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An Excerpt from Kickass Recovery:
From Your First Year Clean to the Life of Your Dreams,
by Billy Manas

Having lived through a romantic separation recently, I had the opportunity to experience many different emotional states I didn’t necessarily appreciate. Whether it was logging onto Facebook and seeing my ex with her new boyfriend or just dealing with the challenge of being alone, I needed to get a handle on my emotions. I found this to be especially important when I first began picking up my daughters on the weekends. In the first few moments we’d be together, I’d be trying to process the feelings of seeing my ex, knowing we were no longer together, and making my kids feel loved and comfortable in this new and foreign situation. It was a lot to reconcile all at once.

If you’ve been to 12-step meetings, you’ve heard people speak about their “disease” talking to them in the sound of their own voice or about the endless chatter and noise we have in our heads. Have you ever stopped and thought about what that noise really is? I have.

That noise is usually a ceaseless barrage of questions that we keep asking ourselves. That’s essentially what thinking is in the first place, only with the alcoholic and addict brain, the thinking and the questions we ask ourselves are not terribly helpful. Take, for instance, my recent breakup.

The noise in my head was an endless loop of What’s wrong with me? Why does she find him sexier than me? Is this guy going to try to replace me as my kids’ father?

Here’s the tricky part, though: it doesn’t just come right out and ask those questions. I, like most people, have a huge ego, and because of this, the noise often comes disguised as Screw her! They deserve each other. I can do better, anyway.

But when you peel away all the hubris and bluff, the questions are more sensitive and vulnerable. Either way, when we find ourselves looping the same crappy thoughts over and over, we are basically interrogating ourselves like hapless detectives trying to find answers to questions that have none.

I heard self-help guru Tony Robbins tell a story about a Holocaust survivor named Stanislavsky Lech that forever shaped how I view the questions I ask myself when I am in bad situations. This guy Lech was a prisoner in a Nazi camp, and as he witnessed all the other prisoners around him dying, he noticed that these other guys spent the whole time asking themselves how God could do this to them or why they were in such a horrific situation. Obviously, this was very understandable. If you know much about history, you know that the persecution of Jews by the Nazis was one of the darkest periods of world history.

What Lech was able to figure out, as time went on, was that if he asked himself a different question, he could survive. So, he changed Why is this happening to me? to How can I get out of here? Now, he was in a concentration camp that was heavily
guarded by armed soldiers, so there was no easy answer to this question, but waking up every morning and closing his eyes at night, he kept just repeating that question over and over. Inevitably, he was one of the very few who made it out of that situation alive.

What that story taught me was that the brain is a magical vital organ. We will always get output when we feed it input, and the quality of the output is based primarily on the quality of the input. That’s just a fancy way of saying that if we want something good to come out, we need to keep putting good in. So, in my case with my ex-girlfriend, as soon as I realized I was getting trapped in a funk, I began to change the questions I was
asking myself, just as Lech did. So, in those first few moments on the weekend when I’d pick up my children, I would change my questions to How can I make this a good day? and What might be positive about their mother and me not being together anymore?

There was a reason I left that relationship. If I didn’t think it was going to improve the quality of my life in some way, there’s no way I would have done it. All in all, I was able to get through the hardest days, and like most things, it got easier as time went on.

Pushing Against Resistance

A second useful technique for gaining control over our emotions is, of course, how we use our bodies, or our physiology. I understand that seeing your ex walking down the street arm in arm with your best friend can make it difficult to smile and walk with a swagger in your step, but hear me out: you have to try to do it anyway. When you experience less-than wonderful circumstances, the first thing you want to do is slump your shoulders, put a scowl on your face, and walk like you’re headed to the electric chair in one of those old movies from the sixties. Unfortunately, when you allow your body to mourn like that, it only perpetuates more misery. You wind up in a loop of feeling bad and then worse, until you’re so far down, you start looking for unhealthy ways to get back up.

So, try this out. Walk around like you’re on top of the world, especially if you feel just the opposite. Hold the door for someone, and smile at them, like “I got this” — and guess
what, soon you will have this. Put your shoulders back and take a deep breath. Keep doing it. Then do it some more. Get up and move around. Moving your body will move your mind. A friend who taught second grade told me that when the kids were stuck on a math problem, she encouraged them to get up and march beside their desks, to switch their brain patterns. You can switch your brain pattern by moving around at any
time. Use your body to take you where you want your brain to go — forward.

