(1 min read)
I talked to a recovered meth addict, 8 years clean, who said he went cold turkey after 3 months of non-stop use. I had to ask how he did it when so many others struggle to quit, step into the abyss with their eyes wide open.
His answer surprised me. He said: “I didn’t know that Meth was addictive.”
In other words, he didn’t have it in his head that if you start doing meth, you can’t stop, that it is a highly addictive substance, up there with heroin and nicotine. He’d moved from a tiny, sheltered, detached town in the South to a big city. He didn’t know the facts. No one told him. And his naivety saved him.
That’s crazy.
In a sense, his head overrode his body. His preconceived ideas, though contrary to piles of research, won out over the chemicals swishing through his brain, perhaps they even changed the chemicals and changed his brain.
The power of thought. What we believe – the mantras, the tenets, the gospel – regardless of its accuracy, can and will nullify cold hard facts and common knowledge. It can change our physiology and therefore our emotions, our friendships, our core beliefs, our very outlook on life.
We, the normal and boring humans, have a superpower.
This is both the good news and the bad.