HOW TO RECOVER FROM HEROIN. WHAT WORKS AND WHAT DOESN’T

March 19, 2023October 2, 2025CHRISTINA DITZEL Leave a comment

IS RECOVERY EVEN POSSIBLE?

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Yes, you can recover from heroin! I know this because I did it and I did it without any other medications or rehab centers. I don’t know how long you have been down this rabbit hole, but I can tell you it is possible to dig yourself out! Recovery is always possible no matter what your addiction is. You just have to be willing to do the work that comes with overcoming the addiction. And you can’t pick up other habits in the process! When you quite something you quite with intention. Let me ask you this, “What is waiting on the other side of your recovery”? Think about that for a minute. You better make plans that are enticing enough to keep you from “Feenin”. Because if you do have something amazing to look forward to, you’ll fight harder. Please here me when I say, “I don’t mean a girl or guy” I don’t mean that great job you’ll have waiting for you, or any tangible or material things. All those things are temporary pleasures and if or when they fail, you will have reasons to go back to your spiral of addicted behavior. Think of achieving something for yourself when you recover. Be realistic! Think of things that won’t fail or leave you craving that “fix”. Quitting intentionally means doing this for yourself not for anyone or anything else. Changing your behavior patterns means that you don’t set yourself up for failure later. It means you don’t attach yourself to people or things that could potentially cause you harm later and cause you to relapse.

WHAT DOESN’T WORK FOR ADDICTS

I am so tired of the advice that is out there trying to help people “recover”. And here we see people who are in recovery forever! First, can I just say, “there is no one size fits all”! We don’t all heal the same. Remember that! So, what worked for me, may not work for you or your family member. You may hate my advice and it may seem completely out of the ordinary, but as someone who has overcome many different addictions, (sex, drugs, money, men, drinking, etc.) I can offer advice that worked for me. I love my own advice because I know it can work for those who have tried other programs without any success. I haven’t seen much success any other way. I honestly believe if rehab centers would change their ideas about addiction and recovery, they would have more success.

So, with all that said, let’s make one thing clear, you CAN NOT AND WILL NOT recover from anything if you keep freaking talking about it!!!! STOP CALLING YOURSELF AN ADDICT! STOP SAYING YOU’RE A “RECOVERED DRUG ADDICT or ALCOHOLIC” LOSE THE DAM LABELS! They called me an addict and an alcoholic, they called me bipolar, they said I was depressed, and put me on medications, and they were wrong! In fact, I have a full bar in my house and I have total control of myself. But if I want a dam glass of wine with my dinner, you better believe I am going to have a glass of wine with my dinner! I have never been happier, I stress less than the average human, and I am sitting here drinking a nice hot cup of tea by choice! Did you hear what I said? BY CHOICE! You have to learn how to make better choices! And to do that you must also know why you make the choices you do. I have learned to have control of my habits because I have lost the labels other people put on me. Why you do certain things has a lot to do with other people and the influence they have on you. I am not going to say it again, LOSE THE LABELS and lose the people who place labels on you.

Why don’t you just call your addiction, bad behavior patterns? Because that is all they are,” BAD HABITS”. Bad behavior patterns are learned behaviors. And we pick up behaviors due to circumstances in our life, people influencing us, trauma, and many other reasons. But if we can learn a behavior we can unlearn them too. Dah! Wouldn’t it be easier to quit a bad habit, vs staying in “recovery” and collecting your little coins month after month, year after year? “Yea let’s collect a jar of coins to remind me every freaking day how fucked up I am!!! That sounds like a grand-ol’ ldea!” That is ridiculous!! IT’S STUPID!

Is this why we go through those horrible withdraws? Just to struggle to stay sober, to go through depression, and to continue to be stressed about not being high? Why do we have to go through that for the rest of our life just because we picked up a bad habit that we can actually overcome with the right training. No instead we sit around and feel sorry for ourselves with counselors who are like “Oh let’s talk about your feelings today”. WHAT FEELINGS? I have been walking around numb for years you ass hole!!! I think I’d rather NOT!

WHAT ARE YOU REPLACING YOUR ADDICITON WITH?

Like let’s be real here, think about this for a second. Like “what kind of life are you replacing for your addiction”? Is it going to be worth it? Is it going to be amazing? Will you have something to look forward to when you wake up each morning and go to sleep at night? Because if you don’t decide to replace your old habits with a new life, the only life you will have waiting for you is the rollercoaster ride of being codependent, bipolar, and the constant struggle of trying to force yourself not to have a craving!!! Let me tell you this, the first week of withdraws from Heroin freaking sucks, and that is not even the worst part! So, you better have a dam good reason to jump on that recovery train if you ever want to get yourself on the other side of that!

