We've been everywhere except the one place where freedom actually exists. And I turned into the type of individual that can bring peace to a crazy situation. If you accept it as if you had chosen it, what if you just chose it? This doesn't mean liking it. I cannot control tomorrow and yesterday's dead, but right now in this morning, you're not using. It's one of our favorite definitions of success, the normal, mundane, daily things that you do all the time.
What if recovery isn't about building a better story? What if it's about waking up to what you are beyond the story? Every moment you spent craving, every second consumed by regret or anxiety about tomorrow? I want to tell each and every addict that's out there. You've been everywhere except the one place where freedom actually exists. You know where that place is. It's right here and right now,
don't you think, Dwayne? Damn right, man, You're coming in, fought with the flames just right away, a low torch. I love it. I love it. We say when I have one leg in yesterday and another leg in tomorrow, I shit all over the present moment. And on recovery journey, we get to learn that I spend a lot of time in worry, frustration, irritability, discontent, and all that stuff is happening in my mind. I'm not honoring what's going on right in front of me and I'm not
honoring the present moment. I have absolutely zero serenity because I'm worried about fighting with this person in the future, or I'm worried about picking up drugs in an hour or I'm worried about how am I going to make some money to get some liquor or I'm worried about stealing the liquor. I'm never ever in the present moment and I don't get to have any peace. I don't get to have any serenity and I'm constantly in fight or flight.
And for an addict, that's just how we exist all the time. We're go constantly in trouble, constantly worry and we never get to touch real power. Real power lives in the present moment. It doesn't live anywhere else. Yeah, and I think a lot of people don't understand this. And Buddhism teaches this is the suffering is when you get out of that present moment. Suffering is when, because with addicts, you'll be like in the future when I'm 90 days sober or
I'm two years sober. But that's not that. That's not, that's your suffering because you're saying I'm not good enough. I'm not there yet. God doesn't love me until I get to this certain area. And then it's also not buried in understanding your past trauma. Everybody gets into this. It's the future in the past, the future in the past. But what people don't realize, and it's this simple and this is so funny, bro, it's this simple. It is available to you in this breath.
The breath I breathe right now. That's it. Very powerful. Very powerful bro. I've been listening to teaching recently and it says 1. Gentleman says 1. Conscious breath is a meditation, 11 conscious breath. If I can be present with my breath, with my consciousness for one moment, that is powerful
enough to get me back to center. When we're talking about present moment practice or when we're talking about getting in contact with the power of the present moment, it's very important to also bring in a lot of acceptance. I think that might be laying the groundwork for present moment practice. If I am in resistance, if I'm resisting reality, resisting the present moment, I can't touch
home base. I cannot get in contact with the power big enough to save my life, to heal my addiction, and to propel me in into a forward motion. Initially, there has to be an acceptance of the present moment. And it's good to analyze or it's good to look at acceptance and what that means for us. Excellent teachings on acceptance. Acceptance doesn't mean I like this. Acceptance doesn't mean I condone that behavior. Acceptance does not mean I'm OK with this.
Acceptance doesn't mean yes, sign me up for that. Acceptance just means this is happening. I am not resisting on the isness of the situation. I heard another thing just this morning that really lit me on fire and it the gentleman said the ego loves complaining. Anytime you practice complaining, you're strengthening the ego. Because the only place I can complain is in my mind. And when I'm complaining what I'm really doing is saying this should be different, this should
be different. So I have 0 acceptance. I'm resisting reality and I'm saying I don't like things the way they are. This should be different and that's not the same. That's not to say that we don't take action and that we don't build the future we want, but the the point we're trying to make in regards to acceptance is not resisting reality. When I can come to a place of this is happening, then I can get in contact with the appropriate power to take action to change my situation.
I can take more empowered action instead of anger, instead of angry action instead of frustration, action instead of fearful action. I can take empowered action if I come from a place of acceptance. There was a gentleman who got put up on a cross and when he was up on the cross, he said to his father, thy will be done. He brought a deep acceptance to the depths of suffering. That's an archetypal story because it's the worst punishment for the most innocent
person. You can't make it any worse. That's as bad as it gets. Christ on the cross. And he was able to bring a deep yes to the depths of suffering. And that's why the torture weapon in the western world is simultaneously the symbol for the divine. Every time we look at a cross, we know that means God. But that was the Romans worst form of torture.
Why do we think that means God? Because of that statement, because of that deep acceptance, when I can bring a deep yes to this uncomfortable feeling, to this perceived suffering, that's when God can come in and do his magic. That's when we can be reborn. That's when we can start anew. I don't have a chance to start fresh unless I come from a place of acceptance first. And that's so beautiful, Dwayne.
I was talking with a lady at the gas station the other day and she just got the job at the gas station and she was homeless. She was living car and working at the gas station. I was, she just brought it up to me. I just was there at the gas station getting gas and one of the things she said to me was she was talking about her past and how fucked up her past was. And then she's talking about the future and what's going to happen now that she got this
job. And I began to think, especially for us addicts, the prison of time, this addiction that we have to time itself. And like you were saying, and and we always think of addictions with substances, but I think it, I think really for addicts, it's an addiction to living anywhere but now. And that's where most suffering
comes from. It's from the mind or the ego's refusal to accept what is. And that's what Jesus, that's what you said with Jesus. And Matthew 634, Jesus said this great verse and he talked just about this. Jesus was talking about the present moment for anybody else was maybe Buddha was a little bit before him, I think. But Matthew 634, he said do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.
