to an editor when I have that much. And so I plan on drilling down on that and getting it ready to go by the new year. An aggressive, though doable goal!

This process has been mind blowing, orgasmic, and one of the healthiest steps I have taken in a long time. I have reconnected with an old friend named creativity.....I have missed her. I hope not to lose touch with her again.

I find it astounding how easy it is to not make time for the positive, or how easy it is to make excuses. Believe me, I still do it! And I am comfortable enough to say that I will do it again. But I also believe that I am, in spite of myself, and with some active thought, sneaking in some positive changes as well.

I am someone who wants instant gratification - I am working on trying to be more patient. I am also working on recognizing change isn't overnight. And that there are some crazy things about me that I may not ever change.

What I sense is that rather than trying to judge myself with thoughts like, "that is good, that is bad.....that is right or wrong," I should ask different questions. I should be asking why and how. I want to understand why I do what I do and how I can make decisions that lead me in the correct path. I am also thinking about what exactly that path is. I know now that I don't really know....I am sometimes ok with that.

When I started this, as usual I was expecting overnight change. I am not a new or different person. I am a richer person (NOT in terms of material wealth), a more reflective person, a more hopeful person.

I remain a work in progress, but am developing a greater sense of who I am.

I remain amazed at the positive people I have connected with, further solidifying my faith in humans.

I will be in touch with a potential new blog spot. I will not lose touch with my writing, nor the people who have inspired me.

Thank you.

Hope and Love,
Soul Dancer