Let’s not even talk about the depression from having to cope with life sober! HAHA That’s fun! You will have to learn how to cope with life differently. Learn to love yourself before you love others. Find new friends. Lose some people in your life. Replace bad habits by discovering new HOBBIES. Like, you have to learn to really love yourself and know what you want in and out of your life. You better get very clear, make a plan, and write it down, because your body will try to change your mind several times before this journey is over. Let me add one positive here before you jump off this blog scared to even try. One thing you can look forward to is a sober mind. There is nothing compared to being present with the people you love on a sober level. The mentality of people you meet and the conversations you have are incomparable. The connections you embrace will better than any high from extasy, special K, and heroin put together (and yes I have done all three and more in one night). I am just saying!!!! I won’t even mention how amazing sober sex is because you’re not there yet, but dam! Life lived sober, is so much clearer, and clarity is power my friend.

THE RIGHT AND WRONG WAY TO RECOVER

Okay so doing it on my own was probably stupid on my part! I almost died in my apartment alone. But thank God I had a few good people who looked out for me and when they didn’t hear from me for a day or two, they came looking for me. I didn’t want a rehab center, because I knew they would medicate me. I saw too many friends in rehab and watched them relapse repeatedly or die of an overdoses. That to me, was like torture! Let me tell some of you who are unaware (program directors, counselors, family members, friends, etc.), when you relapse, you are worse off than where you were before, because the high you feel after you get the drug out of your system, is amazing. Not to mention the antidepressant pills the rehab center gives its patients, mix very well with heroin and other substances.

Point being, I wanted nothing to do with that! So rehab was “out” for me! There was no way I was paying someone to put me in a casket. However, you do need a support group that won’t leave you but will push you harder than you push yourself. Again, rehab centers won’t support you when you are out of the program. Trust me I witnessed this myself. But I won’t throw out names on my blog. God will deal with those individuals. Let me be clear when I say the support group you choose must be willing to break into your apartment to make sure your alive! They must be distracting you with activities and things that are fun, educational, and stimulate your mind, body, and soul. You don’t need those friends or family members who only want to be around you, when they need something from you, or when they feel you’re doing something wrong! Don’t hang around people who want to make themselves feel better at the expense of hurting you! You can’t be around people who are a constant reminder of why you got high in the first place. “To numb out the noise!” Stop talking about shit that depresses you, makes you angry, or stresses you out! And don’t be around people who drag you down! I’m tired of saying this! LOSE THE DRAMA OR LOSE YOUR LIFE!!!! It’s really that simple!

Also, Lose the ego and the winning! Put your big boy/girl pants on and suck it up, because it’s not going to be easy! I’m sick of people in recovery winning! You got yourself into this mess, now you need to get yourself out of it. If you’re truly interested in recovering, you will do whatever it takes without the pity party!

Yes! Tough love!!! That is what helped me! Sugar coating is the new trend in this society and it’s exhausting! Sugar coating doesn’t help people recover; it just pushes them off the deep end! I’ve lost too many people to “sugar coat recovery”! If you ever want to recover from Heroin (or any addiction), you have to become the hero of your own story! No one is coming to save you. You probably shit on too many people when you got high, and they don’t trust you now. Unfortunately, that’s on you! Own it and move on. Addicts are liars and that is what they tell you in rehab centers. So basically, they are telling you they don’t trust you. So, they will always question your motives. keep that in mind! You must change your own motives and forget what other people say about you and your motives. Because trust me when I say, “everyone has an opinion! And people will have a lot to say about you behind your back”.

Remember this, every Hero has a traumatic event occur before they had the power and energy to beat the villain. Think of Heroin as your Villain! It may be destroying you now; it may steal all your energy, it may be your kryptonite and consume you, but you have the power inside you to go up against this and win the battle of dependance! Don’t have expectations for people to support you when you’re too weak to support yourself, and don’t ever give up on yourself when you feel unstable. You only have yourself to encourage or to blame for your thoughts and actions. Choose to encourage yourself to keep going and continue to build a life you can look forward to. Stay strong in your mind and force your body to follow. That is the only way to overcome any addiction.

I wish you the best of luck, feel free to message me if you have any questions, or just go to christinaditzel.blog for more reading material or podcast. Follow me on YouTube and watch for new and upcoming videos on Cleaning, Clarity, Girl Talk and Vlogs.

Much love and prayers to all who have suffered and died from addiction. May we beat this together and overcome the bad habits that consume us!

YOU WILL NEVER RECOVER IF YOU CONTINUE TO DO THAT!

July 24, 2022October 2, 2025CHRISTINA DITZEL 2 Comments

You Can’t Recover Unless You Know What You’re Recovering From.

Why do so many of us agree to be locked up for a year of recovery? And why is it that so many of us relapse afterwards? And how many of us have to keep losing loved ones because rehab isn’t working? Not everyone has to agree with me or my logic, on recovery, but it may be helpful to listen to what I have to say about it. I have overcome heroin, opioids, pills, GHB and Cocaine addiction Afterall! Consider being open to what it is I am saying about recovery, because I have not just overcome addiction. I live an organic, healthy, happy, and clean lifestyle after recovery. I have discovered the key to unlock the door to “letting go of bad habits”! Do you know how? Well, not by getting locked up in rehab for a year or going to meetings every week for the rest of my life, and I am definitely not on medications that make me feel foggy, that is for sure! NO!!!

