Are Addictions All In Your Head?

I realize a question like the one posed as the title of this article may ruffle a few feathers, but I have to explore it anyway. Why? Mainly because I battled addictions to both alcohol and cigarettes for more than fifteen years, and walked away from both of them a little over a year ago, and have realized some very important points in the process. Not the least of which is the fact that I realized that being addicted to these substances was all in my head.
Before I continue, let me qualify myself by letting you know just how much I drank and smoked. On a given day I would smoke at least a pack of cigarettes and drink at least a twelve pack of beer. Did I keep track of these numbers during that time of my life? No, but those have to be the averages. I know I was constantly buying either beer or cigarettes, and neither one was far away from me at all times. So you can make the determination for yourself of whether or not I was addicted to these two substances.
The point of the matter is that I walked away from both substances the moment I started believing it was possible. For many years I didn't believe that It was possible or necessary to quit, but as soon as I changed what I believed, the actions changed. I always knew deep, down in my soul, that I didn't like drinking or smoking. I mean really, who likes waking up with a hangover or getting winded from walking up a flight of stairs? While I was still drinking and smoking I began telling myself how easy how easy it was going to be to walk away, rather than telling myself how difficult it was going to be. You see, most people talk about how difficult these things are going to be, and what happens? They are difficult. So I did just the opposite.
After about six months, both practices had become more of a pain in the butt than I wanted to deal with. I didn’t want to smell like an ashtray anymore. I didn't want to wake up hung over. I wanted to start getting up like the birds do…in the morning. One day I had only one cigarette left in my pack and rather than planning to buy another pack, something inside of me said, "Your done". And I quit. I cheated a few times over the next few weeks, but knew I had it. I didn't want to be a smoker anymore.
The same thing happened with drinking. Now I don't do either one. Do you know what else happened as a result of this shift in thinking? I stopped hanging around people and places that thought these things were cool and okay. None of this was a conscious choice, but rather something I felt I had to do. And I've never been happier. All because of the fact that I realized it was all mental and simply changed my thoughts.

Trevor Kugler is co-founder of http://www.JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 20 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country…..Montana!
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Am I An Alcoholic?

For much of my adult life, about 15 years, I asked myself this question a lot. Almost every morning, when I was taking a shower, this question would cross my mind. Then I would quickly dismiss it, because I was sure that drinking didn't really interfere with my life. After all, I never missed or was even late for work, and as far as the world was concerned, I handled my business and was fairly successful. Yet almost every morning the question would cross my mind, "Am I an alcoholic?"
I'm still not sure what an alcoholic actually is, and really don't care. All I was aware of was that I woke up almost everyday with some manifestation of a hangover. In fact this happened so often that it became completely normal to me. All I knew for sure was that I drank too much. Even though I went to work everyday and did a good job, but I also knew that I drank too much. How much is too much? I didn't keep a running tally of my consumption, but it had to average a 12-pack of beer a day. Some days more, some days less, but the average had to be 12 a day.
My life had gotten to the point that it more or less revolved around beer. Did I wake up in the morning and pop the top? No, but after work was done, I drank. On my days off, I drank. My free time was spent drinking beer and BSing with friends. I mean, why not? It's what everyone did right? Then I woke up one day and I was 15 years older. How did this happen, I thought to myself.
So I stopped drinking. I don't even know if I was an alcoholic, and don't really care. The truth was that I drank entirely too much and I felt like I needed to take my life in a different direction. It has ended up being the best decision that I've ever made. So, if you ever ask yourself the question, "Am I an alcoholic?", answer it sooner rather than later, so that you don't wake up one day and realize like I did that 15 years have passed.

Trevor Kugler is Co-founder of JRWfishing.com Trevor has more than 20 years of fishing experience, and raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country....Montana.
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Am I A Drunk?

