Addressing your “Bully” (Bully Playlist) is most effective way to expose your belief systems or how you perceive yourself (Self-Image.)  Creates awareness within you.

Belief systems are the stories we tell ourselves to define our personal sense of "reality". Every human being has a belief system that they utilize, and it is through this mechanism that we individually, "make sense" of the world around us.

A belief is just a thought we continue to think over and over.  Repetition deepens the impression or in other words creates a belief system, positive or negative.  

“All behaviors are sponsored by beliefs.  You cannot make a long-term change in behaviors with9ut addressing the beliefs that underlie them.  Seek to change beliefs, not behavior.  After a belief, the behavior will change by itself.  You can take whatever action you want to take to alter someone else’s behavior or to stop it, but unless you alter the beliefs that produce such behavior, you will alter nothing and stop nothing.  You can alter belief in two ways.  Either by enlarging upon it, or by changing it completely.”
                                                                                                                                  - Neale Donald Walsch  

How do you get yourself to a point of believing? Start make-believing or imagining. Be like a child, and make believe. Act as if you have it already. As you make believe, you will begin to believe you have received. The Universe is responding to your predominant thoughts all the time, not just in the moment you ask. That's why after you've asked, you must continue to believe and know. Have faith. Your belief that you have it, that undying faith, is your greatest power. When you believe you are receiving, get ready, and watch the magic begin!

To master your self - to master your thoughts - you do not have to control your thoughts. If you try to control your thoughts, you will attract having to control your thoughts. If negative thoughts come, don't resist them. Just let them be, and then use the power of your will to change focus to thoughts of appreciation and gratitude. Worrying about negative thoughts or trying to control them just brings more of them to you. If you don't resist negative thoughts they will diminish, and if you laugh at them and make light of them, they will disappear completely.

Have a Drug Free day.  

​Todd

Exactly today I haven't had a single drop of alcohol or coffee in 15 months.  A couple of my friends on Facebook & Twitter asked me to write about my experience, so here it is, in a nutshell. With over a year of no alcohol & coffee, I did notice some side effects.  Here is what I learned.

I save $1000 every month

After 2 months I noticed that I had $1000 more on my bank account. Yes, that's a lot, but do the math and you notice it's not that much. I live in New York. In order to spend $1000 on alcohol I only have to spend $33 everyday. Assume that I have 2-3 cocktails every other day (which are $10 each without tip), including some wine bottles every month for at home I can easily spend $1000.

​Some might think that this is heavy alcoholism, but trust me when I say that having 1-2 drinks everyday in New York is more than normal.

Also, going out drinking means that the occasional dinner & snacks are more frequent. You don't just drink, you get hungry and buy some food. And before you noticed it, you spend $1000.

Less gossip

If there is one thing I noticed quite early, then it's the lack of social interaction my new diet brought with it. Here is what happened:

1. You don't really go out anymore. It's exhausting to explain again and again why you don't drink and NO also one drink is not okay.
2. When a group of people asks me to join them for drinks, I mostly default to answer with NO because I just don't want to deal with gossip as a sober person.
3. If I do go for drinks, I last max. 1 hour because this is how long my attention span as a sober person lasts in a group of drunk people.
4. While I was never a party animal anyways, completely stopping with alcohol made me go out even less. It's amazing to see the culture of drinking slowly fading away from your life. It made me realize how many friendships are actually based mostly on your drinking habits.

"Let's go for a drink" is so engraved in our lives, because who says "Hey, let's just meet up as sober people and talk about stuff" -- Why the fuck would you do that? "Let's get a drink" needs no explanation. It's a thing, everyone knows what happens next.

My sleep quality increased

Removing alcohol from my diet increased my sleep quality drastically. And I'm not talking about "falling asleep" but the actual sleep quality.  You sure do fall asleep easier with 1-2 glasses of beer or wine, but the actual sleep quality might suffer. I sleep better, and I wake up with more energy. Before I always ruined my mornings, even if I only had two beers at night I could feel it in the morning (if you're in your early twenties, ignore this, it doesn't affect you yet).

No coffee, less panic, less stress

This might be something more personal and not related to everyone. But removing coffee from my diet helped me become more relaxed. Coffee always made me stressed out. It increased my chance of having anxiety and also fucked up my digestion. Removing coffee/caffeine from my diet not only made me more relaxed, I also poop like a king.  Besides that, I love the smell and taste of coffee. An occasional decaf will do the trick. In the summer I now drink ice tea, in the winter regular tea.
I found out that "Going for a coffee" turned out to be more of a social activity than the actual craving for coffee. Keep the social habit, replace coffee with something else.