I uncovered the reasoning behind my addiction! Just because I have a completely different belief system, that may or may not contradict some of the things that they teach or do in their facilities, does not necessarily mean I am “wrong”! I am eager to share my method, because I want them to look at recovery completely different. There can be a new approach in how we treat some people in recovery it doesn’t mean they have gotten it wrong all these years, just because I am bringing a different approach to the community. Not at all! But it does mean that maybe we need to realize there is no “one size fits all” where “recovery” is concerned! In fact, when professionals close the door and stop listening to people who have overcome addiction without medications, it is not only ignorant, but also the reason so many people relapse. When these facilities are closed minded and don’t listen, it causes people to overdose after they have left rehab and relapsed. Let me start off by saying, in recovery and in life, there is no “ONE SIZE FITS ALL!” And I am tired of watching a system fail year after year, because books a degree overrides a person with actual experience!

I never went to rehab, and I found their system flawed, I remember cleaning one summer at a rehab center and I could always tell which ones would make out alive, which ones would be back, and which ones wouldn’t make it past the program doors. First, I found a few things to be odd in the program. One was that in the first phase of the program they keep you from family and friends and they expect you to disassociate your past life with your now present life, which is being locked up and isolated from everyone you love and care about. Basically, this is to help you focus on yourself and loss your old life so you can start a new one. And I get all that! Changing of the surroundings to have a renewing of the mind. Yes, I get it! It’s biblical and it appears to be common sense. But the reason this doesn’t work is because after a year, they throw you back into the jungle without any real tools, boundaries, or knowledge on how to avoid returning back to old habits. They assume you’ve rehabilitated based on the new atmosphere and routines they gave you. While you were locked up and needed permission to do everything!

But how does that work? The bottom line is you haven’t recovered because you haven’t answered the one question of what you’re recovering from! Sit and ask yourself, WHY do you do the things you do in the first place? There is so many other factors to focus on rather than the substance itself. Which by the way, has just become a “bad habit”. Children pick up habits for different reasons. For comfort when they’re parents don’t show validation or show them love. (Keep in mind we all have a different love language). Some people have had childhood trauma or complex trauma, which turned into codependency or even narcissism. And we all know codependency is used all the time in recovery, As is Bipolar and other labels, we use to describe a person with substance abuse issues. See, things that we experience from childhood into adulthood has major impact on a person’s reality. The things that have happened to an individual in the past matters and when they have not been addressed properly, they find soothing mechanisms that are detrimental. These come in different forms. We can call it addictions, obsessions, compulsive behaviors, escape, or any other word that describes temporary pleasure with a negative result.

What Lenz Are You Looking Through??

So, when we don’t take the space and time to fully understand what we’re recovering from, we don’t have the clarity to see ourselves through our own Lenz, and we can’t fully recover because it is unclear what we are recovering from. Putting a band-aid on a femur bleed will kill a patient, it will never help them fully use that extremity to its full potential. We have to stop putting band-aids on our pain to solve trauma that is happening beneath the surface. I can tell you this, your addiction does not come from the substances you’ve chosen to use or the things you have made a habit in doing. As long as you keep focusing on “recovering from the substance” you’re avoiding the actual cause and reasoning of why you picked up this “habit” in the first place. So, remember when I said most rehabs won’t like what I have to say? Well, that’s because I don’t believe in labeling “addiction or recovery”. In fact, I hate labels period! Furthermore, I never understood why they medicate people who are supposedly addicted to substances. They don’t push meds on those addicted to gambling, electronics, video games, social media, sex, serial dating, money, or other “bad habits” that can be considered “addictions”.

Truth is your addiction is just a bad habit, and when you go back to your old environment that habit along with all the people who joined you, blamed you, hated you, and pushed you to the edge, will be right there waiting for you. When will rehab centers realize all the people and things, they prevent you from seeing in the first phase of rehab, are right there when you get out? Ask yourself these 12 questions if you are looking into rehab or considering going back to rehab for a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time.

What happens when you leave?
Have you built enough boundaries?
Did you build the confidence in yourself that you will need?
Are you still codependent?
Do you have narcissistic thoughts, behaviors and patterns?
When you leave how will you feel as an induvial soul?
Have you recovered from the pain that caused your addiction?
How will you react when faced with that pain or other adversities in life?
Are you different now and are you really prepared to go back to your old life as someone different?
Do you have plans to live in different environment with likeminded individuals?
How do you change a bad habit when the habit is your own actions?
Did you learn how you will cope with curtain people, or circumstances that you’re going to face when you get out?

