 Bismillah alhamdulillah wa salatu wa salam ala Rasulillah. So we talk about now in chapter eight, rediscovering rewards. Basically the idea is that when we change our lives, our new life has to be worth it. And it goes into discussing this from the perspective of neuroscience with the neuroscience framework. Our addictive behaviors are rewarding. And so the new life has to be equally as rewarding in order to engage our behavior, in order to change our behavior. But before we go into the book, I wanted to talk about it from a different perspective. I want to talk about it from the perspective of purpose. So in a lot of ways, the life filled with engaging in our addictive behaviors is a really busy lifestyle. And when we stop that, there's almost like a void. And if we don't fill that void up with other activities, then it can become problematic. But also what's involved in that old lifestyle is a lot of purpose. And if we don't fill our lives up with a new purpose or strengthen our purpose or find purpose, that can also be problematic. Maybe if I talk about it from a different perspective, if we just look at a really great example, which is Malcolm X. Malcolm X initially known as Malcolm Little and then Detroit Red and then continue to transform to Malcolm X and then Al-Hajj Malik as Shabazz when he came to Islam. His story is so important because in it is a recipe for transformation. He's known for civil rights. He's known for a recipe for spiritual transformation. But what's less known is his contributions to addiction treatment. And he's less known from that perspective. For example, there was a New York Times article published in 1964 where Malcolm X was basically invited in order to talk about the success of the recovery movement of the black Muslims at the time. And he discussed a little bit about that success. But the point I wanna make is that this was somebody who prior to transforming his life who had a really filled life. It was a fast life. And he described himself as somebody that hustled. And if you can read this chapter in the autobiography of Malcolm X, he has a chapter called Hustler. He has a chapter called Trapped where he really discusses his life. It's a fast paced life. It's a life filled with purpose. There's a lot filling that life and drugs were a large part of it. And his drug problem was a large part of it as he describes. And then he goes to prison and he gets this break from this lifestyle. And he goes through this process of self-development and education. And just by virtue of having a break from that lifestyle and drugs and alcohol and allowing his brain to sort of settle down. He goes through this process of changing his lifestyle around. But then what's less known is he finds this incredible purpose in his new life. And I wanted to talk about two aspects of that. One was finding purpose and helping other people. Other people with addiction. And number two was finding purpose and just the general service of other people. So in this New York Times article, it talks about how Malcolm was invited to talk about the incredible success of the recovery movement of black Muslims. And he was invited to talk to psychiatric social workers and other people in the mental health field about what it was about black Muslims that were able to so successfully help people stop. And he describes exactly about this legacy of service of how to help other people in the autobiography of Malcolm Max on page 262. He talks about a six step process that they would take people through in order to help them break their addictive habit. So number one he describes was the addict was first bought to admit to himself that he was an addict. Number two, they were taught why they use narcotics. And this is really important because it goes through and it does discuss as not simply stopping drug addiction and addictive behaviors, but it goes through and talks about, well, why did this happen in the first place? Because why it happened in the first place is not only a huge part of why, of how to stop it, but then also how we can be of maximal service and how to find maximal purpose in our lives after our addictive behavior. Third was he was shown that there was a way to stop addiction. And then the fourth, which was interesting was the addict's shattered image and ego were built up until they realized that they had within themselves the power to end the addiction. And then finally fifth, they went through a process of breaking with the addictive behavior. And then sixth, finally cured now the ex addict completes the cycle by fishing up other addicts whom they know and supervising their recovery. What's interesting here in the autobiography of Malcolm X as he describes the way that he would serve others and the way that they would serve others is that after Malcolm had this life of just constantly living a different way and then there was a break from that lifestyle and this void, then there was this feeling of that void. Because remember, he was somebody that successfully broke his drug problem, successfully broke his self-described addiction. And then he filled that void with this life of incredible purpose. And that was something that was important for his long-term success. And certainly when we talk about living a life of addiction we talk a lot about triggers, cravings and sort of making it out of addiction. But then there's this whole other aspect of how do we create a life worth living? How do we create a life filled with passion, excitement, energy with that same intensity that was there in our addictive lifestyle? There's a researcher on the history of addiction treatment in America named William White. He wrote a paper published in counselor