1
People who believe they have bad luck create bad luck. Those who believe they are very fortunate, that the world is a generous place filled with trustworthy people, live in exactly that kind of world.Chris Prentiss
2
It's a simple working formula: if who you are and what you have- in your relationships, at home, or on the job- are what you want, that's perfect; keep doing what you've been doing and you'll get more of it. However, if who you are and what you have is less than or different than what you want, you'll have to make some basic changes.Chris Prentiss
3
To have the beautiful relationship you want, you and your partner must share your life stories with each other, holding nothing back. That sharing includes any past experiences of brutality, traumas, rape, incest, and emotional or mental torture of any kind that either of you has experienced as well as the wonderful memories you each cherish.Chris Prentiss
4
First-class relationships are possible only in an atmosphere of total trust.Chris Prentiss
5
You have enough courage to face even your greatest fear.Chris Prentiss
6
Stress and anxiety cause our brains to release chemicals that put lines in our faces and tear us down emotionally and spiritually.Chris Prentiss
7
Negative emotions, like depression or anxiety, have been shown to affect our immune system. Stress impedes wound healing.Chris Prentiss
8
The events that occur in my life are workout situations. They are there for my benefit so I can become strong and gain wisdom and information by working my way through those situations.Chris Prentiss
9
Treatment for dependency at substance abuse treatment centers must change if alcoholism and addiction are to be overcome in our society.Chris Prentiss
10
From this moment forward, I am in control of every situation. I will always know the exact right action to take, and this is so. I will now obtain vibrant good health. I will have the possessions I want, I now have the power and wisdom to bring this about, and this is so. I will have peace and harmony in my life. I will have love and abundance, and this is so. I now claim all these things for my own from this time forward. .Chris Prentiss
11
Trustworthy partners always think first before they do anything that may affect either the reputation or well-being of each other.Chris Prentiss
12
To preserve what you have, to keep your relationships alive and glowing, give generously- give of your time, you assets, your attention, your help, and your love. Give of yourself.Chris Prentiss
13
Change starts with awareness.Chris Prentiss
14
A diminished self-image will cause you to slouch, to avoid meeting others, to avoid looking others in the eye, to be unassertive, and to be indecisive.Chris Prentiss
15
Take a few minutes now and see your current circumstances- your physical condition, your emotional condition, your possessions, your financial condition, where and how you live, your relationships, the situations surrounding your life, and the way you believe other people see you- as mirrors showing you "Who You Are.Chris Prentiss
16
The world actually is a mirror, and as you change, you will see everything around you changing as well as mirroring your changes.Chris Prentiss
17
The moment you make the internal changes necessary to obtain your goal, the outside world changes instantly.Chris Prentiss
18
If you have experienced recurring situations in your life that are unpleasant, know that there is something you are supposed to be getting from those situations that you have not been getting and that the moment you get it, those situations will pass out of your life, not to return.Chris Prentiss
19
Believe that is cure is possible for you. Discover and heal the underlying causes with a holistic recovery program. Adopt a philosophy based on what is true in the Universe.Chris Prentiss
20
What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose is to benefit you.Chris Prentiss
21
You are not an alcoholic or an addict. You are not incurably diseased. You have merely become dependent on substances or addictive behavior to cope with underlying conditions that you are now going to heal, at which time your dependency will cease completely and forever.Chris Prentiss
22
It's the causes, not the dependent person, that must be corrected. That's why I see the United States' War on Drugs as being fought in an unrealistic manner. This war is focused on fighting drug dealers and the use of drugs here and abroad, when the effort should be primarily aimed at treating and curing that causes that compel people to reach for drugs.Chris Prentiss
23
Depression can be due to a low endocrine function, nutritional deficiencies, blood sugar problems, food allergies, or systemic yeast infection. Depression can also result from medical illnesses such as stroke, heart attack, cancer, Parkinson's disease, and hormonal disorder. It can also be caused by a serious loss, a difficult relationship, a financial problem, or any stressful, unwelcome life change.Chris Prentiss
