 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim, Alhamdulillah ar-Rabbi l-Alamin. As-salatu wa s-salamu ala as-sharaf al-anbiya wa l-mursaleen. Sayyidina Muhammad wa al-Alihi wa sahabati ajma'in. Allahumma alimna ma yinfa'una wa fa'na bima al-lamtina wa zidna ilma. So we're on chapter three, strengthen your motivation and commit to change. With some of the topics we'll talk about in this chapter is the stages of change and how to motivate yourself. It starts on page 42 at the top. It says how we change. So psychologists have spent decades trying to understand the process of behavior change. And after a period of trial and error and evolution, they've come to this concept. One of the most well-studied theories they say is the trans theoretical model of behavior change, which is essentially the stages of change. What the psychologists and scientists wanted to understand was what happens inside the mind to motivate us to change our behaviors, especially behaviors that have been habits for a long period of time. So what's interesting about this is they talk about the stages of change. They talk about technical terms like pre-contemplation where people aren't thinking about change, contemplation where people are thinking about change. Like, I don't wanna do this anymore. Preparation where people are now moving towards, well, what can I do to change? Maybe calling a rehab, taking preparatory steps, and then action, which is now taking action to change. And then maintenance is like maintaining that change. So putting all those technical terms aside, what I found very interesting is that when Islam came and started the process of introducing the prohibition of intoxicants, it came down in stages and it was a gradual change. And it's amazing how it understood the psychology of humans and people for that to happen. Because each idea that came down tells a huge story. But suffice to say for now, there was a gradual change and there were gradual stages in making that change. So the first idea that came down was Yes, Alunika an el-Khamar wal-Masir in Surat al-Baqarah. They asked you about wine and gambling. So before I go into that, what it talks about now is on page 44, it says the point of all this, thinking about the stages of change is to figure out where you're at in that stage and then figure out what would it take to move you to the next stage of change. So now here's the interesting part. They say that one of the most powerful things to help move people along that stage, along the stages of change is creating a pros and cons list. So on the bottom of page 44. And again, this book is the recovery skills workbook. It's not a individual person's opinions or anecdotal experience. That's helpful, but that's not what this is. This is somebody who's compiled all the latest and greatest evidence-based approaches to how to motivate, how to address addiction. So they talk about how on the bottom of page 44, consider the pros and cons of changing your alcohol or drug use as well as the reasons why it might be worth changing and you'll get a better idea of how to answer that question. And so, and then on page 45, it talks about, this is what's really interesting. It says it is important to acknowledge that there were some positive rewards that you got out of drinking or using back when you started. So you would think like, okay, the pros and cons list, really the purpose of it is to highlight the cons because that's gonna motivate you to, and that's what people do. They highlight the bad parts, like don't do this, don't do that, this is all the pain that it's causing, so on and so forth. But it goes on, right? And then on the bottom of page 45, it says being realistic about these short and long-term effects is important so that you can take an honest look at the full range of benefits and drawbacks that come with each possible decision, such as continuing to drink or use versus changing your use patterns. So looking at both the pros and the cons. So the exercise that we go into in this chapter is basically you look at the pros of drinking and drugging, you look at the cons, then you look at the cons and pros, the pros and cons of not drinking and drugging. So you go both ways. We'll go to it in a little bit, but the point I wanted to highlight here is, so the aya comes down, right? The first aya, when everybody's drinking in that society, when everybody's at the beginning stage, pre-contemplation stage, when they're not thinking about drinking or stopping drinking, the aya comes down and it says, they ask you about intoxicants and gambling. And then it says, say in them is a great harm and a benefit for the people. And the harm is worse than the benefit. Okay, so now it's like, okay, so there's an acknowledgement that there's a benefit here and that there's a harm here. And this is how the dialogue and the conversation started. And there's a whole science in the olum of Quran around the questions and answers in the Quran. So even in this same aya at the latter part of it, it says, another, they ask you about what to spend. And Allah says, so that they spend the access, just one word. Whereas in the previous question, it's a long explanation. And so it's so fascinating. First of all, there's different ways that Allah could have answered the question. Like they ask you about intoxicants, you can say so much about