 Bismillahirrahmanirrahim, Alhamdulillahirrahmanirrahim. As-salatu wa s-salamu ala as-sharaf al-amdiya' Al-Mursaleen, Sayyidina Muhammad wa al-A'aleen Wa sahabati l-ajma'in Allahumma al-amma ma yinfa'una wa fa'ina bi ma'alamsina Wa zidna al-man nafya'n kuba'a There's a lot when we come out of addiction and we start making the steps towards recovery that has to happen. But if you take it day by day, insha'Allah, everything will start working out and going in its place. So you have cravings, you have old people coming around, you have just trying to stay sober as one thing, and then there's this whole having to piece together our lives as well. So all the damage that we've done, financial issues, relationship consequences, legal consequences, all of that has to get put in place. All the bills that we kind of left to later, later's come. So if we let it all overwhelm us, it's just gonna lead us back to using substances. So it's really important to have a recovery-oriented mind state and mindset in order to manage this. Going to meetings every day, being around other people that are in the same boat as us, and really creating a recovery mindset and leaning on spirituality in order for us to make it through. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, if anything afflicts you, do not say, if I had done such and such things, such and such would have happened. But say, Allah decrees and what He wills, He does. Because if I had done such and such, provides an opening for shaitan. It opens a door to shaitan. It opens the deeds of shaitan. And this is so wise. Because the hadith actually starts off with be keen on what benefits you and seek help from Allah. So have this greed for this drive for what benefits you and seek help from Allah. Because it frames the whole thing. This is about looking for what benefits you. It's not about just lying to ourselves and telling ourselves something to make it through. It's about in the end of the day, keeping a mindset that benefits you. And then it goes on to say, and seek help from Allah. And don't give up. And then it goes into this part of the hadith. If anything afflicts you, do not say, if I had done such and such, this would have happened. So looking at the path and saying, only if this went this way, the shoulda woulda coulda's, only if this went this way, then I wouldn't have to deal with this, this, this and that. Oh, only if I didn't relapse. Only if I, when I relapsed, I didn't make this move. It would have been better this way. Because once you do that, you open your mind up to all these tricks of shaitan. And honestly, you open your mind up to think about things that don't have any value. It's not gonna add any value. If you start looking through your life and thinking, if I did it this way, then this would have happened. What's that gonna do? It's not gonna do anything for you. Because remember that beginning of this hadith, be keen on what benefits you. Look at what's constructive to think about. Frame your situation in a way that's constructive. And seek help from Allah. Because oftentimes we're in situations where we've burnt bridges. Like there's nobody to help us. It's really hard. What we have in front of us is really daunting. Sometimes it seems really hopeless. So be keen on what benefits you and seek help from Allah. This is the time. Because sometimes that's all we have. And don't give up. And then think, if anything afflicts you, if you're in a situation where things are kind of tough, don't say, if I had done it like this, then this would have happened. Because that's just a waste of time. Then sheath on starts playing with you. We get on the pity pot and then that's one step closer to using. You take all of that, you say, this is what Allah willed. There's some wisdom in it. And then be keen on what benefits you. So if that's going to meetings, taking it one day at a time, putting yourself in a recovery mindset to deal with what you need to deal with to make it to the next day. Because there's a wisdom, sometimes we have to stumble so we don't fall. And there's a wisdom in everything that happens. I mean, look at, in the rooms of recovery, look at the people that are two-year sober, three-year sober, five-year sober. A lot of them, well, when they tell you their stories, it'll be interpreted in a way that some of the pain was necessary. Sometimes the pain is the fuel for the journey. Sometimes we're just not able to do it unless that person betrayed us or that financial issue happened or that sweat at jail happened. We needed some of that pain to really wake us up to the gravity of the situation. So if you're going through a hard time, you got to think about how awesome addiction is and how much energy it requires in order to overcome it. And that'll put you in a mindset that then laces up your boots to do the work for it. And I think that's really important. That's a really important way to look at it. And then what's amazing is that on the spiritual plane, so in life, you take it one day at a time. You take it one day at a time. You stay sober for that day. You stay sober for that week. That's the number one thing you can do. And then you make your amends one day at a time, one week at a time, you slowly pay things back. And it's also a great metaphor because in this world, if we owe people money, they require it back. And they might start asking you for more. But it's a great metaphor to really look at things on the spiritual plane. This is an Aya that really affects me. It says, whoever brings a good deed, shall have 10 times the like thereof in its credit. And whoever brings an evil deed, shall only have the recompense, but only have that equal recompense and they will not be wronged. So what's interesting is that in this world, it might not be as forgiving, but a law has created a way of life. A law