in 2006 and he talks about the recovery legacies of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X. And he talks about how Malcolm X created a deeper purpose out of addiction. He sort of strings this all together through Malcolm X's writings and his speeches. And basically, in my Malcolm saw addiction as the product of generational and historical trauma of an oppressed people. You know, if you remember his story his father was killed because he was vocal about justice, racial equality and fighting oppression. His father was killed. So he grew up in poverty as one of 11 children. And he would talk about being so hungry at times he would get dizzy. And then his mother was institutionalized for mental health reasons in the context of all this pressure in these conditions. And then he turned to a life of crime without adequate support. And then the story goes on and then he reforms himself and so on and so forth. But in this story, many Muslims can identify with that generational and historical trauma or that being products of oppression. The sort of reframing of the story can be incredibly helpful or meaningful. So others may identify with this from being from countries that were previously colonized or oppressed. But the interesting part is that people may not catch this if they don't know the history of their people or the history of their parents or the history of their grandparents to really understand why addiction came about. And so that was important for Malcolm. When he went to prison, he had this explosion of education and learning and studying and really reframing, processing and making sense out of his past. He was trying to go deeper and understand about the underlying causes that created the circumstances for his addiction and the people around him, their addiction. And not only understand that, but then educate people. So this writer, William White talks about how in this paper, how Malcolm would view addiction as an outgrowth of historical oppression. But at the same time, he would denounce those who embraced this victimhood as an excuse for self-destruction. So in other words, understanding the mind that's vulnerable to addiction and what cultivated that mind and then weaving that into the recovery process, not in order to play the victim, but in order to really understand the solution for yourself and then for others. So for Malcolm, sobriety was more than an act of personal reformation. It was a political act of resistance. It was an act of personal, cultural survival and healing. And sometimes recovery from an addictive behavior can be best framed within a larger framework of liberation and personal or cultural survival or a larger narrative. Sometimes people think about addiction in such a superficial way. Like I had an addictive habit because I gave into some sort of peer pressure. You know, a lot of times that story comes up and when you dig deeper is almost like the addiction started prior to that and people then seek out certain social groups or people in order to facilitate that addiction and not the other way around. Okay, and then I'm gonna wrap up with this. Here are some questions that we can use to help elicit how to make meaning and purpose out of our addiction. So here we have this great example in Malcolm, in my Malcolm in terms of his trauma and his adverse childhood experiences and then the larger societal context and that being a product of historical events. And then we see how he leads into a life of addiction and crime. And then he has this break from it and reforms himself but he doesn't just stay there. One of the most important components of his success and the success that we see often is then people go on to not just stop addiction but then really understand their addiction and why it happened and then create meaning out of it and then go on to find a higher purpose and that could be immediately through serving other people with addiction, immediately by helping other people in addiction, whether you're one month out of your addictive habit or five years out of your addictive habit, you can always be helping other people, whether that be immediately helping other people with addiction or then peeling away at the onion and helping other people who have the same risk factors of that addiction. So for example, helping other people with addiction or maybe then going on to helping other people with who are living in poverty. If that was one of the reasons that led us to addiction or helping other people in other circumstances like for example, with Malcolm fighting racial oppression. All right, so here's some questions that we can ask to help elicit how we can make meaning and purpose out of our lives because one of the biggest complaints about addiction is, oh, I've wasted two years or at least four years of my life. This is a way to not look at the lives we spent in addiction as a waste of time but rather as an experience, a challenge that was a learning ground, a teaching ground for something greater. So question number one, how were you able to survive to reach this day when so many did not? So even if we're still in the process of recovering, there are many people that haven't even made it to that yet. There are many people who haven't even connected the dots or made it to that stage where they're even thinking about recovery. So this doesn't just apply to somebody who's got a year away from their addictive habit and they're at a safe distance. This is gonna be for people who are just entertaining a recovery or in the process of fighting this thing. So question one, how were you able to survive to reach this day when so many did not? What were your protective factors? What elements did you have that