As difficult as it may sound, you need to push against the inertia of your own sad emotions. Easy? No. Important? Without exaggeration, it is as important as it is to feed yourself and breathe. I’m sure, if you’ve been to more than one 12-step meeting,
you’ve heard the cliché “Move a muscle, change a thought.” I’ll be honest: I wanted to punch my sponsor the first time he said that to me. That was not the advice I was looking for, if I remember correctly. All these years later, I finally understand the wisdom in that trope.

One of the most perplexing secrets of life is that the answers we are all looking for are usually in those simple clichés we hear and quickly shrug off, with an “I know” or “No kidding.” How do I know this? I used to do the same thing. For decades. When I finally found the secret to making my life incredible, I realized it was because I put all those simple and overused expressions into practice.

I cannot stress this enough. Everyone knows the only way to succeed is to never stop trying, but how many people actually keep trying to accomplish the same thing every morning they wake up — day in, day out for weeks, months, and even sometimes years? Not that many. Just the famous ones you read about in biographies and newspapers.

This is somewhat puzzling, too. I have listened to some of the greatest people of our time give incredible commencement speeches — Jim Carrey, Denzel Washington, J. K. Rowling,
Steve Jobs — and the message is generally always the same: Do. Not. Ever. Give. Up. Unfortunately, it’s one thing to know something on an intellectual level and another thing entirely to put it into practice. As Edgar Allan Poe mused in his famous story “The Purloined Letter,” sometimes a secret hides in plain sight.

The Choice to Be Happy

Finally, what we choose to focus on will ultimately determine our emotions. My experience with finishing this book turns out to be a useful example. January and February in the Hudson Valley region of New York can be somewhat brutal. As hard as I push against it, by the middle of February, my mood and morale are almost always dark. It feels as though winter has been going on for an eternity, and more often than not, I even get some kind of bug that puts me down for a few days. Not this winter! This winter I had an entire book to write, and January and February kind of slipped by without my notice. They could have been April and May for all I cared. I was too immersed in what I was doing. It almost makes me feel as if I should probably try to write a book every winter.

This is no small thing. I used to dread winter. This year I went to work whistling every day. Snowstorms, icy roads, scraping off my car after work — none of it affected me. I was usually lost in thought about what I was writing, what I had written, or what I was going to write. Now that I realize I have a choice, I will most likely never experience winter the same way again.

I am telling you this not as some great authority but as someone who has just experienced this magical fact firsthand: what we choose to focus on, how we communicate with ourselves, and how we use our bodies will dictate our feelings and, ultimately, the quality of our lives.

We get to choose. Our circumstances are not that important. They never have been. When you realize this on a visceral level, you, my friend, will have some Kickass Recovery!

Billy Manas, author of Kickass Recovery, is a regularly featured columnist for Elephant Journal, a contributor to Good Men Project and The Fix, a published poet, a working musician, a full-time truck driver and a dad to three daughters. His journey from Adderall-chewing, methadone-swilling, pot-smoking maniac to speaker/author with over nine years of sustained recovery is, as is so often the case, fraught with excitement and a few valuable anecdotes. These anecdotes have found their way into his many talks at jails, detoxes, rehabs, and his new “Kickass Recovery” workshop. www.BillyManas.com

Excerpted from the book Kickass Recovery. Copyright © 2020 by Billy Manas. Printed with permission from New World Library.

I have been dating my boyfriend for six years now, and we've been engaged for three years. My family and our friends keep asking us when we're getting married, and if it was up to me, it would have happened a long time ago. My boyfriend, however, seems to be nervous about it, and always finds some way to not get locked into a specific date. I'm 29 now, and 30 is right around the corner. I'm wondering what's really going on with him, and if I'm being a fool. Am I wasting my youth (and my best childbearing years) on this guy? I am ready to walk away if he is never going to really get married, because if he can't give me all of his heart, what's the point? We are happy together - he just seems to be afraid of taking this final step. When I try to talk to him about it, he assures me there is nothing going on, that he's just busy, or this or that or the other thing. Do you have a spell or some other spiritual tool I can use to break free of this stagnation and move forward one way or another? Thanks, I love your column!

- Andrea

Dreamchaser:

First, why do you think that you do not have all his heart right now? Does one have to be married to give someone all of their heart?

He loves you. You yourself said things are fine. You two have a GOOD relationship. He proposed because you were pushing to get married and he felt if he did not propose, you would walk. He does not want to lose you, but he also does not want to get married.

There are some people in this world (and I am one of them) who do not believe in marriage. Marriage is an antiquated, old-fashioned, outdated ideal. Women do not need a man for financial security, and men do not need a woman to take care of the house anymore. Our roles have changed greatly in the last 100 years.