this. There's so much that can be said. So just in the way that Allah decides to respond, there's wisdom and there's so much to take from that. And then what he says, and there's a going into length here and the explanation, like this could have been said in a different way. It could have just said that the pros outweigh the counts or the harm outweighs the benefits. But the way Allah says it is, he doesn't say it like that. He says there's harms and there's benefits. And then he repeats again, the harms outweigh the benefits. So there's so much wisdom in our deen and there's so much that can be extrapolated. And inshallah we'll go into the chapter, we'll just go into the text and go through it from front to back. But there's so much in our deen to teach us about recovery and the addiction problem and how to live a fulfilling and happy and peaceful life. And that's the trick, to use Islam to be this healing force, this loving force and not have it simply get this feeling of it just reminding us of how much we're a disappointment or being this harsh critical. No, there's so much here. That's not how Allah started this conversation in the Quran. So let me pause and let some people in. So it starts off on page 41 on chapter three. The first sentence is great. It says, have you ever wondered why it is that you can feel entirely convinced one day that drinking or using is something that has become toxic in your life and something you would swear off or even you can't even conceptualize ever doing it again. Yet the next day or even the next hour, you can find yourself coming up with reasons why it might be okay to drink or use just one more time. And this is probably one of the most fascinating things about addiction to me. Whether it be drug addiction, pornography addiction, behavioral addictions, they all share this feature and comment whether it be quote unquote hard drugs like heroin or other drugs like prescription opioids which are essentially also hard. And what's interesting is, is I have this unique opportunity of seeing people when they have this period of time sober like a short period of time. So I see people when they're in the hospital they come to the hospital, they have three, four or five days sober in the hospital. They had an infection that brought them to the hospital or something happened where they had an injury or a car accident or intoxicated and come to the hospital. They're in the hospital for four or five days they have a huge reason not to use and they're convinced they won't use again. And I can see it in their eyes and I know the feeling they're just convinced they will never use again. And then we work with them and our peer mentors follow up with them and then a day or two they're using again. And I really do believe that addiction were convinced that how can we after a consequence like this even think about using again but that thin line between I'll never use again and how can I go in my whole life without using? The thin line between I'll never use again and I can't go the rest of my life without using is one of the most fascinating things about addiction to me. And it really also highlights the irrational aspect of it that those thoughts are in a lot of ways just signals that we don't necessarily have to believe both of them that I'll never use again is an irrational thought and that I can't go the rest of my life without using that's also an irrational thought and we don't have to necessarily entertain either of those. So this is probably one of the most fascinating things about addiction. It's also a great leveler. Everybody with addiction goes through this experience regardless of what background like all of us are all from different backgrounds and despite that, we can all share in that experience and relate to that on different levels. And so when you understand that as the essential understanding of addiction that one moment you could be really motivated the next moment, not, then the question is, well, how do we strengthen our motivation and commit to change? And that's the name of this chapter. So it says in the second paragraph in this chapter you are going to learn about why your motivation to change important behaviors might shift around from day to day. And then it talks about different stages of motivation to change your use of alcohol and drugs. And then they start getting into some practical stuff like exercises. You'll do a self assessment to get a sense of where you're at and your motivation and commitment and you can revisit the exercise anytime you need a little bit of a psychological boost. So then it goes to the next chapter talking about how the best theory that psychologists have been able to come up with is the stages of change and there's five stages. So I'm gonna go over them in a little bit more depth now and the important part to understand about these five stages are, no matter where you're at in the cycle, you can move back and forth between these stages. So basically it's like the stages start from pre-contemplation, which is, I don't even wanna talk about my drug and alcohol use. That's pre-contemplation. Like I don't even wanna talk about it. And then the last stage, which is I'm recovered and I'm just trying to maintain it. So the first stage that I talk about is pre-contemplation and then they talk about how, if you're picked up this