The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction
It's Wednesday. And you know what that means. Hello, it's Luke Michael Howard, clinical hypnotist, change worker, The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction here with you all, Facebook Live. Today's Facebook Live is entitled, "The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction." So that's going to be the discourse that is going to be the Facebook Live today coming up.
So we're just waiting for some people to join us. If you're just joining us, wave, say hi in the comments below. And if we could have a round of applause for my hair, and how high my hair today, the only thing that's high here is my hair.
So I'm feeling a cross between Elvis Presley and Eric Bischoff with this high hair today. I'm very proud of it. So yes, what we're going to do today is we're gonna talk about a certain language. So one of the things that I've studied for many, many years has been neuro-linguistic programming and the neuro in neuro-linguistic programming or NLP stands for the language.
Now language we use externally to other people to describe our circumstances and what's going on in on side of our head and the language we use to communicate to ourselves, to have understanding, that's the language part of NLP or neuro-linguistics. Some people now have marketed it to be conversational hypnosis, but it's the same thing.
Words have power. Now, all words are made up. In fact, everything's made up. However, behind those words is meaning, the meaning that we have attached to it over time. Now, some of the words with a lot of the people that would suffer from addiction before they came to see me, some of the languaging that they would use are nominalized words. And basically what a normalized word is, is a word that's frozen.
So it's a word if you imagine that you could pull it into a wheelbarrow. Like, a frozen word, if you will. If a client came to me and said, "Luke, I'm addicted to X." I would respond well, "How are you addicted yourself?" Okay.
If someone came to me and said, "Luke, I've got anxiety." To which I'll say, "Well, how are you anxieting yourself?" "Luke, I've got depression." "Well, how are you depressing yourself?" That's what I hear as The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction Coach.
Because what that does is it takes that word and it unfreezes it and starts to give the client some level of control because they are interfacing with that experience in order to feel that level of emotion. So I've written a couple of words down that a lot of clients would come to see me from addiction. This could be addiction for anything. This could be addiction for the hard stuff like crystal meth, heroin, cocaine, it could be weed. Or could be cigarettes, maybe be sugar, or it could be sex.
It could be porn. Maybe it's being addicted to obsessive-compulsive thoughts. Or addicted to social media. So there's many different types of addiction. And as I like to say, not all addictions are created evenly or equally. If you've just joined us, wave and say hi in the comments below. So some of the words are... First of all, is how I help my clients get to some level of control.
Now I'm not saying either of these words, I'm gonna give you the word that the client comes in, and then I'm gonna give you the word that they change it to. I'm not saying either of these is technically right. Hey Brenda, how are you? I'm not saying that either of these are... I'm gonna give you free words today. Hi, Brenda. I'm not gonna say that any of them are right, but there's one word that stuck and gives the client absolutely no control.
And there is another word that starts to give control back and authority back to the agency, back to the client to allow them to have more control of their experience and break free from addiction.
So one thing is the big one, right? Is addiction, Luke The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction Coach "I'm addicted. I'm addicted to cocaine. Or I'm addicted to sex, addicted to gambling. addicted to porn, sugar, nicotine," whatever it may be. Okay.
And what I get my clients to do is when you really boil down an addiction, when you really boil it down, what is it? It's a habit that you feel, the addict feels that they have no control over. It's a habitual habit that you feel is doing you, as opposed to you doing it. The heroin is doing me if I'm a heroin addict. The cocaine's doing me if I'm a cocaine addict.
The gambling is doing me if I'm a gambling addict, right? But changing it to a habit. It's like, "Well, you know when I've got that habit when I'm biting my nails, my nails aren't biting me. I'm biting my nails. It's a habit, isn't it? You know when I walk out the door and I need to turn around three times and touch the light switch seven times before it feels safe enough for me to exit, well that's an habit. And that was a strange habit. It's not my habit, by the way. It used to when I had OCD a long time ago.
But it's a habit. It's a habit. It's something like you do, you feel you have some level of control over. So I get my clients to start changing addiction to habit. Yet, it may be a very terrible habit. It may be a habit that may cost you your marriage, may cost you your children, your job, your house, your car, even your life.
I appreciate that. I appreciate it can be a vicious habit, but that's what it is, is a habit. But it's a habit that you on some level don't feel that you have control over. When you start saying that I'm addicted, I'm addicted and you just change it to, I'm just doing a really terrible habit right now.
It's a bad habit. I could lose my car, could lose my house, could lose my marriage, could lose my kids, could lose my job, could lose my life, but it's a habit. And the presupposition of that habit is, no matter how shitty it may be, you do have some level of control and all words are, is we all made up the meaning behind words.
They're very hypnotic. Words don't really mean what they mean. It's just because over time, we've started to believe what they've meant and we've universally accepted this illusion and accepted them for what they were. But someone made up all these words, but some give us less power. I'm an addict, addiction versus habit, doing a habit right now, destructive habit, but it's a habit. So that's the first change. The second one I get my clients to choose is, well I'm doing this drug, I'm doing coke, I'm doing speed, I'm doing ecstasy,
I'm doing heroin, I'm drinking alcohol. Okay. I get them to change the word drug, all right? To poison. I get them to change drug from poison. Because what happens is I'm gonna take this drug yet in society it can sound very bad, but there are some things we hear drug...Well, drug, it's gonna make me high. It's gonna depress some of the feelings I don't want to feel. And it's gonna make me experience more other things like magic mushroom, like cocaine that's gonna put my senses on fire.