Your man is afraid of marriage. He has seen friends who had great relationships get married and then have their relationships fall apart. He does not want to lose you. He is afraid if you two get married, your relationship will implode as well. I want to say for the record that people like me who do not believe in marriage can ABSOLUTELY believe in love and monogamy. Just because I don't want to marry a man doesn't mean I don't want to love, honor, support and care for him.

Your man is the same way. He loves and supports you, but he's really afraid of stepping into something he considers relationship doom.

If you want to get married to bear children, it's time you dump this man and move on to find someone who is on the same page, because your man is not ready to do this any time soon. His actions have shown that.

There is nothing that you can do with a spell or spiritual tool because you cannot mess with someone else's free will. That would not only be wrong, it would bring you bad karma.

It is his choice to remain the way he is. If you started dropping spells on him, would you really have him? You would have a husband who was a husband because you forced it. Is that what you really want? Or do you want a man who wants to marry you and chooses it of his own free will?

Only you can say if this is a waste; no one else can make that determination for you. In my opinion, however, real love is never a waste.

I pray that all your dreams come true.

2158

Astrea:

Magic is not supposed to be used to interfere with someone else's free will, but to your credit, you don't say that's what you're seeking. What a good girl you are!

You're asking for something to help you MOVE FORWARD, and there are tons of spells and rituals that can be applied to your situation.

Here is one that has been "road tested" by quite a few people I know well. They all say that if nothing else, it helps them focus on a new kind of goal.

This spell is for when we have outgrown a long-standing relationship with another person and wish to move on without hurting his or her feelings. This approach prevents the guilt-trips, emotional blackmail, button pushing, and other manipulative energies that surround breakups.

To start, carve your boyfriend's name on a white candle with a pin, and then hold the candle in your right hand. Think of all the positive qualities that you know he possesses. Anoint the candle with patchouli oil before putting it in a holder.

Next, carve your name into a pink candle. Hold that candle in your LEFT hand, and think of all the positive things about you and the great things you've experienced in your relationship with him over the past six years.

Trace two pentagrams (stars) with salt around each candle holder. The holders should sit in the spaces in the middle of the stars. Visualize your boyfriend shifting his focus to a joyful new interest, thus relinquishing his dependence and reliance upon you. Light his white candle and say:

"Candle light, by your might, assist in my plight. Free me from emotional fetter, past bonds now scatter. Unchained, I am free forever."

Next, light your pink candle and say: "Candle light, by your might, assist in his plight. Free him from emotional fetter, past bonds now scatter. Unchained, he is free forever." If you can get him to participate in this spell with you, it will be all the more powerful.

Note: I have also found that when a couple does this together, sometimes it has the OPPOSITE effect you might expect, and their love and commitment are renewed and stronger than ever. The idea of being apart scares them into finally getting their act together!

Good luck!

Astrea:

Many times in life we hear, "You will always have what you NEED, but not necessarily what you WANT." Your spirit must have needed to experience the feeling of leaving your human body, and the suggestion in the next chapter of Sylvia Brown's book was all it took to get you there.

Even though you hadn't read it yet, your SOUL recognized the title of that chapter as something it had been seeking, and your soul, knowing that you had that reference to read after your experience, got with it and out you went!

While I don't usually recommend her books, Sylvia Brown has a wide reaching and powerful effect on lots of people. A Gemini like you would be able to relate easily to her writing and put it to good use. Synchronicity - you gotta love it!

I like your description of "getting caught." That's exactly what it feels like, isn't it? One minute you're free and hovering above the room, and the next minute, ZAP! back down into your corporeal form you go!

As a little kid, I loved that "feeling of return." With practice, most of the time we can control that event, but sometimes, when our physical ears hear a distracting noise or something else occurs to knock us back into reality, back we go. With practice you will be able to control your return better.

I find it interesting that you were visiting your mother-in-law and not someone in your own genetic family. Evidently, you and your husband got married for reasons that are even deeper than love. His family's interest in "psychic stuff" will nurture your children in such matters and help them to grow into their own abilities.

You'll never have to be concerned that when your daughter visits them, she'll be discouraged from exploring her own psychic life and power. My parents encouraged me to develop my psychic senses in a time when it wasn't nice to even discuss such things in public. Heck, it's STILL not considered a great topic at the dinner table in some families!

Your kids will get to talk about it ALL and ask questions and read and study. This is going to give them such an edge in life! Talk with your husband about how you want to present this to your kiddos, so that you are united in your approach and ready to tell them their experiences are all natural and okay.

A word or two of warning: Geminis often have difficulty staying grounded in REAL LIFE. Don't get so strung out on your ASTRAL life that you neglect what you're doing here on Earth.

You are at the beginning of a long journey to learn where your power really lies. Try to be patient with this process and take your time.