So basically what he's saying, you're caught in this loop of past, you're caught in this loop of future. And then he turned around and he said the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. It's not later, it's not when you get better, when you're sober, when you get out of jail, none of that matters. He said the Kingdom of heaven is at hand. That means. And what Jesus was saying is it's in with reach now. You can have the Kingdom of heaven.
You could be an addict, homeless right now listening to this podcast and we have a lot of you listen because you put comments out there saying that and the Kingdom of heaven, that power is ready and available for you right now. Yes, yes, man, just incredible. I recently have I was telling talking to you before we started the podcast, bro, I've recently tried to gone back to basics touch home base.
I was operating in the ego big time and for addicts, for Alcoholics, that's the way we operate all the time. I'm constantly looking out for me. I'm practicing selfish and self-centered behavior. And then when things don't go my way, I have a problem. There's an issue, I'm upset, there's anger, there's frustration. So some of the back to basics teachings that I've been returning to are the power of 3. Watering the present moment in every scenario ever.
We've talked about this, but it's worth bringing it back up. In every scenario ever, there are three components. Component #1 is the situation. What's the situation? I'm struggling with my addiction. I'm having a hard time stopping drinking. I drink whether I want to or not. Component #1 is the situation. Component #2 is my energetic response. What's my energetic response? Fear, frustration, resentment, anger, irritation, worry, worry.
And for most people, especially addicts, they just bounce back and forth from 1:00 and 2:00. That's all they that's all they know. That's their entire reality. That's where their identity is bound. I'm the situation. I become an addict, I am an alcoholic, that's who I am. I become an employee at a gas station, that's who I am, or I'm angry, that's who I am. I'm frustration, I'm worried, that's who I am.
And we need to get out of this horizontal dimension between 1:00 and 2:00, and we need to enter the vertical dimension, which is situation or component #3 the vertical dimension. What's the vertical dimension? That's my consciousness, that's my aware presence. That's God, that's soul, that's eternity. That's the part of me that's not subject to birth or death. That's the part of me that is
forever. That is also the part of me that can observe #1 and #2 So I want to bring out this third element, this third dimension of existence, and I want that vertical dimension to be where my identity is grounded. If my identity is grounded in universal source energy, if my identity is grounded in consciousness, spirit, soul, we use many terms because anyone term limits it. It's too big to be labeled. So we use many terms to help the
human brain understand. But if that's where my identity is grounded, these things are eternal. They're not going anywhere. And so I that that's been the back to basics practice for me this last week. Brother, come back home. Remember who you are. Remember the flowering of consciousness inside of you. Do you have any ear peace at all? Are you as fast in inner peace ever throughout the day? Do you even know what serenity means?
And had lost the present moment. I was constantly in fear, around business, around money, around solutions. And I had got out of solution. And when I came back home, back to vertical dimension, things just started falling in line. People and places were put in front of me. The vortex was open and God brought people to me, the appropriate help, the appropriate finances, It was all there. It was all there. I didn't even have to go look for it already.
It just came to me. So I got out of resisting reality. Bouncing between 1:00 and 2:00, got into vertical dimension. And that's what you were talking about with that Sermon on the Mount. That's where heaven exists. Heaven it. The only time we get to experience heaven on earth is in the present moment. I guarantee you it's not going to be tomorrow. Yeah, and Eckhart Tolle says this. You were, we were talking about
him off air. You've been listening to him and Oprah, and that's all free on YouTube, guys. It says that he said this. The past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation. Both are illusions. Yes. And this is what our addiction fed on. And it fed on. I'm going to escape the present because I'm going to promise myself tomorrow that I'm going
to quit. So when you're doing this promise of quitting, you really in reality what you're doing is you're living not the heaven on earth, the hell on earth. And I want people to understand this because I think it's really important. When you were talking about inner peace, I listened to David Goggins the other day. He was talking to Andrew Huberman and it was so beautiful
what he said. And we don't all have to be as crazy as David Goggins where he's running 100 mile races with broken ankles and all that stuff. But he said this and it was so profound, bro. He said most people live such comfortable lives, they've never experienced any type of hardship. And then overcoming the hardship and then getting it cracking open. And I believe that cracking open is that window of grace, if we want to call that.
And he's, that's why people, he's, I talk to people all the time. They have millions of dollars in big houses and the list goes on and on. And they all are miserable. Because. The only thing I solved myself, he's like I was fat, I had issues. Everything else he goes. The only way I solved myself was going into the Navy Seals. And then from there I learned that the suffering is there for
you to crack open disability. It's even in science, they call it DMN, the default mode network and our brain constantly. It's like a data stream because of fighter flight and all of those different things that we've had in our past, not our past, but in our ancestors past. It. Pulls us into this past, future thinking because that's what's good for survival. I need what happened in the past. I need to logically figure it out. OK, I almost just got ate by
this bear. Now what do I need to do? OK, I need to do this, prepare for this. And then future thinking is, oh, OK, I need to make sure I let the tribe know there's a bear out here and it's attacking. It's attacked 3 people. Now. You know, this whole thing with tribal evolution and all that is what this is, and it's really interesting with the science. Studies show rumination. That's what they call it, and
that's the past. What's interesting with neuroscience, they call constantly thinking about the future. The word they use for it is anxiety. And if you really. Think about that rumination of the past anxiety in the future. And they said that it literally shrinks the hippocampus.