24
One of the first actions we take at Passages is to ruthlessly scrutinize, always under a doctor's supervision and care, the specific necessity of any mind- altering or mood-altering medications that our clients are taking. As soon as any non essential drugs are out of their systems, the feelings they were trying to suppress usually emerge. When that happens, we can see what symptoms the client was masking with drugs or alcohol.Chris Prentiss
25
The treatment must fit the malady and the malady is not alcoholism or addiction, or addictive drugs and alcohol. Once the correct cause is diagnosed, healing will take place and hoped-for cure will come about.Chris Prentiss
26
Whether the underlying cause of your dependency is a chemical imbalance, unresolved events from the past, beliefs you hold that are inconsistent with what is true, an inability to cope with current conditions, or a combination of these four causes, know this: not only are all the causes of dependency within you, but all the solutions are within you as well.Chris Prentiss
27
The punishment approach and bad consequences approach to treatment is the kind of thinking that is prevalent in every residential substance abuse treatment center in the United States of which I'm aware.Chris Prentiss
28
The more you engage in any type of emotion or behavior, the greater your desire for it will become.Chris Prentiss
29
Again, all of life presents us with two basic ways to treat events. We can either label them "god for us" or "bad for us." The event is only an event. It's how we treat the event that determines what it becomes in our lives. The event doesn't make that determination- we do.Chris Prentiss
30
There is no cell culture for depression. You can't see it on a bone scan or an x-ray. Not everyone with depression will show the same behavioral symptoms.Chris Prentiss
31
If you feel depressed for an hour, you've produced approximately eighteen billion new cells that have more receptors calling out for depressed-type peptides and fewer calling out for feel-good peptides.Chris Prentiss
32
Although you may have never sat down and defined what your philosophy is, it is fully operative and working in your life at all times. It deals with what you believe about the world in which you live, about its people and events, about how you affect them.Chris Prentiss
33
At the alpha level, your imagination acts powerfully on your subconsciousness mind and therefore your imaginings are powerfully effective in producing the desired result. It is believed that our subconscious mind represents nearly 90 percent of our mental capacity, which is why influencing your subconscious mind produces such powerful effects.Chris Prentiss
34
When you need an idea about how to do anything, get quiet and relaxed and think about what it is you need to know. Then the flow of ideas will come. Be patient and let it happen. Sometimes it takes a little while, but it always works.Chris Prentiss
35
You are a perfect spiritual being. Get used to that idea.Chris Prentiss
36
You can be happy if you are willing to let go of your past and leave yourself unencumbered so you can fly freely.Chris Prentiss
37
We recognize that you've used substances to try to regain your lost balance, to try to feel the way you did before the need arose to use addictive drugs or alcohol. We know that you use substances to alter your mood, to cover up your sadness, to ease your heartbreak, to lighten your stress load, to blur your painful memories, to escape your hurtful reality, or to make your unbearable days or nights bearable.Chris Prentiss
38
Who you allow into the circle of your life will make the difference in the quality of your life.Chris Prentiss
39
Think about the stigma that is attached to the idea that alcoholism is a disease, an incurable illness, and you have it. That's a terrible thing to inflict on someone. Labeling alcoholism as a disease, a cause unto itself, simply no longer fits with what we know today about its causes.Chris Prentiss
40
When you imagine yourself as a failure or as having insurmountable problems in your relationships or any part of your life, you think failure, act failure, and produce failure.Chris Prentiss
41
If you examine your motive for doing anything, you'll soon discover that your reason is that you believe it will make you happy.Chris Prentiss
42
To give up power to change for the better is inherently distasteful to everyone, and to force people to affirm that they are addicts or alcoholics so they can speak in a meeting is shameful and demoralizing.Chris Prentiss
43
The totally alive, totally conscious, and totally aware Universe takes care of itself completely. It is totally self-reliant and totally self- sufficient. it is perfect.Chris Prentiss
44
The Universe is alive, conscious, and aware.Chris Prentiss
45
The best way for you to get that new experience is to change your response to what happens.Chris Prentiss
46