has created a system that's incredibly forgiving. So the dunya might not be forgiving, but a law has created the system for us to, in the end of the day, where it counts for it to be forgiving. So first of all, a law created a way of life that teaches us how to be happy and balanced, the Dean. So we know that the Dean is not like the master telling the slave to just go in the corner and stand on their head, just to show their loyalty, a completely useless act that has no function for them, just to prove their loyalty. We know that a law created a way of life for us that teaches us how to be happy and balanced on the individual level, on the family level, because a law talks about family and how to handle family and how to work with family on the societal level, what you do to your neighbors to do with people on the community level. A law teaches us how to be happy as individuals, as families, as communities. Now, it would have been fair and sufficient to say, I've taught you how to be happy, that's enough. That's the reward in itself. I've given you the Dean to be happy. You follow the Dean, that happiness is the reward in itself. You have self-help books, they charge you money, you have self-help conferences, they charge you thousands of dollars a day, and that's all they offer you is how to be happy. However, what a law does is he rewards us on top of that, for doing those things that make us happy anyway, living a life that just makes us happy anyway, it helps us find peace anyway. So a law rewards us on top of that. It's like taking the self-help class and they pay you to read the book, or to go into the self-help conference and they pay you like a day's worth of work that you missed to join the conference. And it would have been fair for Allah to just give us a one-to-one reward. But he doesn't, in this ayah he says he gives us 10 times of life thereof. So it's like if we had a debt and we got to pay off 10 times as much. So in the dunya, we do what we're supposed to do. We pay off, we make amends, and then in that, it's almost like a sign that reminds us of how vastly superior the mercy of Allah is, how vastly superior Allah is to all of that. And then it could have been that Allah just rewards us 10 times, but then Allah rewards us, it could have been you get 10 times and it's over, but then Allah rewards us with jannah, which is eternity. So we do something that's finite and then we get rewarded infinitely for that. On the spiritual plane, despite it feeling like in the world we're not making progress, maybe in prestige, maybe in wealth, maybe in other life circumstances, on the social matter, whatever it is, all things that don't matter whatsoever, in the end, we won't even think about these things in the end. On the spiritual plane, we can make incredible progress and there's so much hope. And then even in the dunya, that's why it's good to go to meetings and see the people with the year, the people with three years, people with five years who've been in worse situations or situations just like us and they made it and then they're able to tell us, look, it was needed, the pain was needed. I needed to go through that in order for me to take this seriously. So sometimes you have to stumble so you don't fall because things could always be worse. Things could always be worse. People who are less dangerous than us overdose and die. People who do less criminal activity than us get more jail time, prison time. People who aren't as bad to their families, they're like really cut off. So, you wanna look at it in a way that's going to, to again, benefit you and seek help from Allah and don't give up. And if anything afflicts you, don't say that if it was like this, this would have happened because you don't know. Maybe that's not what would have happened. Allah knows. Allah decrees what he does and he has a wisdom in what he does. All right, we're on chapter four now. Set yourself up to succeed. This is a really good chapter. So basically we went over understanding addiction and now we're going over overcoming addiction. So all of these things that we're going over are all tools to help you overcome addiction. And again, they're all been studied, not in a test tube, but on people. So, you know, you take a group of 100 people, you split them up into groups, you give 50 of them the tool, you get 50 of them, not the tool. And then you see how they do in terms of their addiction. And if the people using the tool have more days of sobriety, less cravings, feel better, then the tool makes it into the book or into the compilation of evidence-based, science-based tools. So those are the things that we're going over here and we're gonna start talking about chapter four, which is set yourself up to succeed. So it goes, now that you have a clear in your mind the reasons why you want and need to change. So we did the pros and cons list, we talked about motivation for a bit. Now that you have your reasons and your motivation, it's time to make certain adjustments in your life that will set you up for the smoothest possible road to recovery. So we're either in two boats, either we're in the boat of setting ourselves up for recovery or we're in the boat of setting ourselves up for relapse. One way to look at it is from setting ourselves up to relapse, because that's something we may be more familiar with, setting ourselves up for relapse. Oftentimes what we do, if you work on relapse prevention and you realize that relapse happens long before the first drink or drug, oftentimes what we do is we subconsciously set ourselves up for relapse. So maybe I can't get high, I can't justify that in my mind yet, but I'm gonna start talking to that person that I know might be a slippery slope. Maybe I can't get high, but subconsciously I'm driven to taking that road to work that drives by the spot or