All questions relevant to the person in recovery because that is rehabilitating after all right? To “restore (someone) to health or normal life by training and therapy after imprisonment, addiction, or illness”

You have to be transformed and confident in who you have become, because you carry yourself around with you everywhere you go. Including into your future outside of rehab centers and AA/ NA/ or any kind of “A” Meetings. In rehab the key is to rehabilitate and become someone different, but how can you become someone different when you’re not given the opportunity to find or define your own true essence. People tell us how we should think, feel and live, but they have never actually walked in our shoes. So who are they to say what will work or not work? After you’ve been locked up for a year, doing what they tell you, under their “controlled environment” your expected to be rehabilitated and be able to cope with life after you leave. Real life is not controlled or predictable. Real life happens! Yes, we can choose the to live a happy, healthy, life, but if we have never experienced a happy, healthy life, what are we comparing it to? The rehab centers interpretation?

Truth is that most people going through rehabilitation have mixed emotions when leaving the center on their last day. What are they leaving and what life are they going into? Some are scared on their last day to go “home” while others are excited, and some believe they have all the skills they need to survive real life. Until reality hits them across the head once again! They’re dating relationship fails, a door shuts in their face on a job they’ve been wanting, death, trauma, financial struggles, parenting or coparenting, all the things that cause hardship. The adversities of life that send people in fight or flight, cause people in “recovery” to relapse! Being in recovery does not necessarily mean you’ve changed. When you plan to go to meetings every week and collect your yearly coin and keep a label around you that says you are a “recovering addict”, you remain in recovery. That means you’re not rehabilitated. You will always live victim to your bad habit, and nothing changes. You will continue to fight the battle to stay clean by going to meetings which continue to remind you of your addictions, your illness, and your inability to live a normal happy life. And that my friend, keeps you in recovery for years! And you will always be in recovery with that mentality. But if you can change your mindset, your awareness, and your environment completely, and then turn your addiction into a bad habit instead, you can overcome it and you begin to heal almost immediately!

To me addiction is just a bad habit and if you can learn to have a habit you can unlearn that habit as well. The question should be how did the habit start? Where did we learn the habit? And WHY did we turn to this particular habit? If we don’t know WHY we’re doing something we can’t learn how to stop it or prevent it from happening again.

I Recovered from My Addictions, Because I Knew What I Was Recovering From!

Most people relapse because they are too focused on quitting the “addiction/bad habit” instead of realizing they have not actually addressed the thing that is causing them to have the “addiction/bad habit” in the first place.

Most rehab centers are not open to hear my philosophy on recovery because it goes outside the scholarly books. But I believe that every person has a different experience during recovery. I don’t believe there is a “One size fits all” in treatment. In fact, I don’t think there is a “one size fits all’ in anyone’s individual journey. Why we treat different people, with different experiences, different health issues, different cultures, and different addictions, the same way, I will never understand! That did not work for me, and I know it’s not working for others, because I’ve lost so many loved ones to their so called ‘addictions”. (Can we just call them Bad habits that cause unhealthy lifestyles)?

Our Addictions Are Bad Habits Picked UP From Our Past Experiences

The adversities that I’ve overcome, only happened when I listened to my own inner voice. I call this my innate being! My soul or “God inside me”. Only you know your life journey. You know the struggles, passions and adversity you’ve had to face. And you know the struggles and actions that you will have to make moving forward. The adversity in our life is what keeps us in our bad habits! Not the bad habit itself.

Do you even know what you’re recovering from?

Five things you need to do if you ever want to really recover from any addictions ..

1. Understand why you do what you do

2. Become someone completely different

3. Change your mindset and be around new likeminded people (not people still recovering)

4. Stop talking about the things your addicted to as if it still controls you.

5. Realize you have a bad habit and you can Break your bad habit.

Most people stay in recovery forever because they keep rewarding the addiction. I never understood the coin that symbolizes a time lapse not using. Get it…”time lapse – relapse” Stop and think about that for a second

You break your addictions when you realize it’s just a bad habit that you picked up at a certain time in your life. And When you go back and learn WHY you started in the first place; you can begin to understand HOW you can overcome. Without the worry of relapsing or staying in recovery because you took some of that time and space to understand your own thoughts, emotions, and your reactions to those thoughts and emotions.

I know this is not the traditional way of treating addictions, but this is how I did it. And like I say so often, there is no one size fits all in our human existence.

If you have relapsed, know someone who has relapsed, or interested in learning my method of recovery, let’s talk. I may be able to help you.

contact me now

Protected: 12 Crippling Beliefs A Women Has About Her Abuser

July 1, 2022October 5, 2025CHRISTINA DITZEL

THE SECRETE TO OVERCOMING ADDICTION FOREVER (Part 1)

August 6, 2019October 5, 2025CHRISTINA DITZEL Leave a comment

Part 1 | The Mindset

The Addiction Journey

Let me please first start by saying to those who are actually hear seeking help and concern for a loved one, thank you for taking the time to read this article. It means the world to me that you found my blog and I hope you find value in something here today! Yes, I know I am going to get a lot of slack for this article, but I honestly don’t care anymore! I am not here for those who don’t want to believe in change, I am here for those who NEED to believe change is possible! And not just Change but transformational change! Let me just add that I have “Been there done that” on both sides of the spectrum, so I come from a place of hard love, but TRUTH! Besides you don’t have to read this article, there are others out there that will patronize you with their “medicine, degrees, and book smarts”! That is no me! I am an honest individual who writes based on personal experience and through trial and error of life’s messy influences, I have overcome many obstacles. Some things include, sexual, physical, and mental abuse, homelessness, jail, in and out of shelters, and even went into hiding from my attacker which led to my addiction to drugs and alcohol.