You have chosen to exist, and more than just exist-- you've been chosen to share in the Universal consciousness.Chris Prentiss
47
The word Universe is made up of two Latin words- uni (meaning "one") and versus (meaning "turned into"). It literally means "one turned into.Chris Prentiss
48
The totally alive, totally conscious, and totally aware Universe takes care of itself completely. It is totally self- reliant and totally self- sufficient. It is perfect.Chris Prentiss
49
People who are dependent are merely using alcohol as a crutch to get through the day. Yet doctors and scientists are still treating "alcoholism" as if it is the problem, when it has nothing to do with the problem. They might as well be studying "scratchism" for people who have a chronic itch.Chris Prentiss
50
When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax's life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help other discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.Chris Prentiss
51
I wrote this book to show you that a cure is entirely possible because I've seen it happen over and over again.Chris Prentiss
52
When you change the way you see and interpret events, suddenly everything will be different for you. Everything will make sense.Chris Prentiss
53
What we call coincidences, accidental and remarkable events occurring at the same time, are actually circumstances and events that have come into your life to serve a purpose- and that purpose is to benefit you.Chris Prentiss
54
In 1935, when there were no other programs, the founders of AA, Bill Wilson and Dr. Robert Smith, stepped up to the plate and took action to help a crippled population. All credit for the establishment of their wonderful, life-saving group goes to them and to those who came after them who have continued the tradition. However, there are hundreds of millions of people who still need help who are not among the estimated two or three million who attend twelve-step meetings. .Chris Prentiss
55
When a problem or a difficult situation arises, say to yourself, as if you already believe it: "This is for my benefit.Chris Prentiss
56
There is only one way to achieve lasting happiness. That is simply: Be happy.Chris Prentiss
57
You don't need to be a scientist to know how powerful your imagination is.Chris Prentiss
58
Zen is a journey of exploration and a way of living that, in and of itself, does not belong to any one religion or tradition. It is about experiencing life in the here and now and about removing the dualistic distinctions between "I" and "you" between "subject" and "objective", between our spiritual and our ordinary, everyday activities.Chris Prentiss
59
Times change and discoveries are made that render earlier techniques and approaches less effective. Change is inevitable. To remain rigid when the whole world is changing and advancing is to invite misfortune. The AA program in particular is challenged with an opportunity of unprecedented magnitude.Chris Prentiss
60
You are not alone in your quest to be who you want and have what you want.Chris Prentiss
61
Your perception of the world and the way you see yourself in it has created within your mind a concept, a philosophy, of the way you believe things to be.Chris Prentiss
62
By changing how you perceive things and how you act upon those perceptions, you will change your life.Chris Prentiss
63
... all decisions and actions that will affect your relationship must be made by answering this single question: Will the action I am considering have a negative impact on my relationship? If the answer is yes, don't do it.Chris Prentiss
64
Every person in the AA program who's successful is living proof that he or she does have power over addictive drugs and alcohol- the power to stop.Chris Prentiss
65
AA purports to be open to anyone, as it is stated in Tradition Tree, "The only requirement for AA membership is a desire to stop drinking, " but it isn't open to everyone. It's open only to those who are willing to publicly declare themselves to be alcoholics or addicts and who are willing to give up their inherent right of independence by declaring themselves powerless over addictive drugs and alcohol, as stated in Step One, "We admitted we are powerless over alcohol- that our lives had become unmanageable.Chris Prentiss
66
A computer cannot manufacture new information. That's the difference between our brain and a computer.Chris Prentiss
67
We like to take credit when we get a new idea, as if we originated the idea in our brain, but what we actually did was no less extraordinary: we channeled the idea.Chris Prentiss
68
If you are surrounded by people who not only don't believe in your goals and your positive outlook on life, but who also continually try to tear you down, it will be extremely challenging for you to hold firmly in mind that you will succeed and that you can be happy.Chris Prentiss
69
What determines each person's state of happiness or unhappiness is not the event itself, but what the event means to that person.Chris Prentiss
70