Overall, I'm very happy about my decision and have no desire to start drinking again. I'm also not telling you to do the same, if you're happy with how things are going, don't change anything.
I changed my habits out of curiosity and I like how it turned out.

PS: Before someone asks. I do not smoke cigarettes. I also don't smoke weed. I also don't take any drugs whatsoever. (I have Internet, that's addiction enough for me)

Yours truly,
Tobias

Smokers with a history of alcohol problems who continue smoking are at greater risk of relapsing
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY'S MAILMAN SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH

Adult smokers with a history of problem drinking who continue smoking are at a greater risk of relapsing three years later compared with adults who do not smoke. Results of the study by researchers at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the City University of New York appear online in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.

Most adults who have alcohol problems also smoke cigarettes. Yet while treatments for alcohol abuse traditionally require concurrent treatment for problems around illicit substance use, smoking has not generally been part of alcohol or substance use treatment. According to lead author Renee Goodwin, PhD, the thinking in clinical settings has been that asking patients to quit cigarette smoking while they try to stop drinking is "too difficult," and that continued nicotine dependence would make no difference in the long run.

"Quitting smoking will improve anyone's health," says Goodwin, an associate professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health. "But our study shows that giving up cigarettes is even more important for adults in recovery from alcohol since it will help them stay sober."

The researchers followed 34,653 adults with a past alcohol use disorder enrolled in the National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) who were assessed at two time points, three years apart, on substance use, substance use disorders, and related physical and mental disorders. Only those with a history of alcohol use disorders according to DSM-IV criteria were included in the final sample. Daily smokers and nondaily smokers had approximately twice the odds of relapsing to alcohol dependence compared with nonsmokers. The relationships held even after controlling for factors, including mood, anxiety, illicit drug use disorders, and nicotine dependence.

It's unclear why smoking makes alcohol relapse more likely, but the study's authors point to past research on the behavioral and neurochemical links between smoking and alcohol, and the detrimental effects of smoking on cognition. 

Co-authors are Andrea Weinberger, Yeshiva University and Yale University School of Medicine; Jonathan Platt, Mailman School of Public Health; and Bianca Jiang and Renee Goodwin, Queens College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
​
The study was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant R01-DA20892).

The Toughest Habit to Lick?

“The Truth about Addiction and Recovery,” pgs. 95-99

Addicts themselves said crack cocaine was easier to quit than smoking cigarettes.  This information was based on a number of surveys of addicts and alcoholics in treatment.  In a study published in the Journal of American Medical Association, for example, 1000 people who sought treatment for alcohol or drug dependence at the Addiction Research Foundation in Toronto we're questioned.  Although these patients usually rated cigarettes as being less pleasurable than alcohol or drugs, 57% said that cigarettes would be harder to give up than the substance for which they were seeking treatment.

When we speak at addiction conferences, we ask the audiences – consisting largely of counselors and members of A.A. and similar programs – what drug they think is the hardest drug to quit. Nearly all shout out, "cigarettes!"  We then ask how many of them have quit smoking.  Usually from 1/3 to 1/2 of those presents have done so.  Finally, we ask how many used a treatment program to quit.  At most, a few hands go up.  In audiences where more than a 100 people have quit smoking, we sometimes find no one who relied on a formal program to do it.  Thus, an audience of people committed to the disease – treatment model have just told us that a very large number of them have given up an addiction tougher than drugs or alcohol without treatment.

The ex-smokers in these audiences are representative of smokers in United States as a whole.  The Office on Smoking and Health reports that 45% of all Americans (and 60% of college graduates) who have ever smoked no longer do so.  By now, 30% of adult Americans – more than 40 million – or former smokers.  What's more, 90% of those who have stopped smoking have done it on their own.

The 1987 Surgeon General's report, Nicotine Addiction, announce that cigarette smoking is as addictive as heroin, cocaine, and alcohol.  We have seen this is true.  Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop had the admirable goal of informing the public that addiction is not associated only with illegal substances and tobacco companies are purveying a highly addictive substance. Unfortunately, another message many derived from this report is that cigarettes must be awfully hard – perhaps impossible – for smokers to quit on their own. 

This is certainly a point that various medical treatments and smoke ending programs try to drive home in the advertisements.  For example, Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals has for a number of years taking out full-page ad's proclaiming that "physical dependence on nicotine" is the major factor in people’s smoking habits, and that because the unpleasant sensations of nicotine withdrawal "can defeat even a strong willpower, your chances of quitting successfully are greater with a program that provides an alternative source of nicotine…"  This ad is meant to encourage people to have their doctor put them on Nicorette, a nicotine gum marketed by Merrell Dow.