workbook and you're working on it, you're probably not in the pre-contemplation phase, then the next stage is contemplation. And again, although many of us might not be here, it's still good to get an idea of this stage because when we relapse or when we see people that kinda dwell with us for a little bit and then they relapse, they're going back to that perhaps at times they're going back to that pre-contemplation stage. So then the second stage is contemplation. And this is where people think, maybe I need to make some changes or maybe drinking or drugging isn't good for me anymore or maybe I can't control this addiction anymore. And then the next stage is preparation. Preparations where you start exploring ways that you can get help. So if somebody calls a rehab but not necessarily committed to getting in, that's preparation. And action is when you've started treatment and maintenance is just being consistent. They defined it as being maintenance as being in the action stage for about six months or longer. So the process of recovery from addiction is different for each person and a slip or a relapse can naturally interrupt your life and the progression through these stages but it doesn't have to put you right back where you started. If you catch yourself early, you can catch a slip before it turns into a full-blown relapse and you can get right back into the action phase. So this is about your commitment to change, your motivation. It's not about if you use drugs or alcohol or if you looked at pornography one more time or gambling, it's about where you're at in terms of either continuing in the ring or not. And so if you can actually go from a relapse, right back or use of drugs and alcohol right back into the action phase as opposed to winding back up into an earlier phase and getting stuck there. So the question, the exercise 3.1 talks about what stage are you in and they ask on a scale of one to 10, what stage are you, how motivated are you? So zero being not motivated to 10 being highly motivated and this is something to constantly check in with about yourself. Like how motivated am I right now? It's something that's really good to, forget about how we look on the outside. Like we're going to meetings, work, everything sort of looks good internally. This is like an internal gauge where you can ask yourself, like how motivated am I really to continue to do the work of recovery or change? And this will kind of give you a gauge of, okay, maybe I'm at a five today. And so now you can say, I'm at a five, what do I have to do to get to a six, seven, eight, nine, 10? And that's what the exercises in this chapter are there to help us do. So in the third paragraph of page 44, it talks about what would it take for me to just move up one more point on the scale? And then it talks about the very important exercise of considering your pros and cons of changing your alcohol or drug use and the reasons why it might be worth changing. Before it goes into that, it goes into another section called ambivalence. Ambivalence is like a technical term which is having mixed feelings about using or not using. So ambivalence means being too minded about something. This is a really important concept. You kind of wanna change, it's not working for you anymore, it's causing a lot of problems, but then it's kind of like a warm blanket. We're kind of comfortable in this state, in this place. There's reasons for me to continue doing it and there's reasons for me not to continue doing it. This is called ambivalence. To understand this and recognize this is really important because what you don't wanna do is pretend like that's not occurring. Because all that does is it still operates through you just in like a clandestine hidden, top secret manner. It's working through you subconsciously. So what you wanna do is acknowledge your motivation to change, acknowledge if you're feeling two ways about something. So that happens in early recovery. It also happens like six months in, a year in, a year and a half in, where you start thinking about where you can get too minded about things again, that using no longer seems like that big of a deal. I got a stable job now. I can probably just use on the weekends or every other weekend or just to unwind. Once every two months when my spouse is away at their thing. So once we start minimizing the substance use or the problems associated with that or once we start becoming too minded about things again, that's when it's a warning sign that things are not working in our favor and that it's a warning sign to do something about it. And that's what this chapter talks about. It talks about motivation as a warning sign and it talks about ambivalence as a warning sign. So let's say you do the motivation zero through 10 thing and you say, look, I'm a five. I've been at a five for the last week. Now it's time to start like digging deeper on how do we go to a 10? Or let's say you start getting really too minded about your use. Like you wanna stay sober but then thoughts keep coming back as to kind of wanting to not. And so when that happens, then that's where it's a signal to start working on these exercises to improve your motivation. With that being said, we're gonna talk about this really important exercise and then we're just gonna wrap up. I don't wanna make this as long as last week. And yeah, I don't