the liquor store. Maybe I can't justify getting high off of opioids or fentanyl, but smoking marijuana or drinking subconsciously doesn't seem so bad. So when we realize that relapse a lot of times is just our brain setting ourselves up to fail, then we can realize how important it is to set ourselves up to succeed. And what's important is in this chapter, they say that every little decision you make is important. And every decision you make in life and early recovery, the first three months, first year, even longer than that, it's important to be aware of that decision and how that affects your sobriety. This can be decisions that are right in front of you, people, places and things that can trigger drug use and alcohol use, and it can be even smaller decisions than that. So what this chapter goes over is several different ways to prepare yourself to be successful and to learn about obstacles and to overcome those obstacles, but more so how to be mindful of the fact that decisions are happening in our lives on a moment to moment basis. That can affect our ability to stay sober or not. And that because a lot of times our mindset is a pattern. The way we deal with problems or crisis or life stuff, oftentimes it's a pattern, a pattern that we've learned over a long period of time, a pattern where we interpret life events in a way that's conducive to using. This bad thing happened, life sucks, screw it, I'm gonna use drinking drug. Or this hard thing is happening, or I did this bad thing, I'm a bad person, I deserve bad things, let me just use drugs and alcohol anyway. Breaking that pattern of what's comfortable for us. So sometimes feeling like a bad person can be what's comfortable for us. Sometimes catastrophizing life situations can be what's comfortable for us. But looking at things in a different way, having a recovery mindset, recovery is all about doing things that are uncomfortable until they become comfortable. It's all about doing things that are uncomfortable until they become comfortable because we're so sick and tired and sick and tired of being sick and tired and sick and tired. The next section is get rid of stuff that helps you drink or use. This is obvious, but I'm still gonna go over it because it's so important and it's so important to be aware of constantly. Stuff in your life that reminds you of drinking and drugging, it's important to remove those things. I know some of us are beyond the stage, but it's still worth remembering because again, when the drug and alcohol problem starts coming back in our lives, it's gonna come back insidiously and it may come back simply from things coming back in our life that remind us of drug and alcohol use. So think back to when we first started to get sober. It's important to remove things that obviously remind you of drugs and alcohol, rolling papers, bongs, alcohol, bottles, whatever it is. It could be foil, it could be choreboy, whatever it is. Stuff that reminds you of drugs and alcohol, remove it from your home and remove it from your environment, remove it from your drive to working back and you wanna just keep your life free of those things. Some concerns that people have when they're faced with the recommendation to get stuff out of their lives that people place in things that remind them of using. So we're talking about the things. One of the concerns is, and this is a really good one, that's why I'm highlighting it. I should be strong enough to have that stuff around me without using. I'm just gonna leave this thing in my life because, hey, I'm gonna use it to test me. I should be strong enough to have that thing around me. So what it says is a lot of people in early recovery come into it with the idea that willpower is a sign of progress and there's some truth in that. But there's this idea that be smart, not strong. So sure, I can go to sleep at night with the light on. The light's gonna annoy me, but sure, I can be strong. I can close my eyes and just try to block it out. Or I can just shut the light off and rest peacefully. I can read a book with the radio on or noise in the background. Sure, it's gonna disrupt my concentration, but I can do that. I can say, this is a test arbitrarily. All of a sudden, this is a test of my willpower. Or I can just turn the noise off and read it in a quiet place, turn the radio off while I'm reading. In the same way, when we're in a room with things that remind us of drugs and alcohol, you can stay there and just deal with that static background noise of being aware that it's there. Or you can just turn it off and leave or remove that thing. Sure, sometimes you can't always remove that thing, but whenever possible, clean your environment of triggers. And whenever possible, remove yourself from places that have things that are triggering. And then it goes into an exercise on 4.1, talking about certain paraphernalia and things that you can remove from your home. There's one I'm gonna highlight here, which is phone numbers. So phone numbers of dealers or contacts or people that use drugs and alcohol, deleting those from your phone. Even if you've got some time in recovery, you wanna think about it in two ways. One is that if I was gonna relapse, people, places and things would be the first thing that would come back in my life before I relapse. That's one way you wanna look at it. Sure, we've gotten people, places and things out of our life now, but we always wanna be vigilant about those things coming back in our life. That's one way you wanna think about it. The second way you wanna think about it is you wanna think about recovery as a science because one of the most rewarding things that you can do that gives you purpose, that keeps you in touch with recovery is helping the newcomer. And it's one thing to know this stuff for ourselves, but to be able to give it away to