HIGH ON LIFE

I’ve done my fair share of drugs. I’ve enjoyed them I must admit. Before I turned 24 years old, I smoked enough pot to keep an elephant baked for a year. But why did I see it was necessary to dabble in drugs? For one thing, I thought it was fun at the time. Although the biggest reason was this: It was an escape. Drugs are the easiest way to escape from reality. Alcohol is the other way to escape from reality. I’ve been there too. There is so much pain in life that we are compelled to turn to drugs and alcohol for the simple reason that we want to escape from the reality that is our lives. Of course, some people think drugs make life more enjoyable, but do they really?

I have been on both sides of life. For the first six years of my adulthood, I relied on drugs and alcohol to escape, have fun, and get by. For the last eight years of my adulthood, I have been sober. I do have to admit that I have fallen off for a few very short periods of time. I thought up until the age of 24 when I had my accident and learned the hard way I had to stay sober, that I was experiencing true happiness. Although what I realize, now, is that I never experienced true happiness until I found sobriety. I never found true happiness until I realized the power of the mind and just how important it is to keep a clear head. Drugs and alcohol make us go through life in a blur. Do you want to go through your life and remember what you did throughout your life or do you want to go throughout your life with so many forgotten memories? Through having vivid memories in our lives, we can learn lessons. If you cannot remember what you did the night before then how are you supposed to learn anything?

Life is all about learning from our mistakes. So, keeping a clear head makes us remember our mistakes and allows us to learn from them, transforming us into better human beings. But where’s the fun in life if all you are doing is learning? The learning that I am talking about is learning how to live a better life. Learning how to live a fuller life. Learning what our passions are and what makes us truly happy and what makes life enjoyable. Drugs and alcohol may be fun, but they are not passions. And while doing them at the time may be fun, they are not going to create long-lasting memories that you will be proud of long after you’re gone. You are just escaping reality and enjoying yourself in the high, but what if you could always enjoy yourself and enjoy yourself in sobriety? What if you felt high even when you were sober? If you can achieve this feeling, then you can achieve true happiness.

Being high on life sounds ridiculous, but it is possible. To be high on life, you must find your true passions. To find your true passions, you must put yourself out there. You can still go to a bar and drink water or a Coke and enjoy yourself with your wasted friends. It sounds difficult, but it is possible. I have been doing it since I quit drinking when I was 21 except for one drunken summer six years back. You do not need to avoid people that do drugs. You can still laugh at the stupid things that people do or say when they are high. You do not have to hide from our alcohol and drug-induced society. You should not judge people for using drugs or alcohol either. You just need to do your own thing no matter who is surrounding you and no matter how messed up they are. You need to let go and have fun sober. It sounds difficult to do, but it is possible through practice. It is fun being the person the next day that can recall every event from a drunken adventure the night before as the only sober person present. While those people around you forgot what they were doing while they were living, you remembered everything from that night. Would you rather remember your life or forget a lot of it?

Since drugs and alcohol are not the answer to happiness, then what it is? What will make you truly happy and how will you feel truly alive? You learn this through self-discovery. To figure out what makes you feel truly alive, you must go out and try as much as you possibly can to figure out what you like and what you do not like. Once you figure out what you like, continue to do those things until you figure out what you love. Once you figure out what you love, continue to do those things to figure out which one of those things you love makes you feel truly happy. Which one of those things makes you truly feel alive? That is how you are going to find your passions. Then instead of drugs and alcohol and constant partying to escape reality, you can do those things that you are passionate about that make you feel truly alive and really start to enjoy life.

It takes a strong person to be the only sober one at a party. It takes a very strong person to constantly turn down drinks or drugs. It doesn’t just take a strong person – it takes a truly happy person. It takes a person who knows they can be happy when they are sober to be able to turn down drugs and alcohol because they know there are better things they can be doing. They know what truly makes them feel alive. They know the passions in their life that make them feel high; that your friends are how you stay high on life. Pursue your passions once you find them through trial and error, and you will never have another dull moment in your life. You will be forever high.