think, I don't have a feeling like we need to go a chapter at a time. I feel like we should just go until, because some of this stuff is denser than other parts. And once I start feeling like it's getting a little too dense, I think we should just stop and then we should just open it up for questions and check-ins. So, but this is a really important exercise. This is a hack. This isn't one of those things that you may come across immediately. It's a pros and cons list. And I'm gonna tell you how to do it and how I've learned it from people. You create a pros and cons list on the left side. So you get a piece of paper, like you literally do the exercise and not in your head. So you get a piece of paper. So I got mine right here. On the left side, you write the pros of using substances on the right side, you write the cons of using substances. So why do we need this? We've been sober for a couple of months. Some of us have been sober for longer than that. This is a good exercise to enhance motivation to continue to move forward when times get tough, not if times get tough, when they do. So pros would be the pros of using substances. So this is where you wanna be honest about what it does for you. And there's a purpose for it. So let's say, let's just write a couple down. Stress reliever, you guys can throw some out if you want. Stress reliever, fun, kills boredom, grief. Yeah, yeah, I anticipated you. That's why, yeah, anxiety. Yeah, I mean, those last two or three are really good ones. Okay, go ahead, sorry. Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, it's interesting. It's what might've brought us to use or what our pros and cons list was right before we had our recent bout of sobriety might not necessarily be our pros and cons list now. Like the pros and cons of using substances three months ago before I got into rehab, and then I got three months sober and where I'm at right now, the pros and cons list might be different. Like there might be other pros to using that bump up to the top of my list. Okay, so then the cons of using that, let's say jails, institutions, death, the fear of death, overdose, you know, we can go on and on. This is the part that might come a little bit more easy to people, and this is the part where people might focus on more. But it's important to focus on both. Now there's a second part of this, this is important, which is the pros and cons of not using substances. So being sober, the pros and cons of being sober. So saving up money as a pro family, not being upset with us, and so on and so forth. The cons of not using, so here's where people say this might be redundant, but it's not, it's an important part of the exercise. And the reason why it's so helpful is because it helps you process the problem from a different angle. It may not hit you when you think about the pros and cons of using, but you may get a motivational boost from let's say the cons of not using or the pros of not using. So I would encourage you to go through that exercise and to really get this elitified in your mind and to write it down. So two more points I wanna make about this. Number one, the pros of using, drugs and alcohol, that pros list, part of the reason why that's so important to record is because now that pros list is a list of things that we need to find alternatives for. So if one of the pros of using was grief, we need to find a really good alternative to manage grief because we will have another loss. Financially, relationship, legal, there'll be something. If it's anxiety, we need to find another alternative for anxiety, exercise, mindfulness, therapy, spirituality, whatever it be, but we gotta do it as a priority and stress relief, fun, finding other ways to enjoy life. So the pros list is really important. The pros of using substances is also very important. And the cons of using substances is obviously important, but then the pros of not using substances is how we enhance our life, our sober life, the areas that we look at to continue to enhance to make a sober life worth it for us. So if it's the fact that if being sober is great because my family's happy with me, then we continue to enhance connecting with family, spending more time with them, so on and so forth. And then the cons of not using, again is, let's say, the cons of not using, let's say that's boredom, let's say that's old friends, again, that's another list for us to identify replacements that we need to bring in our life. So we need to find other ways to deal with boredom. And maybe we're bored because we're boring. So we need to find ways to make life fun with what we have at the moment. Or old friends, perhaps what we need to do is work on new connections. So with drugs and alcohol, friends, a lot of times, there's a lot of intense feelings and experiences that create bonding between people. When you're living life fast and you're at war sometimes, you develop these bonds. And so in recovery, it's important to, sometimes it can feel like that's missing, even if things got kind of, even if people started turning against each other, perhaps at the end or there's other conflicts that happen at the end. Building those bonds are really important in recovery. And finding other people who are in recovery can be a really great way to build those bonds. And it might just take time. So it's good to start making that