the newcomer, that helps us master this stuff. You wanna think about the stuff we're learning here in those two ways. One is that, sure, I'm in a good place now, but when the time comes, when I get close to relapse, not if it comes, when it comes, these are the things that are gonna come back in my life. But then number two, when I start working with the newcomer, this is how I should organize conversations in my head to talk with them. So when you or the newcomer that you're working with identify things to remove from their home, their car, their life situation, you need a plan. Do you feel confident that you can get these things, get rid of these things on your own? Or do you need someone to help you? Sometimes you need someone to help you. Sometimes we're sort of paralyzed to get rid of things. And when we have a moment of courage or inspiration, it's good to just tell on ourselves and get somebody to help us out. You can turn to a loved one who is supportive of your recovery, a sponsor, an addiction treatment provider, a counselor, somebody that just gets you to help you out. And you can be that person for somebody else as well. Make a point of not procrastinating about this, getting the people placed in things out of your life. Once all those temptations are out of your life, things will get a little easier. They say a little easier. I'm gonna say a lot easier. Now, this is a paragraph that's really important. The section is become aware of seemingly irrelevant decisions. People fall off not because they use drugs and alcohol. People fall off because they're not aware of how important some of the decisions that they're making are. And they don't give it the proper thought. What's gonna take us out are simple things like boredom, simple things like small decisions that we may have thought were irrelevant at the time. Do we pick up this phone call? Do we not? Do we throw this thing away? Do we not? Do we delete this phone? I'm telling you, when it comes to relapse, don't think about relapse when you're in a strong place. Think about relapse when you're in a bad place. When something happens to a loved one, there's some static between you and a loved one where you're not going to meetings regularly. When those times come, the littlest things are gonna save you and get you to the next step. When that wave comes, the littlest things are gonna save you and get you to the next step. It's so amazing how we get so far on such thin of ice sometimes. So what it says is, become aware of seemingly irrelevant decisions. One of the most important psychological adjustments you'll make as you enter recovery is to recognize that a lot of your decisions from now on need to be made carefully with your sobriety and mind. Because once we stay sober, once we work on ourselves, everything else falls in place. If you fix everything, the financial stuff, the relationship stuff, everything, you focus on all of that and you don't keep your sobriety first, we're gonna lose all of that stuff anyway. The first thing you put in front of your recovery oftentimes is the first thing that you lose. Then it goes on. There are decisions you will make about where to go with whom to socialize and what kinds of things to do for fun. They can have a profound effect on your recovery. Even if they don't seem related, seemingly irrelevant decisions are just what they sound like. They are little decisions that you make every day that may not seem at the moment to have any potential impact on your sobriety because they don't involve drinking or using directly. I'm gonna say it again. They are little decisions that you make every day that may not seem at the moment to have any potential impact on your sobriety because they don't involve drinking or using directly but they can move you closer to a relapse if you're not aware of them. And then it goes into an example you can read that on your own. Here are some suggestions to help you avoid making seemingly irrelevant decisions that will put you at risk. Both point number one, create an awareness of the importance of your moment to moment decisions as they affect your recovery. Every day, stay vigilant. What's the decision that day that's gonna move you closer to recovery or closer to relapse? Recovery isn't about not drinking or not drugging. It's all the little decisions. Oftentimes you're too late if that's where the battle is. The battle lines are much before that. It's in all the little decisions we make. Number two, consider your full range of options when confronted with the choice that could impact your ability to stay sober. So be honest about all the options that you have. Even if you're preferring one option, it might just be out of your pattern out of our using mindset that we're so used to. The third bullet point, think about potential risks and benefits of each choice that you can make. Next bullet point, choose the option that will be the most protective of your recovery. So when you have a decision to make, choose the option that's gonna be the most protective of your recovery. And then the final bullet point, if you end up choosing a risky option, be prepared with an exit plan for a relapse prevention strategy in place, such as calling a sponsor or a supportive friend if you get triggered. Or bring someone with you who will help keep you motivated for recovery. So if you're ever on risky territory, always have an exit plan. Obviously try to avoid risky situations as much as possible, but if you do always have a plan B then always have an exit plan and roll in numbers. So if you can bring somebody to the Super Bowl game or if you can bring somebody to the family party or if you can bring somebody to the work event or if you can bring somebody to that drive where you're gonna be alone or whatever, I do that, because those are the decisions that count.