THE RAW REPORT 

“Sitting in my car, eating sushi on this quiet day, the same overwhelming thought I’d been fighting all day became impossible to ignore, my loneliness. The day had shoved a mirror in my face, and I couldn’t turn away or distract myself anymore.”

What is strength? Is it doing what’s demanded of you, even when you don’t want to? Some days, I don’t feel like waking up, going to school, work, or the gym but I do it anyway. I could quit it all and more, yet something inside me refuses.

This entry is about my last relapse, how I encountered the triggers, the excuses our minds come up with to rationalize lapses in sobriety and the consequences that followed. While relapsing is common in addiction recovery, I never imagined how deep the effects would be until it happened again.

We are shaped by our environments the way we speak, our preferences, and even our addictions. Whether addiction stems from abuse, pressure, early exposure or other factors, we eventually start to shape our own environment. We become so immersed in our lifestyle of drugs and or alcohol that we unintentionally enable ourselves and others. We pull people into our world, trying to make them fit the vision we’ve created for ourselves. As time goes on, we get tired. We want change, but the very environment we've created for ourselves becomes an obstacle. Suddenly, telling them “I don’t want to drink anymore” feels like a burden. But you know what? Just because your past is checkered doesn’t mean you can’t play chess. We all have a chance to change the game, no matter where we come from.

The power of marketing is truly a force to be reckoned with. It has the ability to influence, create awareness, persuade, and evoke emotion sometimes in a matter of seconds or minutes. It's found in content creation, word of mouth, and affiliate marketing, just to name a few. The world is vast and complicated. No single action can please everyone, and this is no different. Someone’s going to be offended, triggered, or annoyed. That’s what this is: a rant about liquor commercials, Here’s the scenario.