"12 books that will inspire you to take control of your life"

For more than 30 years I used drugs. Enough to have died more than 10 times.

I've lost count. If you haven't tried them yet, DON'T do it. The voice of experience speaks to you.

There is a high probability that you will try a drug and feel good, but that stupid decision can lead you into one of the darkest tunnels a man can go through in his life. The collapse of your conscious self and the end of your clarity will be an irrefutable fact.

The difficulty of overcoming obstacles will be raised to the tenth power. When you expose yourself so many times to death, the reality is that you are not able to think clearly. You have no fear and no control. Addiction takes over, completely clouding your mind. Without fear and control, you are an easy target and expose yourself to countless dangers without being aware of them, the most obvious of which will be the death of your will. Or one day your body may say enough is enough, and on that day you may even lose your life.

The rest of the things you will lose little by little every day that you use drugs. In the best case scenario, you could be left with a permanent disability. A bad shot (the vulgar language of coke addicts), straight to the brain and causing a stroke, is just one of the risks you expose yourself to, nothing more and nothing less.

If it is already complex to build a successful life, with drug use, the complexity will be absolutely crazy and, in turn, disordered in your life. These are its stages: use, abuse, addiction. After that, there is no turning back. The impairment of your faculties will become evident as long as you use. You will be a rag doll and an addict for the rest of your life. The choice is yours.

"Recovery wasn't easy, but it's one of the best things I've ever done. No matter how long you stay clean, you're always on the brink." Eminem

"Cocaine: the bitcoin of drugs"

Cocaine could be defined as the bitcoin of drugs or the pandemic evil of the 21st century. Even Sigmund Freud experienced it first-hand in the 19th century, in his famous period known as "alotrion". It is still unknown today whether the use of this curious word was intentional or perhaps accidental and unconscious, which could be considered a slip of the tongue in this pre-psychoanalytic period of the substance.

There are an estimated 22 million cocaine addicts in the world, and 284 million drug users out of the 7.9 billion people in the world in 2023. Despite this, a cocaine or other drug user will tell you not to worry, there are more of us and more people doing it. Don't you see?

"There is none so blind as he who does not want to see"

"Addiction: the wicked magic that will cloud your brain".

When you use cocaine, you lose track of time, will, shame, charisma, decency, illusion, clarity, conscience, confidence, virtue, patience, personality, emotions, kindness, hope, illusion... you can lose it all in milliseconds, but you don't realise it because the process takes years. You lose it all before you even take the next dose.

Your brain moves forward as if by magic. It's part of its ritual: it processes the decisive thought, the light flickers and the switch is turned on. It's yours. Your brain has played you again, without even needing to call the dealer.

Cocaine addiction can be so intense that it becomes compulsive. Studies have shown that, even after being punished, some rats still demanded the drug (link attached below). Cocaine addicts often try to convince others and themselves that they are in control of their use, that they use sporadically and that they are not mentally ill.

"The addict's truth: denial and lies will rule your life"

However, this denial can be a clear sign of your addiction. It is difficult to be honest with yourself when you are struggling with addiction, but it is important to acknowledge reality in order to seek help. Instead of facing the truth, many cocaine addicts prefer to cheat, lie and betray themselves for another sad trail. Over time, they lose the ability to distinguish what affects them and what doesn't, and become evil, caring only about their next fix and the fleeting pleasure it gives them. Unfortunately, this pleasure comes at a high cost to their mental and physical health, as cocaine is highly damaging to the brain and can cause death.

As the writer and journalist Hunter S. Thompson said:

"The road to addiction is paved with broken promises and belated regrets."

If, for a moment, you can imagine the erosion of a rock at the top of a mountain, imagine what the front of a cocaine addict's brain must be like.

When you use every weekend, you tell yourself that you don't have a problem because you only do it on Saturdays and, some Fridays, when you have a beer. You know it's a lie, but it's still what you like to tell yourself as a weekend user.

"Living in a spin: taking unnecessary risks where life flies by"

A year has 52 weekends, and if you also use half of the Fridays in those 52 weeks, that would be 78 days a year. If you multiply this by 30 years, you get a total of 2,340 days of drug use. The numbers speak for themselves, but you will still come across an addict who will ask you, with a tone of doubt:

Hey, but do you think I'm an addict?

"When you can't even answer that question for yourself, it means you already have the answer".

For the addict, the weekend beer is the perfect excuse to deny the undeniable. Beer becomes your accomplice, your friend, your confidant. You do it for it, it's the beer's problem, not yours. You are cool.

As polydrug consumers, we were able to get into everything, without even asking when someone spread white powder on a toilet seat. The scene is very grotesque, but if you are an addict, you even like it. At that moment, to the average consumer, the only thing that matters is that it's white.

Cool addicts, like me, feel powerful. We're not losers, we're not mediocre, we're not lab rats being experimented on.

Polydrug users, like me, love cocaine because it's a perfect match for pills, speed, ketamine, etc. We think we go out on the street with a high. We think we go out on the street with a precision tool that measures the quality of the product: colour, pressure, temperature and texture. We are so naïve that we think we have some kind of power and we think we are very good at gauging the quality of drugs, when in reality we know nothing.

"Disguising a reality: when drama is present in your environment"

Honestly, I now think that when you are capable of consuming pills from a stranger with black and dirty hands, but you dare to criticise the legal drugs prescribed by psychiatrists, at that very moment you realise that something must not be working properly in your brain.