And when they've taken monks and you've heard about the study they've taken monks and you've done scans on their brain when they're in like deep meditation, and what they found is present moment awareness increases Gray matter densities, and it especially increases it in governing emotional regulation. So this is what you're talking about. You had a God moment in that moment where you're like, I don't have any inner peace about this. What the hell is going? On.
And then you were able to slow down, get into the present moment awareness. You grabbed awareness of it. And then in that awareness, your brain started to begin to, as it does with the higher self. It always expands. It's just expanding consciousness. Like you said, I don't believe you can experience consciousness. You're in the present moment. You know, that's the only highway you can be on to communicate with God or your higher self.
So if our minds are wired to drift and our addiction thrives in that drift, then how do we anchor ourselves here and now? And I want you to go in detail a little bit, if you wouldn't mind, with some of the things that Eckhart and Oprah said. And like I said, I encourage everybody to listen to it. Can you go into a little bit about some of the teaching that you're learning right now? Absolutely, man, I love that we're bringing in the evolutional psychology.
Let's say human beings have been this way for three hundred 350,000 years. Let's say we're also interested involving past, where we're at now. Where we're at now is what you just talked about. The mind drifts, it drifts into worry, it drifts into future. No difference between that and anxiety. An alcoholic or an addict is the extreme version of that. I have the worry. We just experienced things in extreme and I'm excited. I'm super excited. When I'm down, I'm in the depths of depression.
I'm ready to kill myself. So an alcoholic is a creature of extreme and it's important for us to remember that it's only partly personal. This is one of the first tools with Oprah and Eckhart seminar on a New Earth. You guys got to go check it out. And my entire life, I was eight years sober when I first listened to it. And it was just the flowering of consciousness, the ego cracking open that I needed. And what what, what I found initially with that partly personal component was it's only
partly personal. I have a personal past and some of the worry and anxiety and resentment in the past, fear of the future is from my personal past. So that's the personal part. But the partly personal part is, just like you said, Jake, is the 300,000 years of evolution hardwired in our mind so that we don't get eaten by a bear or freeze to death out in the wilderness. And today in our modern society, that's not happening to us. Like I don't have to function in anxiety.
I don't have to function in fear non-stop. The Eckhart Tolle teaching, which is from ancient Chinese, the ancient Chinese teaching is there's no tiger in this room. So when I get into fear, when I get into an anxiety, when I'm in a safe warm bed at night, but I'm having anxiety about the future or about getting sober, it's very helpful to remind
myself I'm not my thoughts. I'm not my thoughts come back to the present moment thought form you put in that horizontal existence 1-2 those the thoughts go in one or two. It's a situation or it's an emotion conscious aware presence. The God inside of me does not feel bad. It is not capable of feeling bad. It's not capable of being afraid. It's not capable of anxiety. It's pure love, it's pure presence all the time. And we want to get in touch with that more and more often.
So it's very just, it's just very helpful to remember it's only partly personal. OK, I there's no tiger in the room. That's literally the mantra. There's no tiger in this room. There's no tiger in this room. And. And there's no tiger in. The room. It's comical for a reason. The comedy helps crack open the ego. The only place the ego can exist is in the mind.
So the mind loves when the ego takes over because I'm just bouncing back and forth one and two and one into a most situation, worry, situation, worry. And we need to go a little beyond that in regards to this next step in. What's the next step in human evolution? The next step in human evolution is going to be a conscious one. It's going to be a spiritual evolution. We're not going to get bigger
and stronger. What we're going to get is more awake, more connected to God in the present moment. And so that's what we're talking about. Some of the other tools that are excellent in the seminar, very simple, we start with sense perceptions. Sense perception. So go inside the body. Can I feel the aliveness in my hands? It's almost like a tingling. It's almost like a burning sensation. Can I feel the aliveness in my hands, feet? We start entering the body.
Can I feel my lungs? Inhale, exhale, sense perception. So that would be feel we could we can do touch on anytime. I'm washing my hands underneath the sink. It's so simple it's almost stupid, but it's a present moment practice. Can I just be present with the water? Can I feel the water on my hands? Can I feel the soap when I see a sign? When I see a sign that says I-25 turn left, can I just be present with the vision? With the sense perception of vision? Can I read the sign?
I cannot simultaneously be an anxiety about the future if I'm honoring the sense perception of the present moment. And so we we start touching that, that part of me that's God consciousness. We start touching home base with sense perceptions initially. And then other very helpful tools, of course, are mantras or prayer. There's a great Navajo saying. And the Navajo saying is every step can be a prayer. So let's say I'm struggling with the present moment. I'm struggling with honoring the
present moment. I'm constantly lost in my mind. I'm constantly worried about the drug dealer, I'm good, the liquor store making enough money. The girl that laughed, Oh my God, I can't get out of fear. I can't get out of my mind. We enter the present moment with a mantra to rewire the mind. Helpful mantra is God help me bring an inner yes to my outer now. God help me bring an inner yes to my outer now.