A research team studied the effectiveness of Nicorette therapy published the results in the Journal of American Medical Association.  In the study, 10% of those receiving the nicotine gum and 7% of those receiving a gum that didn't contain nicotine we're still not smoking after year. The researchers concluded that the value of Nicorette in helping people quit smoking permanently is "either small or nonexistence."  This conclusion was criticized by a Dow spokesperson, who said the calling the gum ineffective because people were smoking year after using it was “like blaming an anti-depressant [drug] if a person gets depressed again a year after discontinuing the drug."  Must people continue taking Nicorette in order to stay off cigarettes?  Is this the purpose of the treatment not to free people from nicotine addiction, but simply to have them chew it rather than smoke it?

Many people have ignored the importuning’s of Merrell Dow ads:  "if you want to quit smoking for good, see your doctor." Schacheter, a Columbia University psychologist, found that more than 60% of the people he polled in two communities who had tried to quit smoking had succeeded.  These people, on the average, had not smoked for more than seven years.  Heavier smokers (three or more packs a day) were just as likely to have quit as lighter smokers – thus disproving Schacheter own previously stated view that heavy smokers are permanently "hooked" on nicotine.

The most comprehensive survey of American smoking, conducted by the Office on Smoking and Health at the Centers for Disease Control, strongly supported Schacheter results.  Writing in the Journal of American Medical Association, the researchers summarize their investigation of the methods used by 40 million Americans who have quit smoking:

Daily cigarette consumption [that is, how heavily people smoked] did not predict whether persons would succeed or fail during their attempts to quit smoking.  Rather, the cessation method used was the strongest predictor of success among smokers who attempted cessation within previous 10 years, 47.5% of persons who tried to quit on their own were successful whereas only 23.6% of persons who used cessation program succeeded.7

This does not mean that those who quit on their own find it easy to do.  It does mean, however, that the amount of assistance a formal program can give on such a perilous journey is limited, and even counterproductive.  For example, far from being helpful, Nicorette therapy produced results in the clinical trial in which 10% of smokers quit that are worse than those of other therapies, or of peoples efforts to quit on their own.  In the Centers for Disease Control study that found people are twice as likely to succeed when they quit on their own as when they seek treatment, nicotine gum therapy was at least successful treatment of all.

The problem is that many people believe the ad for Nicorette programs that the treatment will get them off cigarettes without any effort on their part.  Imagine the difference between two people who want to quit.  The first says, “I must quit smoking now or I’m going to kill myself.”  The other person says, “I’m afraid I won’t be able to stand the discomfort o quitting.  I hear they have ways of making withdrawal painless.”  As a result, the second person signs up for a medical program that promises to minimize withdrawal discomfort.  Who do you think is more likely to succeed?  By holding out the prospect of some magical, medical way of getting off cigarettes, the treatment program actually undercuts the key to quitting:  that is, the realization that you yourself much confront and overcome the discomfort of being without cigarettes. 

How do smokers actually quit on their own?  In Schachter’s study:

Roughly two-thirds reported that their only technique was Deciding to stop. 8

No techniques can substitute for the inner personal reorientation that is the key to quitting.


Todd’s Thoughts:

If one smokes 1 pack a day, here is the breakdown of their repetition of the behavior:

20 drags to finish a cigarette x 20 cigarettes per pack = 400 drags per pack per day

400 drags per day x 7 days = 2,800 drags per week

2,800 drags per week x 52 weeks (1 year) = 145,600 drags per year

145,600 drags per year x 10 years of smoking = 1,456,000

Repetition Deepens the Impression or Strengthens the Behavior.  Imagine if you told yourself you are brilliant 400 times a day or that you are good person 400 times a day or that that you can do the task you’re dealing with 400 times a day?  It would be life changing! 

Those who smoke Vapes said they hit them around 700 times in a day. *Wasatch Recovery

“And so it is, that both the Devil and the angelic Spirit present us with objects of desire to awaken our power of choice”

-Rumi

The "I Am" Challenge

Higher level thinking is a concept that one must understand in order to make a change in attitude, belief, and circumstances.  The "I Am" Challenge is a step in that direction.  We all talk to ourselves between 60,000 to 70,000 times each day.  Most of us struggle with this self-talk battle and we usually fill our minds with thoughts of fear, hate, apathy, and thoughts that are self-defeating. 