The problem is that none of the addicted users are capable of stopping for a second to think about that. It is out of place for them, but it is the truth and there is no other way. Reality can try to disguise it, put on sunglasses, hide behind the curtain or open a smokescreen, but what it is, is what it is. We are false and ignorant, we like to lie and deceive ourselves.

It is really sad that we addicts like to tell ourselves the truth less than the rest of us. Most people don't like to practice truth anymore. Telling the truth, analysing one's fears, shortcomings, addictions or shortcomings, is extremely complicated and I know few people who practice this ritual.

When one is able to do such an exercise of awareness and clarity, all our patterns, values and habits are called into question, and we don't like that.

Addicts cannot clearly and consciously care about the important things in life, but they will tell you that they do.

An addict considered "cool" is often perceived as intelligent, but I wonder: what kind of intelligence are they practising? I am no longer using legal drugs, or visiting psychiatrists or psychologists, although I deeply respect the help they gave me at the time. For me, winning this battle with stoic philosophy is more motivating and even heroic. A few years ago, I achieved my personal record of 1585 days without using any drugs.

"The process of recovery begins the day you start asking yourself uncomfortable questions"

As an addict who stops using, I know that I will be in a constant process of recovery and struggle for the rest of my life, trying to overcome every day to set a record and hoping that it will be the definitive one, the one "for life". As Simeone tells his Atlético de Madrid players,

"We play game by game". Simeone

Well, I tell you not to try the drug, not to take it, not to take that stupid risk that I once took. This fight is the same as that of the Atlético de Madrid footballers, here you are also playing the game of your life every day, and you only have two options: live your life as a life sentence or live it as the opportunity you have to be able to tell it every day for the rest of your days, and where you will also have the opportunity to ask yourself: Do I want to be like everyone else or do I want to do something different?

Today we know that you will start with alcohol and marijuana, and in turn, a labyrinth will open up in your path that you will most likely enter and from which you will no longer know how to return, or at the very least, in which it will be very difficult for you to find your way back home. Your soul and your destiny will be in serious danger.

My advice is to stay away from the drug, to focus on your life, to not let the addiction take over. It's a tough fight, but it's also a fight you can win if you focus on the present, on living today's game, and if you realise that you have the capacity to do something different, to be someone different. Addiction is not something that defines you, it's something you can overcome. .

Drugs are a real and dangerous threat to our societies, especially to our young people. Governments and authorities must take stronger measures to prevent and combat the use of illegal drugs, as well as regulate the use of legal drugs more effectively.

As a recovering addict myself, I know that the fight against addiction is difficult and ongoing. It is important to make informed and responsible decisions about our own health and wellbeing, and not to put our lives and the lives of those around us at risk.

It is courageous to face our own demons and work to overcome them. We must be critical of ourselves and our actions, and always seek to improve and learn. Through Stoic philosophy and personal reflection, we can find the strength and clarity to overcome our challenges and live a fuller and more meaningful life.

Finally, it is important to remember that life is a precious gift and we should make the most of it. We should be grateful for what we have and work to create a better world for ourselves and future generations. This article should be published so that it can serve as a reminder to all of us of the dangers of drugs and the importance of living with awareness and purpose.

Books that will push you forward: when the capacity for improvement is possible, the doors of hope open up

In the last 101 days, I have found guidance and support in 12 books that have helped me make important decisions and write this article.

1. The Keys to Success - Napoleon Hill

2. Manifesto for Everyday Heroes - Robin Sharma

3. It's easy to quit smoking if you know how - Allen Carr

4. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People - Stephen Covey

5. Overcoming addictions - Deepak Chopra

6. No Limits - Jim Kwik

7. Ego is the enemy - Ryan Holiday

8. Stillness is the key - Ryan Holiday

9. The 48 laws of power - Robert Greene

10. The Call of Courage - Ryan Holiday

11. Undefeated - Marcos Vazquez

12. Secrets of the Millionaire Mind - T. Harv Eker

"In permanent recovery, dreaming is possible: freedom is served on a cold plate every day"

I was born on 11 January 1974 and, for those interested in numerology, my birth date is 11-11. My name is Asdrubal, which Google translates to "Protected by God". Throughout my life, I have achieved my goals, from learning to play the guitar to DJing electronic music to owning my own business. And today, at 49, I am in the third season of my third entrepreneurial endeavour.

I'm still dreaming. Today, February 15, 2023, I make a public promise: I say NO to drugs for the rest of my life. Today, I am infinitely grateful to God for all the protection He has given me, even in situations where my life was in danger.

In addition, I want to appeal to those who, like me, have struggled with addictions and have found the strength to overcome them. I ask you to join me in this cause and raise your voice for their stoic liberation. If anyone in this situation is reading this, perhaps they can find the strength to change their life for the better, and finish this chapter with clarity, awareness and a greater sense of purpose. A few weeks ago, I finished reading "The Call of Courage" by Ryan Holiday, and I now know that it was acting with courage that allowed me to leave Spain, the country of my birth.

Today I know that I write with courage, that I still have a lot to do and that this feeling motivates me to keep going despite the complexity and adversity I have faced. This is my life, the one that I now write from my heart, from my heart, and that I am proud of. However, I also feel fear in publishing this, I write in silence, but with the responsibility and duty to do something authentic that can awaken the conscience or soul of someone in their own nightmare.

Drugs not only kept me a prisoner of my own addiction, but also of the fear and shame of being found out. But today, by publicly saying NO to drugs for the rest of my life, I am free of that burden. I feel empowered to have made this decision and, although I know the road ahead will not be easy, I am willing to fight and face any obstacle to live an authentic and fulfilling life.