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[Eckhart Aurelius Hughes]

Hi Scott,

In your book, In It Together, you state the following: When it comes to your choices, you always get exactly what you want—meaning what you choose—with infinite ease.

Hughes, Eckhart Aurelius. In It Together: The Beautiful Struggle Uniting Us All (p. 115). OnlineBookClub.org. Kindle Edition.

Related to this, there have been some discussions about nobody being a failure; they're successful at what they choose, e.g. an alcoholic is successful at drinking. Most alcoholics, drug addicts, etc. I've met, see themselves as victims of various things (unhappy childhood, abuse, falling in with the wrong crowd, etc.) meaning they don't take responsibility for their own choices or actions. That may sound harsh, but nobody can change another person (no human anyway). Regardless of how one wants to view this statement, e.g. from a religious perspective, not able to resist temptation, it is the truth. If they accept this truth, how does it change the person and their view of their life?

Kind regards
Alida Spies

Hi, Alida Spies,

Wow, great question!

In some ways, your question answers itself, meaning it contains its own answer.

You describe an addict realizing something and changing their view about something (i.e. accepting a truth or certain set of truths), and then ask how changing their view in that way will change their view.

In other words, you've described very well how their overall views on life.

Self-responsibility entails two things:

- Taking responsibility for one's own choices (i.e. what one does control).

- Not taking responsibility for what one doesn't control (i.e. unconditionally and fully accepting what one doesn't control)


Before the realization and acceptance of the truth, the addict or other person suffering from seeming spiritual slavery dishonestly denies at least one and usually both of the above. In other words, they either (1) blame, hate, resent, scapegoat, or otherwise worry and waste energy on what know they cannot control (e.g. the past choices of others including their younger self), or (2) dishonestly deny their own present role and power in what they are choosing to do (e.g. instead of honestly saying I am choosing to drink and succeeding, they come up with some complicated bullsh*t story with all sorts of imaginary features like trying, failure, shoulds, and musts). Usually, of course, they do both #1 and #2.

By accepting they are responsible for themselves and their own choices, and by extension accepting what they cannot control (e.g. the choices of others, they are then, essentially by definition, a recovered addict.

From that point forward, you won't hear them say spiritually slavish things like "I have to drink" or "I have to cheat on my spouse" or "I have to eat some junk food".

They might still drink, eat junk food, or sleep with the hot neighbor, but they will not be addicts or spiritual slaves about it. They will say, "I am choosing to do this", which is generally a happy and peaceful way to speak, think, and be.

So, typically, that realization and acceptance will almost always come along with this extremely noticeable change in their demeanor, aura, and way of life in the following sense:

They will seem to have this incredible invincible newfound inner peace and invincible new confidence, day in and day out, every day of the year. They will have this powerful charming vibe of being the happy proud master of their own universe. They will seem to this newfound strong frame that they are carry with them no matter where they go or what life throws at them. They will just seem so deeply happy and emotionally non-needy. They won't necessarily always be superficial happy in the fleeting sense of the fleeting high a drug addict feels when shooting up or any of us feel when hungrily indulging in eating some delicious food, but rather in a deeper, permanent sense that is had on both the ups and downs of the roller coaster of life.

For anyone who wants to have that but doesn't, there are many ways to get it but one that is fast, easy, and guaranteed to work is this: Simply read my book, "In It Together", and then follow all eleven of the numbered suggestions at the end, which are infinitely easy-to-follow. Aside from the few dollars the book costs and the very few hours it takes to read, it costs nothing and takes no time. It's infinitely easy, infinitely cheap, and instant.



With love,
Eckhart Aurelius Hughes