And we walk that like a prayer. I used to work at I used to work in a restaurant industry, in the restaurant industry for 10 years. I started this present moment practice roughly 8 years ago. And when I would walk through the restaurant, I would have that mantra and it would match my steps. So as I would go left foot, right foot, I would go help me bring an inner yes to my outer nail, Help me bring an inner yes to my outer nail.
And I didn't really understand then, but I know now I was practicing not resisting reality. I'm not resisting the present moment. If I'm bringing inner yes to my outer nail, I don't have to Like working at a restaurant. It wasn't the best job in the world. That place was fucking insane. But I tried to bring an inner presence, an inner yes to that outer chaos. And bro, things changed 180 fucking degrees. I became the lead server there.
I became the guy they relied on. And I turned into the type of individual that can bring peace to a crazy situation. And that mantra, that sprayer. Yeah, Yeah. And I was around liquor all the time. And what you, what we open the podcast with is exactly that. That's how we start touching freedom. I could serve alcohol. I could be in that environment and I'm not in constant worry, fear or fight or flight around getting drunk around doing drugs. There was a freedom inside of me.
I was there to serve a purpose. That purpose was to be of service to that business, to be of service to the clients that attended that restaurant and IT. And at the same time I was building something else on the side, I was building my personal businesses. You guys know I have multiple businesses around town and that restaurant was a stepping stone to do those other things really well. Super grateful I got to be there and I got to honor the present
moment. A sober alcoholic serving liquor, trying to practice inner peace in an insane restaurant that stayed open till 3:00 in the morning. It was like a nightclub. Yeah, I'd been there. Yeah, multiple times. You already answered where we met. Exactly. Yeah, that's amazing. I know you just talked about like how the present moment heals. I want to get into a little bit of why the present moment heals. I kind of want to cause a lot of people will be like a spiritual
bullshit, whatever. So for those of you that that have that anger inside of you when you realize your addiction shuts down your prefrontal cortex when you do present moment awareness, science has proven this. You can look this up, grab your phone, whatever you have, a computer, whatever it is, go to the library and look this up. It activates the prefrontal cortex. It literally lights up that part of the brain, and that's the part of the brain I want you guys to understand this.
That's a part of the brain that got hijacked by addiction. When you're an addict, the prefrontal cortex just shuts off. And then the opposite side of that, so your prefrontal cortex is shut off. You know what's blaring red like a siren just going off and 110% like a Ferrari as much RPMS as you can. That's your amygdala. Your amygdala is going crazy. You know what your amygdala does?
It drives cravings. So when you're in the present moment, when you practice present moment awareness and you bring present calm to that fear, that amygdala fear, it centers the drive of cravings. This is science, guys. This isn't spiritual. We're just talking about science right now. And then guess what else happens in your brain? Neuroplasticity. Every moment of present moment practice begins to rewire away from the addiction pathways and begins to heal your brain.
For some of you that's done math and stuff like that. You need healing of your brain. And this is one of the ways that you can begin to heal your brain because that attacks like when you've done math and stuff like that begins to attack your brain. So you said something so powerful and I want us to ruminate on this. You said a craving only exists as a thought. Exactly right and. I want to say it a little bit more. A craving only exists as a
thought about the future. I now to feel better when you bring full attention to this moment right now, if you could calm your brain and just listen to this right now. When you bring full attention to this moment, cravings lose their power. And this is the funny part. And you said this true. You said this earlier. Your addiction never existed in the present moment. It only existed in regret about yesterday and fear about tomorrow. And that's what you said.
I got regret about it. Can I pay the rent? Can I? Do I have enough money? What about my drug dealer? That's about yesterday and then fear about tomorrow. Oh my God, Am I going to be able to get to the liquor store before they close? Do I get a ride? You know, how am I going to get there? Do I have to walk? You know, all the substance is, whether it's alcohol, drugs, food for me, whatever it is for you, sex, gambling, it's just an escape vehicle. That's all it is.
It's an escape hatch. It's the easiest. It's whatever is your type of addiction that makes it easy for you. That's what you gravitate towards. I gravitate towards food. You happen to gravitate towards alcohol. And I want you to talk about this because you've done extensive studies on this. Exodus, the book of Exodus chapter 3 verses 14 touch it something that I don't think anybody in 2 words could be so profound. Of course this is God. So what is God's name? He said I am. I am.
How fucking present moment is that? He didn't say not I was or I will be. It's just eternal present. And when you begin to become fully present, you touch the divine is Jesus over and over again. He's don't worry about Caesar. Caesar give Caesar what Caesar's do. Don't. Worry about that. Don't worry about this and that. Constantly. He was directing people to the now, he said. Today you will be with me in paradise. Yes. So when cravings hit, say I am,
those are such powerful words. They're God words. I am here I am breathing. I am. And it's not an affirmation as much as it is. It's an anchoring to the real reality, if that makes sense. Yes, it's so powerful, brother, getting in law that's exactly about getting in alignment with the power inside of you, that God consciousness alignment inside of you. I love the I am statement. We're reminded in that Exodus story, which is the foundational story of the Western world.
So it's very important for us if you believe in freedom and if you believe in resisting the tyrant. That's exactly what we're talking about right now. Tyrant alcohol, I become the slave to to this tyrant, and I have to do its will. And so the thing that said I am, that's the same thing as the spirit that believes you should, that the tyrant doesn't get to have control. And that's the same thing as the spirit that believes your freedom is most important. And you know what?