For years and years, I used to ask this question to myself. I wondered if I was a drunk. Every morning, I would get in the shower, and during the course of that shower I wondered to myself if I drank too much. After all, I drank everyday, and waking up in the morning, I normally felt as if I had been hit by a truck. So was I a drunk? I don't know, probably, but I did come to the conclusion that I most certainly drank too much.
I've heard addiction described as: never getting enough of that which you don't want in the first place. It's probably the best definition that I've ever heard of addiction, and it fit me to a tee. At the end of the day, I didn't really want to drink and I surely didn't want to wake up most days feeling as if I had been hit by a truck. In my case, I was most certainly caught in the vicious cycle of that definition. I was never getting enough of that which I didn't want in the first place. So I began to "cut down".
Through doing this I soon realized how stupid this was. Cutting down? My philosophy has always been that you either do something or you don't, but whatever you choose, just do it. Don't complain, don't bitch, just do it. So I did what I wanted to do for quite a long time…..I walked away from alcohol forever. Did I go to meetings? Or substitute some other form of "medication"? Nope. I just walked away and it was the single best decision that I've ever made. The world seems so much clearer now, imagine that! I'm able to get so much more accomplished in a twenty four hour period that it seems kind of sickening that I haven't accomplished more in my life. It literally feels as if I've been given a new life.
So how much did I actually drink and for how long? I drank for the better part of 15 years. The last 10 of those years drinking was an every day occurrence. And as to the question o how much I drank, I obviously didn't keep a running count, but I could buy an 18-pack of beer and drink it by myself without a problem. The average had to be a 12-pack a day.
So if you ask yourself the question posed in this article, as I did for so long, it's probably worth answering. And if you're asking yourself the question, the answer is probably yes, as it was with me. Don't be like me and assume that it's not possible, because you're on time for work everyday and a responsible citizen. All this denial does is waste time that you could actually be enjoying your life, which incidentally is the path I chose….To waste 15 years before coming to these conclusions.

Trevor Kugler - Co-founder of JRWfishing.com
Trevor has more than 15 years of business experience and 25 years of fishing experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country - Montana.
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Alcoholic? Do I Drink Too Much?

For many years I used to throw around the old joke referring to being an alcoholic that goes something like, "I drink a lot, but I'm not an alcoholic, because I don't like all of those meetings", or some such crap. Then I realized one day that I surely did drink a lot and wasn't happy at all. I suddenly began asking myself questions about how I was living and what I was doing. About the kinds of people I associated with and the kind of example I was setting for my daughter. These kinds of questions were foreign to a 34 year old man who was always under the impression that he couldn't necessarily "control" the circumstances of his life.
Was I actually an alcoholic? I don't know, all I know is that I most certainly drank too much. I drank beer everyday, I know that. I've heard addiction described as never getting enough of what you don't want, and I'm sure of the fact that it seemed as if I could never get enough beer. And guess what? I really didn't want to be drinking anyway, but hey everyone else drank and besides I had been doing it for the better part of 15 years. Not only had I been doing it for 15 years, I liked it! I liked drinking beer.
Once I began looking within myself and asking the questions mentioned earlier, sand suddenly didn't want to drink anymore. So I stopped. No meetings, no drugs, no nothing. I simply stopped drinking. Drinking simply didn't make sense any longer. I knew that I'd wasted more than enough time and energy drinking. And do you know how this has turned out?
I can't believe that I wasted so much time self medicating myself, when all of the answers I thought alcohol gave me were right here all along. Now I live my life as the good lord intended, without the aid of unnatural substances. My point to writing this article is simply to explain that it is possible to live without such things as alcohol in your life, and is actually much better. If a guy who used to drink an average of 12 beers a day for the better part of 15 years can walk away, without the aid of anything outside of himself and some faith, anyone can.