Not everyone will resonate with me or my concept and that’s okay. I am used to people not understanding me. (Giggles) Maybe you understand the process that most addicts go through. Maybe you have a friend, family member, or loved one who is fighting an addiction right now. Or maybe you lost someone to substance abuse due to an addiction. Let me first say I am sorry for you lose. I have lost many and I am certain I will lose many more to the illness. But there is hope for change! My mission is that through my own experience I can share my journey and it will cause a ripple effect of that change. A change on how we look at addition so that we can treat it differently! We need to do better! Either way we look at it, you are reading this because the title caught your attention and if you are wondering if there is a way to actually “OVERCOME ADDICTION FOREVER”? I am here to tell you YES! Yes, we can overcome the label of addiction and we can live normal happy lives. Actually, we can overcome anything and everything, including addictions but we must be willing to look at it through a new lens and do some things different.

I can say this with full confidence because I HAVE DONE IT! So, for those of you who will read this and want to throw your “un-belief” systems, professional scholars, and medicine” at me, go right ahead! Because I have overcome all kinds of abuse, and I will overcome your nasty, opinionated, comments as well! I am not actually here for you anyway! Like I said, I am here for those who NEED to Believe! Not here for those who live in doubt, fear, and are incapable of understanding the power of wisdom and mindfulness!

Real Help for Addicts

I know it’s not easy admitting we need help, or facing our difficult situations, but if you are still here, you have a purpose and there is more for you. Let’s make a difference in your life, your family’s life, and in the life of those who suffer from across the nation. So, to start I want to begin with some obvious facts about addiction that keeps addicts not only stuck in addiction but never really living life they feel is “normal”.

Facts that keep you stuck in Addiction

“Recovery” keeps us in Recovery forever. Call it a “bad habit” instead, and really overcome it. Move on! (Easier said than done, I know)
Mindset is everything. You’re living in the old life. As long as the person you were exists, you’ll never Live as a new person in a new environment, with a new life.
You feel sorry for yourself. (Constantly Blaming others and not facing your issues keeps you in a state of making “excuses and justifying” your addictions)
You keep thinking and saying your life is too hard! (Remember someone else always has it harder and they get through it)
You make excuses! Once you decide to change your life, you have to stop making excuses “why you can’t live life”!
You’re not thankful for your life and the opportunities that you DO have available to you right now. (Fill up with Gratitude)
You keep dwelling on the past and on the shit that pisses you off! Learn something new, love today, Let go of the past and Let GOD guide you to new paths!
You must step forward if you ever want to move ahead. (Do something different than before)
SUCK IT UP! Life is hard sometimes, we all have hard times, learn from it, grow from it, and discover new ways because of it.
You are not mindful of your own thoughts, emotions and actions. Become aware of the body, mind, soul connection.
Stop worrying about everyone else! Focus on YOU!!! And ONLY YOU!
Learn to Date yourself before you date someone else. (Get to know yourself and learn to love yourself first and foremost)
“Be single not settled” (Know what you want before you settle for what you don’t want)
Don’t make any big decisions. Don’t make big purchases unless it’s to help you learn grow and expand in a healthier environment.
Express the expectations you have for others. (But remember to Do what YOU say, and say what YOU do)
You give up to easily on the things YOU want. Shit is hard, deal with it and push forward but don’t give up so easily!
Stop listening to the belief systems that are contrary to your inner beliefs
Discover your new path that excites you.

want me to sponspor you?

By doing all the above you allow yourself to begin healing. You then become more aware and capable of making better decisions moving forward. When you become your OWN person, your belief system works for you and your purpose in life, Bringing you complete joy, happiness and abundance. Here is the kicker that I have learned about addiction centers. “They say they want to help us ‘recover’, yet the word alone keeps our mental state in “recovery” forever”. And I know many of you don’t want to go to the meetings and be reminded of yur addiction week after week, year after year. If you don’t get right in your head, you will be stuck in a place where people are constantly looking at you like “you’re the problem”! Instead of getting to the actual source to overcome it completely you will be fighting with people who don’t care to know the real you! Don’t get me wrong. I’m not totally “anti-rehab center’. I just have my own system to overcome addiction by eliminating words that distort the mindset. And the process to actually “overcome” addiction is less complex than most people make it. I can tell you this, most addicts don’t want to just live life as a “recovering addict”. The label sucks and it keeps us stuck thinking of our past personality, our past environments and always talking about our past traumas. That is not fixing anything, and it dam sure is not helping anyone overcome addiction, depression, manic behavior or helping them live a happier more fulfilled life. My system is not for everyone, and that is okay!