You might need to go into the fucking desert and find that freedom. It's not going to be an easy walk. You might theft arc the Red Sea and wander around for a while till you find your way. But that's what this podcast is all about. So there's tyrant alcohol, there is, there's tyrant alcohol and then there's the freedom of spirit. But that I am statement is so big and so powerful. You just gave us more mantras to practice.
It's about the grounding, it's about getting back in in touch with home base, who I truly am. I know from experience, you guys, that I cannot beat this craving alone. If it's up to Dwayne and his ego, I fail every time. I might last a little while. I could put together three months on my own, but that was 0 prayer. That was 0 spiritual practice. That wasn't any fellowship or long term recovery. I our mutual support groups, I, I wasn't big enough to do it you guys.
I had to get back in touch with that. I am power and that I am is God. That's the flowering of consciousness. That's the same thing as I. I am God. I always was and always will be. That's the same thing as eternal. That's the same thing as not subject to birth or death. That power is always available for us in the present moment.
And I loved what you talked about in regards to the neuroplasticity, Jake. So why can't I use, if that's the most powerful thing in the universe, the I am God consciousness, why don't I tap into that? Why don't I try using that? So let's say Dwayne's power isn't enough to stop drinking. Maybe that power is you guys. When I tapped into that power, everything changed. I hit my mantra hard. For six months, continuously. My mantra was God relieve me this obsession.
God relieve me this obsession. And this is what we're talking about, the neuropathway. Now the neuroplasticity, OK, great analogies analogy #1 is like a little trail in the forest. I have gone down Dwayne's Trail 10 1000 fucking times. I know where every bottle is. I know where every ex-girlfriend is. I know where every pile of cocaine is. I've gone down that path 10,000 times. There's nothing new down that path.
I know how to navigate that path and then there's a fork in the trail and then there's God's path. And you know what? I haven't been down that path, man. I don't know. It's down that path. I don't really want to go down that path. But if you're interested in not dying from your disease, you better take God's path. Only thing that's going to save your fucking ass. It is not Dwayne's path that I've taken 10,000 times. So we have to have the courage and the strength and that comes
from that. I am statement to take that road less traveled, to take the left hand path, to take God's path bro down God's path. My life flowered. My life bloomed. It became something worth living. I have problems in areas where I didn't used to have, areas I have to worry about fucking managing properties and dealing with large repairs. A lot of people rely on me and I have a lot of responsibility in my life today, but that gives me a lot of meaning and a lot of
purpose. When I was going down, when I was going down Dwayne's path, I had 0 fucking meaning and had zero purpose. I did not have a good reason to get out of bed in the morning, and recovery has given me an excellent reason to get up and get out of bed in the morning. So that's what I found going down God's path. And then of course, you know the other analogy is good wolf, bad wolf, good wolf, bad wolf. I have these two wolves and
they're in my mind and they're fighting all the time. 1 is beautiful. He's majestic. He knows every turn in the forest. He only eats what he needs to survive and provide for his family. He's very kind, he's loving. He's the leader of the pack. And then the other wolf, he's nasty. His fur is matted and he's snarling and he's dripping venom from his things. He eats everything inside. He needs everything he can find. And these two are always fighting each other.
Good wolf, bad wolf, good wolf, bad wolf. And my good buddy asked me, he says, Dwayne, which wolf is going to win? When I was trying to sober up and I said, I don't know, man, I don't know. And he said, the wolf you feed, that's who's going to win. So I want to turn towards the light when it comes to my thoughts. I want to turn towards God consciousness when it comes to rewiring my neuroplasticity. We can go down a new path, you guys.
We can go down a positive path. We can go down that good wolf path and we become useful. We become members of society that contribute. We become men who can handle responsibility and take care of their family and show up to work on time and be present and provide. And that's enough reason for me to get up out of bed in the morning, bro. That's so powerful, bro so good.
I love the wolf analogy. It reminds me of I'd I'd heard read a study a while back about the pain body and it like your nervous system and the traumas that you've experienced and all that. And one of the things they were saying is that addiction is pain body's favorite food. And that's what you were just saying. When this like that dirty, nasty ego wolf, you got the higher
self wolf that that's majestic. And when Yellowstone, they followed a wolf, I think for 14 years, he was a leader of the pack forever. And they were like, people were like, you know how tag them and then have numbers for them. And they even wrote a book about this wolf because he was like, like you were saying the higher self wolf, this majestic wolf, he kept one partner when most wolves would have tons of partners. And he was kind and loving.
And at the same time something was bad was happening in the pack. He would handle it, take care of it. And he ended up living. He ended up being the leader till he died. And he lived a long time. When you see that your addiction is your pain body's favorite food, and then it just fed on past resentments and future fears and all the bullshit, the only thing that starves it, like you were saying, is the present moment. That's the only thing that
starves it is presence. What are you feeding? You got to starve that wolf. And one of the things that I want us to get in, I want us to shift, if you don't mind, and get into this acceptance versus resistance. And I was thinking about this when I was in the Marine Corps. When you go through Marine Corps boot camp, it's probably one of the worst things people ever experience. If you went to Marine Corps boot camp now, it'd be for those that's been in the Marines. It's pretty tough, pretty
horrific. And they always say they want to break you. And I never understood it till I went to war. Then once I went to war, I was like, oh, Marine, this isn't as bad as Marine Corps boot camp. And I trained a ton. So just your body takes over in war. It's like I had tons of training. I've experienced what shit is, I understand suffering. I got this figured out. I'm not resisting. You have to accept to be in the present moment in war. Are you going to die?