Trevor Kugler is co-founder of JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 20 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country…..Montana!
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Addictions Are Our Greatest Teachers

There are many people in this world that would have you believe that addictions are a horrible thing that happen to us. As a person who smoked cigarettes and drank an average of a twelve pack of beer a day for the better part of 15 years and walked away form both practices, I think I have some expertise on the subject of addictions. I don't look at either of these addictions as negative. I look at them as my greatest teachers. Although I was caught in the haze of drinking and smoking for all of that time, I now realize why it happened. I've learned that both practices taught me more than they took from me, although on the surface that may seem hard to believe.
At first the idea of addictions being your greatest teachers sounds weird, but if you begin to think about it, you will realize that its true. Without being "addicted" to beer and cigarettes as I was, how could I really explain to my daughter why she shouldn't engage in such things? I couldn't. To me there is nothing worse than someone telling someone that they shouldn't do something simply because that thing "isn't good for them" or "isn't right". To me that was always the definition of hypocrisy. Telling someone not to do something that you yourself have no experience with. For example, I couldn't tell my daughter that she shouldn't rock climb, why? Because I have no experience with rock climbing, so what the hell do I know about it? I would imagine that it's dangerous, but in actuality I have no idea. The bottom line is that I can tell my daughter all about both drinking and smoking when the time comes. They both taught me a lot and I have the direct experience of knowing how they can effect a person.
This very fact is one of my major problems with politics. Politicians want to tell everyone what to do, while having no direct experience with many of these things themselves. It's just a terrible way to deal with things in my humble opinion. So my addictions were my greatest teachers and I will always be thankful for the fact that I came to this realization. Maybe, in the divine plan of the universe, that is the very reason that I started drinking and smoking in the first place. To come to that realization.
Remember, anything that you might find yourself addicted to isn't bigger than you are. As much as people might want you to believe that your addictions are bigger than you, they're not. Your addictions are just trying to teach you something. Something that you couldn't realize in any other way. You have within you, everything that you need to conquer any addiction.

Trevor Kugler Co-founder of JRWfishing.com Trevor has more than 20 years of fishing experience and currently raises his 3-year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country......Montana.
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They Seem To Fit Together Like Pieces In A Puzzle

I'm a person who walked away from both drinking and smoking, after engaging in both activities for more than 15 years, and I've always been perplexed at how so called "addictions" seem to fit together. Smoking cigarettes and drinking go together like Peas and carrots. It was always amazing to me how one seemed to go with the other. Smoking was never quite as satisfying as when alcohol was being consumed. And so to alcohol seemed to elicit the need to spark up a heater. The amount of cigarettes I could choke down while drinking a lot of alcohol was obnoxious! The two activities, or addictions as it were, just seemed to fit together so perfectly.
It's also interesting how the beginning of both practices coincide so perfectly. It wasn't too long after I had my first alcoholic beverage that the stinky lung darts wound up in my mouth. That must be why that I told people for all of those years that if I quit one of these activities, the other would soon follow. And I was right. I ended up finally kicking both of them to the curb at the same time.
I've simply always found it incredibly interesting how addiction such as these seem to fit together. The other one that I used to "enjoy", was feeding gambling machines. You know, the old video poker and keno machines? These little bastards can suck up your money like a freakin' vacuum cleaner! And when you play these video slot machines what do the attendants offer you? Drinks! Specifically alcoholic drinks. Yet another way that these "addictions" seem to fit together like a puzzle.
The other very interesting thing about these addictions fitting together like a puzzle for me, was the fact that when I walked away from drinking and smoking, I no longer wanted to even enter a casino. This wasn't at all a conscious act, it simply followed suit naturally. Which I suppose is a good thing. And now I do none of it and am as happy as I've ever been. The bottom line is that these addictions seem to fit together like a puzzle, but the good thing is that once you decide to remove them from your life, they fit together in exactly the same way. That is once you stop drinking, you don't like smoking as much and vice versa.

