Negative emotions, like depression or anxiety, have been shown to affect our immune system. Stress impedes wound healing.

When you change the way you see and interpret events, suddenly everything will be different for you. Everything will make sense.

If those underlying conditions aren’t treated, the return of those symptoms may cause us so much discomfort that we’ll go back to using addictive drugs or alcohol to obtain relief. That’s the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent of alcohol and addictive drugs. It has...

You are a perfect spiritual being. Get used to that idea.

You have enough courage to face even your greatest fear.

Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.

If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can’t stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.

Once you look at your problems as “workout situations,” they take on a whole new aspect.

The events that occur in my life are workout situations. They are there for my benefit so I can become strong and gain wisdom and information by working my way through those situations.

When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: “This is for my benefit.

If who you are and what you have is what you want, that’s perfect. Keep doing what you’ve been doing and you’ll get more of it.

The advertise their products in such a fashion as to make it seem wonderful to drink their ethanol products. It does not matter if they give their products fancy name like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, or if they put bubbles in an ethanol product and call it champagne or beer- everyone is selling ethanol.

You can take the entire world of physics with all of its macrocosm and microcosm, its quantum mechanics and nuclear physics and reduce it to one word: energy. It’s all energy. Scientists say that if you can’t measure it, weight it, or see it, it doesn’t exist. Well, no one has ever seen energy. We...

…there is a saying used in twelve-step programs and in most treatment centers that “Relapse is part of recovery.” It’s another dangerous slogan that is based on a myth, and it only gives people permission to relapse because that think that when they do, they are on the road to recovery.

At the alpha level, your imagination acts powerfully on your subconsciousness mind and therefore your imaginings are powerfully effective in producing the desired result. It is believed that our subconscious mind represents nearly 90 percent of our mental capacity, which is why influencing your subconscious mind produces such powerful effects.

How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that “once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict” and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?

The challenges and changes you meet are, in effect, hand delivered to you by a generous, loving Universe for the purpose of making you stronger and wiser.

We recognize that you’ve used substances to try to regain your lost balance, to try to feel the way you did before the need arose to use addictive drugs or alcohol. We know that you use substances to alter your mood, to cover up your sadness, to ease your heartbreak, to lighten your stress load,...

There is only one way to achieve lasting happiness. That is simply: Be happy.

Your perception of the world and the way you see yourself in it has created within your mind a concept, a philosophy, of the way you believe things to be.

Whether the underlying cause of your dependency is a chemical imbalance, unresolved events from the past, beliefs you hold that are inconsistent with what is true, an inability to cope with current conditions, or a combination of these four causes, know this: not only are all the causes of dependency within you, but all the...

AA purports to be open to anyone, as it is stated in Tradition Tree, “The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking,” but it isn’t open to everyone. It’s open only to those who are willing to publicly declare themselves to be alcoholics or addicts and who are willing to give...

Depression can be due to a low endocrine function, nutritional deficiencies, blood sugar problems, food allergies, or systemic yeast infection. Depression can also result from medical illnesses such as stroke, heart attack, cancer, Parkinson’s disease, and hormonal disorder. It can also be caused by a serious loss, a difficult relationship, a financial problem, or any...

You can be happy if you are willing to let go of your past and leave yourself unencumbered so you can fly freely.

We know that you don’t want to be a drunk and you don’t want to be hooked on addictive drugs. You do it because you can’t cope with your life without some sort of support, even if that support is damaging.

Life’s tempering and altering process often takes the form of adversity, and, as far as outward appearances are concerned, seems to be working against us when it is actually working for us.

We wouldn’t have much need of a war if people stopped using drugs. It’s like taking up a fight against the use of headache remedies; it will never work until the condition causing people’s headache pain is healed.

If you are surrounded by people who not only don’t believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy.

By changing how you perceive things and how you act upon those perceptions, you will change your life.

One of the first actions we take at Passages is to ruthlessly scrutinize, always under a doctor’s supervision and care, the specific necessity of any mind- altering or mood-altering medications that our clients are taking. As soon as any non essential drugs are out of their systems, the feelings they were trying to suppress usually...

Every person in the AA program who’s successful is living proof that he or she does have power over addictive drugs and alcohol- the power to stop.

Times change and discoveries are made that render earlier techniques and approaches less effective. Change is inevitable. To remain rigid when the whole world is changing and advancing is to invite misfortune. The AA program in particular is challenged with an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude.

Think about the stigma that is attached to the idea that alcoholism is a disease, an incurable illness, and you have it. That’s a terrible thing to inflict on someone. Labeling alcoholism as a disease, a cause unto itself, simply no longer fits with what we know today about its causes.

Stress and anxiety cause our brains to release chemicals that put lines in our faces and tear us down emotionally and spiritually.

You don’t need to be a scientist to know how powerful your imagination is.

The true source of happiness is within each of us.

The totally alive, totally conscious, and totally aware Universe takes care of itself completely. It is totally self- reliant and totally self- sufficient. It is perfect.

It’s the causes, not the dependent person, that must be corrected. That’s why I see the United States’ War on Drugs as being fought in an unrealistic manner. This war is focused on fighting drug dealers and the use of drugs here and abroad, when the effort should be primarily aimed at treating and curing...

Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where you are.

I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I’ve seen it happen over and over again.

The word Universe is made up of two Latin words- uni (meaning “one”) and versus (meaning “turned into”). It literally means “one turned into.

What you think of as your common sense in regard to relationships may be based on something you have come to believe that isn’t totally true or may not be true at all.

Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don’t believe something is possible, you won’t even attempt it.

You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever.

The treatment must fit the malady and the malady is not alcoholism or addiction, or addictive drugs and alcohol. Once the correct cause is diagnosed, healing will take place and hoped-for cure will come about.

You are not alone in your quest to be who you want and have what you want.

If you have experienced recurring situations in your life that are unpleasant, know that there is something you are supposed to be getting from those situations that you have not been getting and that the moment you get it, those situations will pass out of your life, not to return.

The Universe is alive, conscious, and aware.

You use your brain much as you would use a radio crystal; you tune in different frequencies.

Do you believe in chaos- in random, uncontrolled events, in the idea that anything can happen at any time without fixed laws governing it? If you believe that, you will always be in a state of fear, not knowing what will happen from one moment to the next. The fear might be small, but it...