I can't be thinking about what do I do here or how does this work or what should I do or if it's I really fucking hate this. I don't want to be here right now. That's not going to work. You're still going to get shot. You know what I mean? So whatever the present moment contains, accept it. Now. Here's the power of the switch for acceptance versus resistance. If you accept it as if you had chosen it, what if you just chose it?
This doesn't mean liking it. But what we like to do as addicts, we like to add the mental suffering to what is. And that's just all that is, is narcissism. Yes. And you're not trying to get somewhere. Even in sobriety. Everybody says I just can't wait till I get sober. I can't wait. That's not present moment.
What is asking if you was to stop resisting and accept what is right now and then learn keyword, learn to be here, to be the I am. That's the present moment when, like you said, when your feet hit the floor. How many affirmations you say the minute that your feet hit the floor during your addiction? How many did you, how many affirmations you say throughout the day, Dwayne? Trying to get silver or trying to get silver My number. I'm trying to shoot for 3000. Can I get that 3000 a day?
Can I get can I-10? How about 10,000 a day? You remember the neuroscience that did this study on how many thoughts a day just normal people have? Normal people have 60,000 thoughts a day, You guys. That means I have 60,000 opportunities to touch that. I am power. I have 60,000 opportunities to rewire my neocortex and avoid the mental suffering.
But in addiction, when you're in the depths, when you're in active addiction, those 60,000, I guarantee you 98 to 99% of them were increasing my suffering, were resisting reality. I was never practicing acceptance. I was always the victim of reality, victim of this should be different. This should be different. You know what, if you had the life I had, you drink too. If you had the parents I had, if you had the jobs, if you had the bosses, if you had the struggles
I had, you would drink too. I was always the victim. And we know very well in recovery, victims never recover. You want to keep being the victim and you want to keep complaining. You're not ever going to get better. Never. Yeah, That's so good. I want to, if you don't mind, Dwayne, I know this will be hard for you because it's been so long ago. I want to have you step into the old Dwayne. I don't know if you can do that
because I want to do a little. I think this would be really powerful and this is going to help people. So I'm going to give you like 4 little 4 little questions I'm going to ask, but I want you to respond like when you were old Dwayne coked up and on and coked up inside Co. Let me. Bring the. Battered. Let me bring up the ego. I'm sure. I'm sure my ego is still there. So I want you to, if you can remember when the cravings hit.
And then I want to go to this practice because I think this is going to really help people. So number one is name it. So name, get clear on your craving. What was the craving like? Name it. We'll get into it a little bit with me if you don't mind. Like my skin is itching. My skin is fucking crawling. I need to feel something different than this. This is so uncomfortable. I need to feel something different. Where did you feel it?
Not thinking about it, but feel it like in my solar, in your body. Where would you? Feel it in my solar plexus in my solar plexus like a little behind my heart and then my stomach is doing figure eights like I feel the anxiety. I can feel my heart drop down into my solar Plex into my stomach and then my stomach is starts to do figure eights. I start to get ill, like physically I'll. Yeah. So, yeah. So that that's the name it, you've named it. So we've got clarity on it.
It's basically a thought about the future. It's a craving. That's what you and then feel it. We've identified it where it's at in the body, where that thought is at in the body. And this is the cool part. And we we don't have to go through this part, but the breathe with it. This is something that science has identified. Is it that thought in your solar Plex and your heart in that area, it can't survive 90 seconds of full presence?
If you could be fully present for 90 seconds, that'll all go away. That craving goes away because that's what the craze. It would be thought about the future and then an emotional attachment that you had to part of the body. So if you can breathe, no matter how you have to breathe, there's box breathing, there's all different types, There's hypotropic breathing, whatever works for you. If you have to breathe really hard, whatever you got to do, if you can do it for 90 seconds,
try to be present. It's going to help you out. And then the return after you breathe the return, come back to what actually here and now. So who is the Dwayne here and now? What is the Dwayne that just made? Let's see, let's think about the Dwayne that realized like, oh shit, I haven't drank for a month or two weeks or three weeks. I think it was a pool moment that you had, right. Yes, yeah. What is that return coming back to actually seeing that there's hope?
I had a moment of clarity while I was cleaning the pool hint house. I was landscaping and I was right around six months and I that that particular moment I fell to my knees. I started crying. There was this release. There was this like weight that had been lifted and a feeling of okayness, a feeling of this is I I just couldn't believe it, Jay, that I had not been thinking about alcohol. That was a that was something
that dominated my thoughts. It dominated my waking moments, my sleeping moments, and I haven't been thinking about, I don't think I had thought about it for two weeks and it hit me. It hit me like a Thunderbolt there at the pool. I hadn't even been thinking about it. That the grace, the window of grace that was available for me because of the heavy duty work, the neuro repatterning, the mantras, the prayer, the right action, the disciplined action.