Trevor Kugler - Co-founder of JRWfishing.com
Trevor has more than 15 years of business experience and 25 years of fishing experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country - Montana.
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Addiction - Learning To Live Again

About a year ago I walked away from alcohol and cigarettes, after engaging in both practices for more than 15 years. Was I addicted to drinking and smoking? I would have to say that I was, seeing as how I did both things everyday. I would have to say that, on average, for the last ten of the fifteen total years I drank a twelve pack of beer and smoked a pack of cigarettes a day. I was obviously addicted to both practices because now that I'm done with them I feel as if I were walking around in a haze for those 10 years. It's a strange feeling, to be sure, and in many ways I feel as if I must learn to live again.
So what happened to make me change my life? Did the courts make me? Did a wife or lover make me? Did a parent make me? Did I hit "rock bottom" in some way? Nope, none of these things happened. The thing that happened was my daughter coming into this world. She is my only child, and I simply couldn't see being a bad example for her. That's it. I couldn't see myself telling her not to smoke, while I choked down a cigarette. And I couldn't see telling her the dangers of drinking, when Dad went out and had drinks with his buddies. I simply didn't want to be a bad example, so I stopped doing both things. Besides, I really was tired of both practices. I mean neither one had gotten me anywhere that could be considered "good".
Now I'm clean and sober, loving every minute of it, and learning to live again. It's funny, because when I walked away from drinking and smoking I no longer wanted to hang out with people who are doing those things. I can tolerate it for an hour or so, but then I just want to be away from it. This was an interesting transition for me, because I didn't know what to do if I wasn't drinking or taking a cigarette break every hour or so. It's amazing how you can get caught up in something to such a degree, that it seems "normal". Having a drink after work or hanging out with people and drinking had become normal to me. Almost as if it were a hobby, albeit a very self destructive hobby.
The bottom line is that learning to live again can be a bit of a challenge, especially in the beginning, because the drinking and smoking can really become things that feel so normal. This is probably the reason individuals attend groups to help them with this transition, a path which I chose not to take. In all seriousness, learning to live again is a fun and challenging process and I wouldn't trade it for a twelve pack and a pack of lung darts if you offered me all the money in the world. I think George Bernard Shaw said it best when he said, "Miracles, in the sense of phenomena we cannot explain, surround us on every hand: life itself is the miracle of miracles."

Trevor Kugler - Co-founder of JRWfishing.com
Trevor has more than 15 years of business experience and 25 years of fishing experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country - Montana.
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Addiction - Is It Real?

I have to pose this question from the things that I've learned through my own battles with addiction. For the better part of 15 years I drank and smoked. Not casually, but really drank and smoked. I smoked at least a pack of cigarettes a day, and drank at least six beers a day. I more than likely drank more than that, but didn't keep a running tally. The point is that I engaged in both practices for a long enough period time and in enough quantities to be addicted. For that entire fifteen years nary a day went by when I didn't use both alcohol and cigarettes.
Then about a year ago, I walked away from both drinking and smoking without the help of pills, patches, meetings, hypnosis, or twelve step programs. Through doming this, I must pose the question, Addiction, is it real or just a figment of our collective imagination? It would seem top me that addiction might be a figment of our collective imagination. I didn't have any withdrawals or anything. We're there times that I wanted to have a beer or a smoke? Most certainly, but I didn't.
Before I actually stopped both practices, I thought about stopping quite a bit. I thought about quitting to the point that I effectively changed the way I thought about both practices. I began to see the negative effects of both drinking and smoking to a much greater degree than I ever had before. I began to realize how terrible I felt when hung over and also began to notice how bad my clothes smelled.
I heard it said once that if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. Well I had effectively changed the way I looked at both drinking and smoking, and the act of actually drinking and smoking changed. Through my experience I came to the conclusion that, for me, the acts of drinking and smoking were all mental! For me they were simply habits that I had engaged in for the better part of 15 years rather than addictions. I realize that this may sound crazy, but it's nonetheless true. The biggest aspect of my addictions was the mental aspect, rather than some perceived physical aspect.
The bottom line for me is that if you think I'm crazy or lying, you're right. If you get something out of what I've written, you're also right. The things written in this article are simply what I learned in my own personal battles, and hopefully you can take something from what I learned to help you with your own battles.

Trevor Kugler is co-founder of http://www.JRWfishing.com and an avid angler. He has more than 20 years experience fishing for all types of fish, and 15 years of business and internet experience. He currently raises his three year old daughter in the heart of trout fishing country…..Montana!
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