Get my system and help beat addiction today!!!

I am one person I don’t have the means or time to help everyone. I am not trying to change the entire world. That would be nearly impossible. But I do believe I can change a small piece of the worlds puzzle. The pieces filled with people who feel unique and different and want to belong and not just exist. “Nobody wants to exist in this world without purpose and meaning”. No one wants to just exist feeling stuck living in other people’s beliefs systems. Isn’t that why we are screaming through social media, protesting and causing havoc right now? No one person was created to live life uncomfortable and unknown! And so, not everyone has to like what I say but we should all be open minded to hear what others have to say. If I can resonate and impact one life and that life goes on to help another, then I have not only made my ripple effect into the world to make it a better place, but I also felt loved, in unity with another human. I felt appreciated and special because I helped another, person. I didn’t’ feel neglected because of my trauma but instead I used it to help others overcome or avoid it completely. I didn’t feel alone in my thoughts, ideas, or emotions. because I got vulnerable, and someone said “YES YES! I FEEL THAT! I HEAR THAT! I RESONATE WITH THAT!” And that is what every single individual wants right now. Right? Not just addicts or the mentally ill, but all humans crave empathy, compassion, and acceptance.

For those of us that have always felt special, unique, and different it is important that we learn to accept ourselves before we allow the world to make us feel unworthy because we are different! Because that is where addiction begins. Some of us find it easy to make it day to day with our daily struggles, while others choose to destroy themselves in the struggle. I have lost so many friends, family, and loved ones due to this “addiction” label! And the many other Labels that keep people abandoned and mistreated. Today, I am DONE! I am just done being quiet! And I’m done watching so many loved ones die because they are being labeled! I am done watching this world divide us because of our differences. WE ALL BLEEED RED! It doesn’t have to be this way! We can all be different and live a happy and fulfilled life in the same world! It is a choice! It’s a mindset!!!!

I don’t understand how I Made it through without rehab, and other people didn’t make it a year out of rehab! Yet they went to the professionals! They went to the meetings! They took the medications! And Here I am, and they’re gone! I don’t understand why so many people keep doing the same thing over, and over again, knowing the success rate of addiction is not getting better! As doctor Joe Dispenza says, “This is not the time of just knowing, this is the time to be doing”! There is too much information out there right now, for us to be doing the same damn thing, year after year, trying to get better results! Most rehab centers are lacking! Let’s start doing better! Let’s start listening to the people who know better! The people who have been through it. Let’s stop shutting out other options and start listening to all the different ideas of those who have taken the journey. Stop underestimating the power of the mind and medicating everything! You know chemicals cause reactions so why do we continue to medicate and cause more of an imbalance before we even clean out the system completely of all toxins? And I mean the exterior and interior! Let’s try harder to find a common denominator with addiction so that we can pinpoint the problem before it happens! Let’s take a journey together and learn how to beat addiction and overcame it FOREVER! Let’s work harder to remove all addictions from our life and learn to be mindful of our thoughts, emotions, and actions so that we can avoid and prevent bad habits like this one. We are capable of coming up with a solution so we can avoid “overdoses” from happening in the future.

Are you aware that most addictions begin when life throws something at us that we are unable to manage, cope or deal with? We basically pick up bad habits like drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, and the like, to numb ourselves from our own reality! That’s right! We act out by doing things that numb us mentally, emotionally, and physically from the events that are happening in life. If we can acknowledge that, we can limit the addiction rate by teaching our children to cope with their issues at a younger age. We must start a new cycle by teaching our children awareness. However, awareness must start with the parents first! The home is where we listen, learn, observe, experience, and build belief systems. When we are not mindful of these things and we just live in a state of “going through the motions”, these things define our character and determine the paths we take in life.

Maybe we should begin this journey with “awareness” for people to be better parents so that the children can learn how to cope with life. Then again it should probably start with the parents, right? As parents are the ones that should be leading their children without the dependency on substance abuse, or any other bad habits that can become addictions. Parents should lead their kids to experience proper skills for how they should properly manage life when struggles come along. Listen, life is going to happen! That is just LIFE! You can be 100% certain life will come down on you at some point!

But without being faced with bad or difficult times, you wouldn’t even know what good even looks like! I hate to break it to you, but you must learn how to maintain yourself during the ups and downs of your own journey through life! Life is not going to be unicorns and rainbows all the time! That is fantasy world, and the fact of life is this, sometimes we need to hit rock bottom to know where we want to go! Your personal journey would have no balance without the GOOD AND BAD experiences! If it was all good, you would never have a reason to push forward into newness! Yes, I said “NEWNESS”! Don’t you want to have new experiences, new relationships, new environments, and a new life?