I didn't want to get up and go to work, but I did it anyways, behaving like the man I want to be rather than the man I was. It placed me in a position of neutrality around alcohol. So what I it was an absolute miracle. Bro this. I used to see alcohol in the grocery store and have an anxiety attack. I used to, my breath would go away and I couldn't breathe and that that I would fall into the stomach again and start doing figure eights when I would see alcohol when I was around it.
And after that, no repattering work and the spiritual development and the conscious awareness and that moment at the pool, I got placed in position of neutrality and that neutrality meant I'd feel nothing. I don't feel supercharged about alcohol when I see it anymore and I don't feel negative about it either. Oh, there's the devil's fucking liquid right there. I'd feel, I just feel nothing. I feel it's. Boring. Nervous. System it's it's extremely boring to me.
Yes, it's extremely like I have the same affinity for alcohol as I do for mayonnaise now and I could get 2 shoots about minis. They don't care. I don't feel very excited and I'm not like, oh, the worst thing ever. And that came from all that work, brother. And the breath. I want to get into the breath. What you just brought up is so powerful. That third item there, Robert Fritz and Gestalt therapy.
He was a neuro, he was a therapist, but he also worked with neuroscientist and he figured out that the same chemical reaction in the brain, that fear is the same chemical reaction in the brain as excitement. It's just excitement has oxygen and fear doesn't. When I deprive my brain of oxygen, I go into anxiety, I go into fear. I can literally transform my fear into excitement with oxygen. And then there's another great teaching about the breath.
There are many, but one of the ones that I always share with my the people that I work with is 1 molecule of blood will travel through the entire circulatory system twice in under a minute when you're sitting at your desk. Now let's say we're in the gym and we're working out and I get a pump on and I'm moving my body and my heart's fucking going fast. How fast do you think that molecule of blood is going through your circulatory system when your heart is jacked? So it's moving.
And I do a lot of conscious development work with my clients at the gym while we're working out. That blood is also carrying oxygen, and oxygen travels in our blood. I can oxygenate my muscle while I'm working out with conscious breaths. There is there are many names for God. One of the old Jewish names, one of the old Hebrew names for God is Yahweh. But the way that word is pronounced in the Hebrew, you can't say it. It's all syllables. It's it's breath.
So God's name is Breath. The first thing I said when I was born was God. The last thing I'm going to say when I leave this world, this 3 dimensional existence is God. And so we're breathing in and out God all day long. When we touch source, when we touch breath, we're touching God. It's no difference. And it's traveling inside of us at an incredibly fast rate. You're walking around with the solution inside of you. You need to tap into that solution.
Use your breath, use your mantras, use your present moment practice. Yeah, that's so that, that's so good for all that's so powerful that people could, that's the cure. That's it, right? There, that's the cure right there. And something all day long. Something you said earlier was throughout your day doing this and, and I learned this, both of us have multiple businesses and we're really successful.
We work for ourselves. We don't have a boss and that's freedom and that's the ultimate thing people want. We go on multiple trips and I'm not bragging, I'm just telling people we were. We were in addiction. I was homeless and you were bloody on the side of the side in Taos, on a snowy Rd. in hospital, almost dead. What I'm telling people is this is what's work for us and this isn't just something that you can do and you're good to go.
It's throughout your day, like you said, you know, like you were basically bringing yourself through the affirmations. You brought yourself into the present moment, the Navajo prayer, or there there's a famous Buddhist teacher he talks about fill each footfall. He. Says in his mantras while he's walking, he feels each footfall as it's falling and hit touching to the ground. And then he says I have arrived, I am home.
That that's his mantra. Some of the things that that I've been really working on is right when I get up in the morning to be present, and that's in my practices, like making coffee, smelling the beans, feeling the texture of my coffee cup, feeling the water temperature, watching. Like just being totally present and paying attention. As an addict, you're not paying attention to anything.
Your brain is just such a squirrel when you talk to someone, actually being there and listening instead of planning your responses. How many addicts are in? I mean, we all gone to meetings. How many addicts are in the meetings just waiting to talk, You know, instead of just actually being there. Just that's the moment to practice is when you're in the meeting, just be there.
Don't plan your response. Don't think even if you don't like the person, that's even better to practice because that teaches you even more. And I want to close in this because I want us to talk about Dwayne, the ultimate truth about relapse and why people relapse. One, they leave the present moment. I've been sober for 30 days. I can have just one. What is that? That's what you've been thinking. I can't believe I used for 10 years.
That's past dwelling, right? Can't believe it past future. There we go. We talked about this a ton of times. So both pull us out of the only moment where we have power. Your power lies in the present moment. Not in the past being a victim, not in the future thinking about what I'm going to do or how this is going to get figured out or if I can just have one or I'm at the party. You know what?
