Addiction can quickly become a spiral of anger and hopelessness. Breaking its grip on your life can seem like an impossible task. Depression, anxiety, and an attitude of “who cares anymore” can quickly seep in and ruin an addict’s drive to succeed in the battle for sobriety. It can seem like the world is against you and, more than that, your own body is against you. And it can seem like beating addiction is pointless, because what happens on the other side? Life has already fallen completely apart, what happens when sobriety hits – then what? Life is still broken into pieces around you, so why even try?

Every addict shares some or all of those emotions. And no matter how supported an addict is, or how many fellow addicts surround them, the battle to achieve sobriety can be a very lonely one.

That is when the need for examples comes into play. People often point to the famous. Robert Downey, Jr., Eminem, Elton John, Demi Lovato. All of these popular names, and many more, have defeated addiction and gone on to claim fortune and fame. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

The true success stories are hidden within hard work. These are the addicts who have slammed into rock bottom, lived under bridges, died and were brought back umpteen times in back alleys and on emergency room tables. Yet, despite all of that and more, they’ve defeated addiction, rebuilt their lives, and gone on to find success in ensuring the health and wellness of others around them, in many cases other addicts facing the same battles they did in their journey to sobriety.

While it is very easy to list off many numerous famous names, today we’ll highlight a few of the individuals who are still deep in the trenches of the battle for sobriety – not their own, but yours and mine.

Steve Abrams

Steve has been sober since 1980. In 1987 he established Sober Vacations International. Since then, he has been showing people in the recovery community how to experience the world in a way that will not endanger their sobriety. Sober adventures. And he’s created a close-knit family numbering into the tens of thousands of clients while doing it.

Blake Denman

Not only has Blake found success in sobriety, but he also found success in his digital marketing firm Ricketyroo. Blake’s entire team is in recovery. Not only is he ensuring his own continued success, but he is offering the chance for success to his fellow recovery community members through mainstream digital marketing work.

Patrick Henigan

Patrick owns Jacksonville Fitness Academy. In his own words, he describes how he is bringing health, wellness, and strength to his fellow recovery community members, and his community on a whole:

“From my late teens to mid-20s I was an opiate addict. I was scrawny, unhealthy and unhappy. Through vigorous physical and spiritual discipline, I transformed my body, my mind, and my life. I learned to push myself so I could live my life to its full potential.”

Seth Leaf Pruzansky

Seth is the owner of Tourmaline Spring Sacred Living Water.

“Having been through severe drug addiction and the mental and emotional dysfunction that comes along with being an addict, I eventually realized that no one was going to do for me what I needed to do for myself. With this in mind, I not only conquered my addiction to substances, I examined the root of where these addictive tendencies originated. I found that root resided in my inability to be present with life itself in the here and now. I was jailed in a prison of the mind, always identifying with the remembered past or an imagined future, neither of which was reality. Through my commitment to healing the root cause of my addiction, the symptoms of my dependency, meaning my drug usage, disappeared. What emerged after that was a state of mind that I can describe as ‘universally objective clarity.’”

Seth’s Tourmaline Spring water company aims to fill one of the gaps that the body seeks out within addiction.

These four are but a few examples of how addiction ravaged a life but then gave it meaning upon sobriety.

Hope & Sobriety

There is hope. Hope beyond just getting sober. There is life beyond addiction and dependence. There isn’t just existing, there is thriving, and breaking the hold of addiction is the beginning of that journey to thriving. Your success is yours for the taking. It is not easy, nor is it pretty, but it is there waiting for you. Start today! Call 800.26.DETOX to learn more.

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