People with alcohol and/or substance abuse problems first need to recognize and admit that they have such a problem. No amount of psychiatric or religious help will be sufficient nor will significant peace and happiness be obtained until the alcohol and/or substance abuse is properly addressed. If you are an alcoholic or addict, whether you use illegal substances or prescriptions, you will almost definitely need spiritual help from a twelve step program, such as AA or NA, if you want to stop drinking or using. This site, psychiatric care and church, are not adequate substitutes for the appropriate twelve step program. Although you may find some comfort from such resources, you will not get anywhere near their full benefit until you address your primary problem. You must first stop drinking and/or using.

If you want to know more about Alcoholics Anonymous or another twelve step program, I suggest you call them or check their web sites for local meeting information and then go to a meeting, listen, and speak to someone there about your problem. If you use other substances but also drink, I would suggest AA.

Once you stop drinking and/or using by means of a spiritual program and way of life as offered by AA or NA, you should find psychiatric, spiritual and religious help, including this site, to be more effective. I wish you success in your quest for sobriety.

I talk a lot on this site about living in the moment and being with the way it is. Being fully present in the here and now is certainly conducive to peace and happiness. However, there are many who are unhappy with themselves and spiritually and psychologically unhealthy so that being with this moment means being with these unpleasant conditions as well.

Despite that we may not like this moment, it is still the place to be. We cannot correct our deficiencies unless we deal with them as they exist in this moment. Don’t misunderstand, we may require years of psychotherapy so that we can look at our pasts so as to learn why we are the way we are so that we can begin healing. We may need to do a thorough inventory of ourselves, logging our wrongs and investigating why we did the things we did. The point is that we will at times need to look back so that we can improve upon ourselves today.

For those of you who cannot bear this moment because of your own shortcomings and deficiencies, there is some work to be done so that this moment can be a place of refuge for you. It’s difficult to explain to someone who does not understand how it feels not to be comfortable in your own skin. To be so unhappy and miserable inside that this moment is difficult to tolerate. If you can relate to this, you are not alone and I believe that there is most likely a way out of the pain, providing that you truly want to change. I wrote a post called Self Acceptance that will be a good place to start. This entire site is designed to help people be happy and all of the posts on this site will help you to feel better about yourself, your life and therefore, this moment. I do not have one magic answer to make this moment tolerable for you. Unfortunately, it may take time for you to begin to like yourself or to be spiritually and psychologically healthy enough so that the present moment is a comfortable place for you.

I do know that if you do not try to improve yourself or you quit this spiritual journey that you have begun, you will almost certainly not progress towards the peace and happiness you so desire. Remember that you are not alone in your struggles. Many others, including me, are also on the same or a similar path as you. I was once miserable and at times could not bear life or myself. Just a reminder, in case you haven’t noticed yet, I am an extremely happy, grateful and contented person today and have been for many years. There is hope as happiness and peace are possible just as long as we work for them. I wish you the same happiness and peace that I know in this moment.

I understand that during times of such great negativity that you may not want to do anything to help yourself, that’s part of the negativity. However, if you have truly had enough of feeling this way then I would hope that you would have even the slightest bit of willingness to try. Have you ever heard the expression, “move a muscle, change a thought”? Regardless of whether you want to do this or not is not important, the important part is to do it. If your alone and miserable, perhaps you could find some people do be with. That may be the change you need. Maybe you’ve been around people all day and could use some alone time. Whatever it is that you’re doing isn’t working, so do something else, just be sure it’s positive and healthy.

Becoming a happy, peaceful and balanced person isn’t necessarily easy. This may come quickly for some and may take years for others. Changing such negativity may take a while but if you work at it by practicing the principles described in the posts on this site, I believe that you will make gradual improvements. Of course, this site is not the only help source available. Perhaps you’ll discover a religion that will be of great spiritual help to you as well or maybe you’ll benefit from some of the “helpful links” that I have included on this site. You may need some professional help as well, perhaps a good psychotherapist or psychiatrist, I am not a mental health professional so that’s just my opinion, but I know such pros can help. This is a process, a spiritual and mental journey, hence the sub-title of this site, “helping you on the path to happiness”. When we take a path, we leave one place and move towards another. The final destination of life is death so let’s not be in a rush to get to the end. Enjoy the journey while on this spiritual path, growing a little more with every step, becoming a little happier year after year until you’re gratitude is so great that it has the ability to bring you to tears. I was once too miserable to be happy or grateful, now I am too happy and grateful to be miserable and I wish you the same