None of that. One of the statements I read online and I thought it was really interesting is from spiritual teacher. He said I cannot control tomorrow and yesterday is dead. And I love that statement. I cannot control tomorrow and yesterday. It's dead. But right now in this moment, I am not using. That instantly brings you into the present moment. I cannot control tomorrow and yesterday is dead, but right now, in this moment, you're not
using. Right now, in the moment you're not using like right now, you're not. So if you string enough of these together like you did, guess what you have, You have a life. You have a life that, and that's what that that myself and you were both instruments of this practice works. There's two living beings that are succeeding in life sitting before you or if you're listening, speaking before you, telling you this works. This is what it is. It's science, it's spiritual
teachings. It's bundled into one practice that you can do over and over again and you will begin to live a life, as Dwayne said, this worth living. So powerful, brother. I love it. I love it. That is such a great analogy. It's one of our favorite definitions of success. The normal, mundane, daily things that you do all the time. You have to wake up, you have to go take a shit, you have to make your coffee, you have to open the e-mail, you have to have a
present moment. Practice if I can nail, if I can bring God consciousness, if I can bring a present moment, practice to my normal mundane daily stuff that makes up 85% of my life. The other 15% are like anomalous shit. It's like weddings, dance, car crashes, traffic, that type of stuff. That stuff doesn't happen all the time. Vacations. So if I nail 85%, Can you imagine you guys, if you're out there struggling, drinking, struggling, fighting your addiction, Can you imagine
having an 85% good life? You're fucking floating. And then the rest of it becomes other opportunities to practice. Of course, I don't want to be present on my vacation. So of course I want to be present in my adventures with my family that I'm building with the people that all of a sudden trust me now, because I'm a reliable person. We, we can transform our lives, guys, but we just do it one moment at a time. And that's what Jason just is saying, right? He, you nailed it, bro.
You string these moments together and you can transform everything in the present moment. Right now, as long as there's not a needle in my arm or a bottle up against my lips, I'm good. Like I'm OK right now. OK in the present moment. I'm not dying, I'm not fighting anybody. My bills are paid for, my house is taken care of. I'm connected to source in the present moment. You start stringing that together.
If this is a life worth living, this is a this is something I could do. I could actually do this. I just have to show up for the present moment. I want to leave you guys with one more mantra that has just saved my ass. Works so well for me. My ego offers fear. My ego offers resentment. My ego offers comparison. My ego offers superiority or inferiority. My ego offers these
uncomfortable feelings. But when I'm in the right dimension, when I'm in vertical dimension, when I'm in practicing the present moment practice, that's the same thing as being present, honoring the present moment. That's the entire thing we've been talking about with you guys this hour. That's the same thing as the presence inside of me, the eternal presence, the God consciousness. So the mantra that has worked very well for me that I try and still practice today is God help
me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. God help me anytime I'm going into a situation, anytime I'm around my family, anytime I'm around the high-powered people at work, anytime I'm around any dangerous situation, even a normal situation, just cleaning with my house, vacuuming, God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. The kicker there is when Ioffer my presence, it's the best thing I can give anyone ever.
I'm not giving them my judgement. I'm not giving them my fear. I'm not giving them my anger and resentment. I'm just giving them the perfect God consciousness, the presence awareness inside of me that allows the individual or the situation that I'm with to just unfold. You don't have to be any particular way. You can just be you. I'm not giving you my judgement, I'm giving you my presence.
So as you go through the world, you guys, as you're in traffic, as you're at work, you're trying to sober up, you're trying to live a better life. Try and offer your presence instead of offering your judgement. Try and offer acceptance instead of resisting reality. God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. God help me offer my presence. When I did that, I was still working at the restaurant. People started throwing, sucking
money at me, bro. They were like, here, my tips, my tips tripled overnight because I was offering presents instead of offering judgement and fear. And people can feel that I want to take these next 4 minutes and I want you to respond to this after I say this, but I want to give people some quick, deeper teaching if you're really deep and you can handle it. Cut this off now. After what Dwayne's profound wording was there?
But if not, I really wanted this real fast because I think it's fun and you're going to love this. I want you to know you're not your story. John the Baptist, and you can read about him. Amazing. He was the guy before Jesus. He said repent and be born again. Now repentance is a change of mind and then you must be born again. And then Jesus said this over and over again. You see this in the New Testament constantly. You must be born again, becoming
new, being the now. Eckhart Tolle says you're not your mind. That's what this is, being born again. So I am an addict that roots you in a story. Yes, And stories only live in past or future in the presence. You were just this. You're pure awareness. There's no story in pure awareness. So what if recovery isn't about building a better story? What if it's about waking up to
what you are beyond the story? And I'm going to hand it over to you, Matthew 62829. I'm going to read the scripture, what Jesus said because Jesus words are so profound. I encourage you guys to go get a free Bible. They're everywhere. You can grab them or you can go to Goodwill and get one. Matthew 62829 says this. Jesus said, consider the lilies. They do not toil or spin. They don't worry about yesterday's weather or tomorrow's drought. They just simply are.
And he said what happens, God takes care of them. And that's that's another over and over again. Jesus just taught presents, just being present. That's what it's about. How do we wake up beyond our story? And I'll let you close, Dwayne. Thank you so much bro, these beautiful words and someone on the mount is just that's my absolute favorite. The Eckhart, one of the Eckhart Tolle lines that I've been trying to hit a really hard recently too, is be what you
already are. Just be what you already are. That being part of me, that God centered part of me. God has already clothed me. God, God, I came down from source energy. I already am connected to God. So be what you already are. That being part of me can handle any addiction. That being part of me can walk through this world with some inner peace, with some joy, with some freedom. It's not about becoming happy.
It's about realizing that happiness or that joy already exists inside of me, and I have to clear away all the noise and all the character defects and all the wreckage in order to let that happiness come forward, that joy to come out that's already inside of me. Be what you already are. Be free. So good, so good. Thank you, Dwayne. Thank you guys. If you listen to this and you haven't subscribed on YouTube,
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