Major Counseling - Professional Addiction Counselor

02/02/2026

GAMING ADDICTION
www.samirvergara.us

02/01/2026

01/29/2026

01/28/2026

10/23/2025

Surrender

"By surrendering control, we gain a far greater power."

When we were using, we did everything we could to run things our way. We used every scheme imaginable to bring our world under control. When we got what we wanted, we felt powerful, invincible; when we didn't, we felt vulnerable, defeated. But that didn't stop us--it only led to more efforts to control and manipulate our lives into a manageable state.

Scheming was our way of denying our powerlessness. As long as we could distract ourselves with our plans, we could put off accepting that we were out of control. Only gradually did we realize that our lives had become unmanageable and that all the conning and manipulating in the world was not going to put our lives back in order.

When we admit our powerlessness, we stop trying to control and manage our way to a better life--we surrender. Lacking sufficient power of our own, we seek a Power greater than ourselves; needing support and guidance, we ask that Power to care for our will and our lives. We ask others in recovery to share their experience with living the program instead of trying to program our own lives. The power and direction we seek is all around us; we need only turn away from self to find it.

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Just for Today: I will not try to scheme and manipulate my way to a manageable life. Through the NA program, I will surrender myself to my God's care.

09/15/2025

Filling the emptiness

" We think that if we can just get enough food, enough s*x, or enough money, we'll be satisfied and everything will be alright."

In our addiction, we could never get enough drugs, or money, or s*x, or anything else. Even too much was never enough! There was a spiritual emptiness inside us. Though we tried as hard as we could to fill that emptiness ourselves, we never succeeded. In the end, we realized that we lacked the power to fill it; it would take a Power greater than ourselves to do that.

So we stopped using, and we stopped trying to fill the emptiness in our gut with things. We turned to our Higher Power, asking for its care, strength, and direction. We surrendered and made way for that Power to begin the process of filling our inner void. We stopped grabbing things and started receiving the free gift of love our Higher Power had for us. Slowly, our inner emptiness was being filled.

Now that we've been given our Higher Power's gift of love, what do we do with it? If we clasp that gift tightly to ourselves, we will smother it. We must remember that love grows only when it is shared. We can only keep this gift by freely giving it away. The world of addiction is a world of taking and being taken; the world of recovery is a world of giving and being given. In which world do we choose to live?

Just for Today: I choose to live in the fullness of recovery. I will celebrate my conscious contact with God by freely sharing with others that which has been freely shared with me.

09/07/2025

08/13/2025