The true source of happiness is within each of us.Chris Prentiss
71
The answers are never "out there." All the answers are "in there, " inside you, waiting to be discovered.Chris Prentiss
72
Every belief that you hold manifests itself in some manner by either causing you to take some form of action or by preventing you from taking action. If you don't believe something is possible, you won't even attempt it.Chris Prentiss
73
Stress comes from the way you relate to events or situations.Chris Prentiss
74
Your actions create an "energy vortex" that draws in the necessary ingredients for your venture.Chris Prentiss
75
A strong personal philosophy does more than sustain us through the tragedies of life. It also stains us daily in everything we think and do. It gives us optimism and hope.Chris Prentiss
76
You can take the entire world of physics with all of its macrocosm and microcosm, its quantum mechanics and nuclear physics and reduce it to one word: energy. It's all energy. Scientists say that if you can't measure it, weight it, or see it, it doesn't exist. Well, no one has ever seen energy. We can see its effects, but not "it.Chris Prentiss
77
The energy everything is made of is conscious. It's alive.Chris Prentiss
78
Your life today is the result of a series of decisions you made that have caused you to arrive where you are.Chris Prentiss
79
When people who believe themselves to be addicts or alcoholics come under great stress or trauma, they mentally give themselves permission to drink or use drugs as a remedy.Chris Prentiss
80
Alcohol and drugs are not the problems; they are what people are using to help themselves cope with the problems. Those problems always have both physical and psychological components- anything from anemia, hypoglycemia, or a sluggish thyroid to attention deficient disorder, brain-wave pattern imbalances, or deep emotional pain.Chris Prentiss
81
When nothing else worked, we created a holistic, hand-tailored program that saved Pax's life. At Passages, he and I use what we learned in curing him to help others discover the roots of their addiction or alcoholism and break free.Chris Prentiss
82
If you can stop using substance or stop your addictive behavior for extended periods of time without craving, you are not dependent. You are dependent only if you can't stop without physical or psychological distress (you have unpleasant physical and/or psychological withdrawal symptoms) or if you stop and then relapse.Chris Prentiss
83
The advertise their products in such a fashion as to make it seem wonderful to drink their ethanol products. It does not matter if they give their products fancy name like Cabernet Sauvignon or Pinot Noir, or if they put bubbles in an ethanol product and call it champagne or beer- everyone is selling ethanol.Chris Prentiss
84
If those underlying conditions aren't treated, the return of those symptoms may cause us so much discomfort that we'll go back to using addictive drugs or alcohol to obtain relief. That's the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent of alcohol and addictive drugs. It has little to do with alcohol and addiction themselves and almost everything to do with the original causes that created the dependency.Chris Prentiss
85
It is ethanol that everyone is after when they drink alcoholic beverages. That is what gives us the euphoric feeling, and that is what all vendors of alcoholic drinks are selling.Chris Prentiss
86
If I were to create a word that more accurately describes alcoholism and addiction, I would say it was dependencyism. Sounds silly, doesn't it? Yet it's no sillier than the word alcoholism. The reason alcoholism no longer sounds silly to you is because you're used to hearing it, reading it, and thinking about it.Chris Prentiss
87
How do you think your body and mind would respond if you were surrounded by psychologists, psychiatrists, or drug and alcohol counselors who subscribed to the belief that "once an alcoholic or addict, always an alcoholic or addict" and who believed that your current stay in rehab would be one of many?Chris Prentiss
88
Whatever you now do, whatever you now believe, whatever your current circumstances may be, you are perfectly equipped and fully capable of fulfilling your needs and desires.Chris Prentiss
89
We know that you don't want to be a drunk and you don't want to be hooked on addictive drugs. You do it because you can't cope with your life without some sort of support, even if that support is damaging.Chris Prentiss
90
...there is a saying used in twelve-step programs and in most treatment centers that "Relapse is part of recovery." It's another dangerous slogan that is based on a myth, and it only gives people permission to relapse because that think that when they do, they are on the road to recovery.Chris Prentiss
91
Alcohol is the drug ethanol. They are one and the same. Alcohol is also called ethyl alcohol or grain alcohol. It is a chemical compound. Ethanol is often added to the gasoline we use to run our cars.Chris Prentiss