pulled you out of your situation? Because you may have overdosed like somebody else might have overdosed, but you're here or you may have committed a crime like somebody else committed a crime, but you didn't get the same prison sentence or you may have an addictive habit that led to everybody finding out about it and being publicly shamed or had catching a felony or having something on your record where society now says you can't do X, Y and Z. So that person, it might've happened to that person but it didn't happen to us. So how were we able to survive to reach this day when so many did not? Number two, what is the purpose for which you were spared? What is the purpose for which we are here and not there? Number three, what has your life course prepared you to do? All of it together, every individual component. So the studying that we are leaning towards the trauma that led us to this point, the challenges that we've had, the resources that we have available to us in our community, the people that we've come across, what is your life course prepared you to do? The next question, what personal cultural debts need repayment? What personal cultural debts need repayment? How have we benefited from certain legacies, certain traditions, certain people and how do we pay that back? Whether that be the tradition of recovery, whether that be therapy and science, whether that be spirituality and the Dean, whether that be our family systems, what debts need repayment? The fifth question, what special lessons and gifts would you like to share with others? Because each individual in recovery has so many things that they can use to give back. They have certain unique qualities that they can use to help others or in their journey to try to find meaning and purpose. And then finally, the last question, what does your family and community need from you right now? What does your family and community need from you right now? Not theoretically in the future or not what made sense in the past, in this context, in this moment, when we look around us, what's going on? What is the chaos? What is the difficulty that we can personally use our suffering and our lessons and our skills to give back with? So with addiction, sure, we talk about triggers, cravings, lifestyle balance, but for many of us finding purpose or meaning in our suffering and purpose in our future can be this ironclad grounding, very rooting goal for us to make it through the many difficult times ahead. So on chapter eight, page 151, it says, now that you are not going to be engaging in your addictive habit, what will you do to fill the void that the absence of your addictive habit will leave in your life? So even if it was something that you weren't engaging in on a daily basis, oftentimes it's preoccupying a lot of our time. You might find that when you are early in the process of recovery, your mood is up and down and you don't enjoy many things that you used to do. Not everybody feels that way, but a large majority of people who are in recovery feel that way at first. So if you're wondering what you're going to get those pleasurable feelings from, if not from the addictive habit, you're not alone. In this chapter, you'll discover and rediscover rewarding activities for your recovering brain and body and learn how to overcome some of the barriers that stand in the way of experiencing joy. So chapter eight, which is step six on rediscovering rewards starts talking about how we can make our new life worth it. And it talks about on the next page, the role of rewards and addiction and recovery and how rewards are essential part of our lives. Like for example, working can bring about all kinds of rewards. There's financial rewards, there's emotional rewards. If you've done a good job at work and you have a sense of pride over what you're doing, if there's some sort of progress moving forward, you can get this sense of career advancement. That's a reward. And then it talks about in the next paragraph, well, what does this have to do with addiction recovery, finding rewards or finding a new purpose with our life? And then it says, think back to before you started to engage in your addictive behavior. What were the rewarding things in your life? Did they have to do with the pleasure you experienced from your important relationships with family, children, friends? Were they connected to your hobbies, your work? To relate to your personal experiences with addiction, think about the things you started to do less of as you started to use and engage in your addictive behavior. Studies show not only that rewards relate to the development of the addiction, but also that they're very important in determining how successful people are at making changes to their addictive behavior once they enter recovery. When people in addiction recovery have access to a range of sources of joy, meaning, satisfaction, purpose, they're more likely to quit their addictive behavior successfully. In one study that compared two different types of behavioral treatments for addictive behaviors, the people with the most success in staying absent from their addictive behavior were those who got involved in a range of pleasurable activities and did them frequently, which allowed them to enable the experience of joy and happiness without having to face the devastating consequences of alcohol or drug use. So with that, the point I wanted to get across is number one, the new life can't just be a void. It can't just be a life without the addictive behavior. It's got to be something that is worth living, something that taps into things that are meaningful for us, meaningful for us, and it has to be filled with a sense of joy, purpose, and meaning.