If you never experience anything different you will never experience anything new. How do you think humans learn and grow? We experience life, good and bad, and we become stronger for it! How about we try to find solutions to our struggles with more poise, instead of getting angry, depressed, or frustrated. By acting out we are placing a label on ourselves and as we go through life, and when we do that, we give permission for “the professionals” to call us clinically depressed, bipolar, manic, an addict, etc. And we end up with labels placed on us based on our behavior. Society says, “just give them prescription medications” (drugs). Which keep us unfocused, loopy, and completely unaware mentally, spiritually and physically”. I say, “become aware of your environment, your circumstances, your conditions, and yourself ‘mentally, spiritually, and physically and learn to love all that you are”. Love all the messy parts of yourself and all the blessings you’ve already received, because it makes you who you are!

My past addiction is not even something I think about anymore. Accept when I am trying to feed into someone who is in recovery or currently in their addiction. Today, I can actually go out and have a drink and live a normal life without thinking I am going to have a relapse! I never worry about relapsing and my family is not worried about me overdosing or getting back on drugs when my life gets a little difficult! Adversity is part of life; we are all going through something. Regardless of what “the professionals” teach us, addiction is just a bad habit, and habits can be broken! Like the habit of working too much and not paying attention to your kids. Or using your phone too much and not even being present with the people who you say you love! Or continuously lying to your loved ones because you gambled all your bill money away. So, if anyone tells you that it’s a disease and it can be treated but not cured, they’re lying!!! Your addiction is a bad habit and habit can be broken!

I think alcohol and drug use is the culprit of most illnesses like aids, STDs, HIV, and many other diseases. I don’t believe it has anything to do with race color or ethnicity. Unless we are talking about statistics based on an individual’s beliefs. I am not going to talk about that right now. For that sake of this article, I am sticking to topic, which is addiction. So, what I do believe is that depression, psychological disorders, and trauma cause people to resort to drugs, alcohol, and other substance abuse, and addictions. So, there is a cycle that we ignore in “addiction”, and that is, they are just people with a bad habit caused by some trauma or underlining issue they have not learned to manage or cope with. BOTTOM LINE!!! Why do we treat the use of drugs and alcohol as a disease with more drugs? It makes no sense to me!

One Solution to Overcoming Addiction

Let’s lose the label altogether and treat these people as regular human beings with just a “bad habit”. They are choosing to live a lifestyle that they have become accustomed to for some reason. And as a friend, family member or professional therapists, our only job is to help them overcome this addiction by helping them discover their WHY. That way we can help them learn the HOW to stop! And please, when they want help, they will send signs and ask for help and that is when we should help. But I guarantee most families had a chance to help early on and failed to listen! Because people don’t listen anymore! They’re too busy talking listening to their own voice. Everyone is out for themselves, and everyone is so quick to judge others without looking in the mirror at their own reflection. Many people have become selfish, greedy, power hungry, narcissists who don’t listen to their loved ones. They sit back and judge them when they don’t agree with a specific belief system and yet, they refuse to listen, and I mean really listen! This behavior has gotten so out of control because poeple don’t see the signs of a person crying for “HELP” before they progress into something dangerous or into unhealthy habits! So instead of friends, family, and professionals helping these individuals, we unintentionally make the problem worse. When we pretend everything is fine it only allows more time for our problems to fester and build! Making people feel like their thoughts, feelings, and emotions are abnormal is a dysfunctional way to treat someone to make change. And maybe they are completely dysfunctional. I have had some dysfunctional thoughts myself back in the day. But for that same reason, instead of me seeking help, I chose to save myself and almost died in the process!

The divine will catch you when you fall
but you must be the one to get up!
Christina Ditzel

Continue to Part 2 | “How to overcome addiction”. Where I will go over step-by-step instructions to overcome addiction. I will give you simple steps for the addict, and for family, friends and professionals to discover new ways of helping these individuals. Because at the end of the day, EVERYONE has changes to make. Not just the addict!

If you need more advice in other areas of your life, please comment below, and follow me on social media. You can find my PODCAST at ZEN LENZ MEDIA ON SPOTIFY. or just grab my book “Hot mess to totally blessed” on Amazon Today. This is how you begin your journey into an abundant life. Living in abundance is a lifestyle choice…

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Why I don’t like the Term “Addicts”

May 30, 2019October 5, 2025CHRISTINA DITZEL Leave a comment

I’d like to start this article by saying: “Stop labeling people who use drugs and alcohol addicts or anyone else for that matter”! It programs their brains to receive and send false information about their character. Millions of people are “addicted” to social media, video games, Netflix, sex, and even work, the list goes on. But we never call those people “addicts”. Furthermore, we don’t say they’re in “Recovery” when they decide to stop or eliminate those things from their life. So, why don’t we treat drugs and alcohol the same way? As bad habits! Recovery keeps them in “Recovering addict” forever.