Here is an example from one of my clients...He has struggled his whole life thinking that he's stupid, which started when he was in the 5th grade.  This has cost him a lot in his life.  Hating school, no confidence with learning, fear of college, and fear of success.  It has caused depression, substance abuse, pain, and it has all lead to believing that he is less-than. 

Here is the challenge:  Pick a negative phrase that you tell yourself, something you struggle with and then choose an opposite phrase.  So, for the next 7 days I am challenging you to say to yourself “I (state your name) Am (fill in the blank with your positive phrase) 2,800 times or 400 times each day. Not only say it but feel it!  Example:  “I Todd Am Powerful Beyond Measure.”

What price are you willing to pay to truly change one of your negative belief systems? Remember that “YOU” get to choose how you talk to yourself. 

 Then, write down your experience in your journal and share it in the comments.

“The Few Who Do are the Envy of the Many Who Only Watch”
– Jim Rohn

I Am Declaration

“Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become.  Your Vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall last unveil.

The Greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream.  The oak sleeps in the acorn; the bird waits in the egg; and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. 

Dreams are the seedlings of realities…You cannot travel within and stand still without”
-As a Man Thinketh, James Allen

We create what we think about most!  We become what we behold!  We can do anything we believe we can do.  The key is we must BELIEVE it.  I came across this article and it really caught my attention.  I am one who believes that the greatest gift we can give ourselves is overcoming our limiting beliefs we have created.  

"You can't teach an old dog new tricks," you might joke. Or think to yourself, "I'm too old to do that." Stop it, we beg you. A new study shows perceptions of age are as good as reality when it comes to physical functioning.Researchers from Yale University and University of California, Berkeley set out to find out just how powerful negative -- or positive-- stereotypes or perceptions of aging can be. The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, found implicit exposure to positive associations with aging were shown to be more effective on physical abilities than a similar study which prescribed six months of exercise!

"Negative age stereotypes that older individuals assimilate from their culture predict detrimental outcomes, including worse physical function," the study's authors wrote. 

A total of 100 subjects between ages 61 and 99 were split into four groups. A control group, an implicit intervention group, an explicit intervention group and a implicit-explicit intervention group. According to The New York Times, implicit intervention consisted of subjects coming in for 15-minute sessions, once a week for four weeks. They were shown a smattering of words like wise and spry, coupled with words like senior and old. The explicit intervention group was asked to write about fit, active older people.

After four sessions and follow-up at one and three weeks, they were given physical tests like their ability to walk, balance and get up from a chair. There were no improvements in the explicit intervention group, but the implicit intervention group showed considerable improvements in their fitness.

“People have encountered negative stereotypes for so long, in media and marketing and everyday conversations, that people build up ways to hold onto them. Implicit interventions can bypass that," Yale researcher Becca Levy told The New York Times. 

Indeed perceptions have shown to be powerful in a number of studies, like one Texas A&M study which found older subjects felt an average of five years older after having to take a memory test, due to stereotypes of aging and memory loss, even if there was really nothing wrong with their performance. 

Just a reminder of the power of positive thinking.

Yagana Shah - Huffington Post

Self-deception
“Self-deception is, by its very nature, the most elusive of mental facts. We do not see what it is that we do not see!

“Self-deception operates both at the level of the individual mind, & in the collective awareness of the group. To belong to a group of any sort, the tacit price of membership is to agree not to notice one’s own feelings of uneasiness & misgiving, & certainly not to question anything that challenges the group’s way of doing things. The price for the group in this arrangement is that dissent, even healthy dissent, is stifled!

“In order to break through the cocoons of silence that keep vital truths from the collective awareness you need courage. It is the courage to seek the truth & to speak it that can save us from the narcotic of self-deception.

“It is a paradox of our time that those with power are too comfortable to notice the pain of those who suffer, & those who suffer have no power.

“To break out of this trap requires the courage to speak truth to power!”  ~ Daniel Goleman

He goes on to explain:
“My thesis, in sum, revolves around these premises:
1) The mind can protect itself against anxiety by dimming awareness.
2) This mechanism creates a blind spot: a zone of blocked attention and self-deception.
3) Such blind spots occur at each major level of behavior from the psychological to the social.”

One thing he discusses is how our brain is like a filter. Any information that fits into our preconceived vision of the world is allowed to pass. The rest is subconsciously deleted from our awareness in order to avoid the anxiety of dealing with the dissonance.

In effect we trade truth for security!  Authenticity for perceived happiness!

We are creative powers and no outside circumstances can define us as long as we believe this to be true!  


Todd Sylvester
Have a Drug Free Day