So we glamorize it, sometimes drug. We glamorize it. But changing the word drug to poison. Well, what poison are you smoking today? Cigarettes. What poison are you drinking today? I'm drinking a beer. What poison have you injected into your arm? Heroin. What poison are you doing on the internet? Well, I'm placing some bets with money, I don't know. But by changing that drug, the word drug, all right? And changing it to poison.
When you hear that over and over again, you're confronted by this thing, even though you know on some level the drug is probably bad for you, when you start changing it for the word poison, poison, poison, you hear it over time. It starts to give you a bit of distance, gives you a bit of space. So when you've got the space between you and your addiction or you and your habit, you can start to see it for more of what it actually is.
The Hypnopixie is here. Hello? Hypnopixie, the wonderful, beautiful, glamorous, amazing Hypnopixie. But when you start to change it and you start to call the drug a poison, it starts to give you distance from it. So you can start to see it almost disassociate.
You can see it over there being like, "Do I really want to do this right now? Do I really want to put this substance into my body? Do I really want to have this experience right now? Because it's cost me so much and it can continue to cost me more. Maybe my house, maybe my job, maybe my kids, maybe my family, maybe my life." So it starts to give you some distance. And when you have distance from your addiction... Remember we've changed that to habit. Once you start to have some distance from it, you start to have more agency about it.
You start to have more sovereignty about it. You start to have more control of what you're doing. The habit. Remember the habit, the first one, the habit. Okay. So we're changing drug to poison. So you have distance and you see the wolf for what it is. It's a wolf in sheep's clothing. It looks like a sheep, looks really nice, but when it's revealed, it's a wolf and you can see it for what it is and you can't ever unsee it again.
The last word against change is recovery. One. I'm in recovery right now. Yeah, I'm in recovery. Sounds good, didn't it? I haven't used my drug, I'm in recovery. It sounds good except recovery is ongoing. It means you may not use your drug again for another year, 10 years, 20 years, 40 years, 50 years, the remainder of your life.
You may not use your drug, but there is a belief that this battle is ongoing because you are in recovery. Change recovery to recovered. Yeah. I used to have this issue. Or I used to gamble too much, watch too much porn, have too much sex with people I had no feelings for, ate too much sugar, smoked too much cigarettes, did too much coke, drank too much alcohol, did too much cocaine, heroin, whatever.
I used to do that, but I'm not in recovery, it's done. I'm recovered. That used to be me. I used to be 12, probably did at some point as well. If you're 12, and you're watching this, then you probably really need to see me. If you've got those issues.
I used to like Kiss. All right. I used to watch the cartoon, "He-Man" this is all true. I'm not discounting this recovery, but I am not recovered. I recovered from "He-Man", Then recovered from Kiss. I'm recovered from a 12-year-old. Recovery is ongoing, it never finishes. You've always got that monkey, as George Michael said, on your back. It never ends. The battle was always there. The demons are always inside. Recovery, ongoing, recovered. Yeah. I used to do that particular behavior. I used to have that particular habit.
It was very destructive and I had some high times, pun intended when I was doing it. I don't do it anymore. I am recovered. So changing recovery into recovered. It puts you into that spot that you're done. It's something you used to do, you used to be 12, used to like Kiss, used to like "He-Man," used to do drugs, used to drink alcohol, used to watch too much porn. Not discounting it, that's true. Only the first three were true for me. That's true. However, I'm now done with it.
I haven't been 12 in 30 years. This is a true one. I haven't watched "He-Man" in, I dunno, 35 years. I haven't listened to Kiss in, I don't know how long. All right, I'm recovered. I'm not gonna do it anymore. I'm certainly not gonna be 12 again.
I don't think I'll listen to Kiss and "He-Man", I kind of grow out of it, but I did love it as a kid. So changing recovery to recovered. Recovered is done. Recovered is done. You want this to be done. Want your sobriety to be now. You want to draw that line underneath it now and be done. Punctuate it.
Now, it's done. Make the decision now, it's done. As I said in one of my other videos, the definition of decision in, I believe it's Latin or Greek origin, to make a decision meant to cut yourself off from any other possible option. You've cut yourself off from it. You don't wanna be having this battle all your life. You've been having the battle long enough. It's time to be done with it. Time to change that addiction to habit. The time to change that drug to poison. It's time to change recovery, to recovered.
And just making those little shifts in your consciousness, consciously to begin with until it becomes unconscious is gonna empower you so much as you step forward, gain sovereignty in your life, leave the rest behind you, and really go for what you want and break those shackles of your addiction.
Remember we changed it to habit. Well, if you've enjoyed this video or more apropos, if you've gained anything from this video, then please do give it the thumbs up, say hi below.
If you've got any questions, please put your questions below, and please do pass it on to people that you may know that may be suffering now. They may be suffering in silence, but you might know that they're suffering on some level.
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We're, you know, changing the universe here, one soul at a time. I'll see you soon. I'm gonna rewind, like "The Terminator." I'll see you, same Luke time, same Luke place, same Luke channel. The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction Coach.
Always Believe,
Luke
Clinical Hypnotist
The Simple Steps to Break Free From Any Addiction Coach