investment. Relationships take time and investments. And the great part about this is we can choose who we invite in our life. So with that, we'll stop today. And then we will go ahead and, why don't we start with questions? Yeah, that's a good question. So this being an exercise that we do now momentarily, and how do we use this for the long term? How do we make this a tool that we can use for the long term? So one suggestion that I came across, which I find a really fantastic suggestion, is to create a pros and cons list and keep it with you, like in your wallet. And then you can keep it with you wherever you need it and pull it out when you need a motivational boost, because it reminds you of the reasons of why you use, but then it'll also remind you of your reasons of why you don't want to use. So it'll motivate you to not using, but then it'll also help remind you of like, what is going on with me right now? What are the usual suspects that are driving me back to wanting to use? So if you look at your list and you get a boost from I'm doing this for family, I'm doing this to have a better life, I'm doing this to stay out of jail, I'm doing this for whatever reasons. And then you also look at the other side and you say, okay, I usually use because I'm bored or I usually use because of loneliness or I usually, then you can say, well, what's going on in my life right now that I want to use? Which one of these things is it? And then another tip that I came across which is really excellent is write your pros and cons list on something, an image that's incredibly motivating to you. So let's say you're in a custody battle and it's your child and this is your motivating factor, then take a picture of your kid and make your pros and cons list on the back of that. Maybe it's a particular job or goal or dream that you have. Put your pros and cons list on the back of that. Maybe it's just kind of not wanting to go back to jail in prison and that's gotten so sick and tired. Usually you got so sick and tired of that. Put it on the back of something like that, like a letter that you got in jail of something terrible happening while you were there that something that's gonna motivate you. And so that's a really great question and that's something that I think is a great tool. Any other questions? One more thing I wanted to go over is a real quick Narcan training. This is Narcan, it's the antidote for opioids. So this is the part that goes in your nose and you hold it just like this, you press this button to spray. A mist comes out of this way. A mist comes out this way. This is used to reverse an opioid overdose. Opioids are heroin, fentanyl, prescription, oxys, perks and opioids. So this is what reverses an overdose. You can always get prescriptions for this and you can get this at other places as well. All right, so first, how do you recognize an overdose? Number one is the definition of an overdose, an opioid overdose is depressed breathing. So people will be struggling to breathe. It can look like bluish discoloration around the lips or bluish fingernail beds or their breathing is just really so suppressed you're even trying to struggle to figure out if they're breathing or not or it can be no breathing and then, and then nothing for a while. So it's suppressed breathing or struggling breathing and usually people are passed out. Overwhelmingly people are passed out when this happens. You can't wake them up, you can't arouse them. Okay, so when you suspect an opioid overdose, you give Narcan. The way you give it is you hold it just like that. This is how you press it. You put it directly in their nose and you press the button. You don't wanna waste it by trying it out first to see if it works and then put it in the nose. Just put it directly in the nose and press it. And then it coats the inside of the nose and then that'll bring the person back. Now, when you administer it, you wanna call 911 right away. So you don't wanna administer it and then call 911 later because this doesn't last. This may wear off and then the opioids overdose the person again to go back into an overdose. You wanna give this and then you wanna call 911 right away and then when this wears off they can give the permanent antidote. So that's really important. You don't wanna just give this and think that everything's finished and the problem solved. You wanna give this and call 911. The second point is that once you give this you give it about a minute. Give it about a minute. If they're not waking up, give another dose. Give it another minute, not waking up, you give another dose, okay? So because with fentanyl now, fentanyl being so strong people oftentimes may need more doses in order to get an effect. They give a dose, call 911 and go from there. If they're having trouble breathing you can do some rescue breaths. What that means is just sealing their mouth with your mouth, they'll be on their back. You seal your mouth with their mouth and give them some breaths. You can pinch their nose, lift their chin and give them a breath or two every seconds. And that's just important to know. Obviously if you have the overdose you're not gonna be able to do this to yourself but you can save somebody else. And then if you're in a tough spot you just wanna keep Narcan on you and your pocket. Okay, let's wrap up here and then we'll do some check-ins.