Here’s the truth, I never called myself an addict and I never went to “Recovery”. And do you know why? Because I knew it was just a bad habit and I could just “DESIDED” I no longer wanted to feel or live the life I was living and stop doing it. truth is if you want to “recover” you have figure out what you’re recovering from! I had to “suck it up” and whatever pain I had to endure, I went through it, and grew from it. Yes! of course It sucked! Yes, my body went through detox. And yes, I almost died! But I didn’t! To the contrary, it made me even stronger. By having to go through the hardcore pain and see what that drug was actually doing to my physical body, by the time it was completely out of my system I was certain of one thing. “I NEVER wanted to go through that again”! I sucked it up for the sake of some clarity in my life because “I” wanted to! BECAUSE “I” DESIDED! If you have a friend, family member or loved one who has these “bad habits” you can’t decide for them. By labeling them you’re already telling them they have a problem. Do you think they don’t know that? Do you really think the problem is the drugs or alcohol they are using? Similarly, if you’re the one looking for change, well, if you’re going to make any change in your life “YOU” have to be the one to decide! Other people can’t decide for you, and they can’t do the hard work for you either.

It is not easy, but if you really want to recover, YOU CAN do it! YOU need to stop playing victim, suck it up and make the changes happen! And do you know why? Because CLARITY GIVES YOU PURPOSE! And unless you are clear minded, you will never know the underlying cause of your “little habit”. Because that is all it is. That substance does not define who you are. “YOU ARE NOT AN ADDICT”! You are the only one with your exact “thoughts, feelings, and actions”. Only you know what you’re truly capable of. Stop needing the affirmation from other people. You are perfectly made and only you know what breaks or makes you to movement. So, if you really do want a different life for yourself…You CAN have it! Go Freaking Get it! FIGHT FOR IT DAMMIT!

So back to my point. First, labels are programmed into our brains. Our brain is like a huge program that saves and stores information and it helps guide our way through life. However, we have a ”mind” that can override any program. All the information we gather can either help us respond in a positive or negative way. Our mind has the power to choose which direction we go. Second, every time we pamper people with “labels” we are not helping them. In fact, we are doing them a “disservice” by enabling them to keep doing the shit they do. Labeling people as “Addicts” allows them to keep making excuses for their BAD, UNHEALTHY HABITS and they continue doing really shitty things because they know they use the “addict label” as an excuse they never make any real changes to quit. Hence, leading them right back where they started.

You may think I’m being a little harsh, but I changed my life by changing my perspective. Basically, I lost the labels people placed on me. But that wasn’t all I did. I disconnected my phone and myself. And that included the people, places, and things I surrounded myself with. Humans don’t need more patronizing, and they definitely don’t need more “labels”. But what we are lacking is LOVE, SUPPORT, & RESPECT.

What people really need, is someone who wont judge them, but still hold them accountable for their OWN LIFE and just be there when they are going through stuff. Speak with love and encouraging words!

Your words can give Life or Death.
proverbs 18:21

Your words have the power to lift someone into life’s purpose or tear them down into harmful lifestyle habits. Choose your words wisely. Stop the labeling! If we must throw labels out there, lets talk about “Weakness”. (The state or condition of lacking strength). The inability or “desire” to do what we want to do and stop doing the things we don’t want to do. Did you see what I did there? I gave you two different words (inability and desire). The inability to do something means you just “cant” do something. But the word desire is something we “feel” we really must do or want to have. By using the word desire I am telling you that “weakness” is not an “addiction”. Contrary to what I said earlier, uou do have a choice. You can CHOOSE to NOT be weak by having the DESIRE to do the things you want to do.

Rather than placing labels around someone’s neck encourage them with positive words that lift them up. Remember, they need to figure out what they are recovering from! Because it is not drugs and alcohol! Trust me on that! And no, I am not telling you to patronize them! But do…. Love them for the person you know they are going to be. Support them even if you can’t see the bigger picture. Be there when they are going through the hardest times in life. And mostly, respect others because you know God made them who they are, and you know they will come out of this mess stronger than they were before. Don’t hear what I am not saying! If you can’t be around this person because their habits or lifestyle is harming you, then walk away. It’s really that simple. At the end of the day, each and every single one of us will have to make a decision. As for the word “addict” Instead of calling it “addiction” or using the term “recovering addicts”, maybe try using the term “bad habit” or a “healthy lifestyle”. Habits and lifestyles can be altered and changed. The term “recovery” leaves people in a state of mind that tells them “They will always be recovering”. But when we stick people in a building with a group of more people who are “recovering addicts” we are just allowing them to continue to talk about the one thing they want to stop doing. And then we give then to patronize the situation even more, we give them a metal or coin that reminds them how many months and years they have been recovering from this substance abuse. IT IS ABSURD!!! News flash! “Recover” means to “return to a normal state of health, mind, or strength”. Why would anyone ever want to leave the person they love, to feel sick, lost, and weak???

To Conclude this article, I’d like to just say:

STOP “ALL” THE LABELING! Let the words that come out of your mouth build people up and stop breaking them down! Make the change today and DECIDE to live your life fully blessed in abundance. And remember “you have to know what you (or your loved one) “are recovering from”.

Your words have Power to Heal the sick
Or Break people down into their illness
Author Christina Ditzel

If you need more advice please comment below, join my channel on YouTube, or just grab my book “Hot mess to totally blessed” on Amazon Today. This is how you begin your journey into an abundant life. Living in abundance is a choice…