Reality Check: Making the Best of The Situation - How I Overcame Addiction, Loss, and Prison

by Mike Sorrentino

“I love a success story, but even more than a success story, I like a dude-who-fucks-his-life-up-and-gets-his-life-together-again story.”

Though I have to admit, as a result of those punishments during my adolescence, I now suffer from a rare psychological condition known as “having respect for others.”

When all else fails, you just have to do the next right thing. Put one foot in front of the other to move forward. Eventually, you’ll get there. I promise.

Pain in life is inevitable, and you can’t ignore it. Drugs bury it. They don’t make it go away. When you get sober, all that recessed pain is dug up. You have to work through it to get back to your baseline. Life doesn’t get easier; you get stronger.

Exuding a positive energy to the world was my way of expressing the results I sought.

In the recipe of success, one of the main ingredients is failure. The key is to not give up on yourself. When you come across an obstacle, you have to understand it’s nothing more than a brilliantly disguised opportunity. Keep moving forward, don’t give up, and eventually you’ll find success. Too many people face failure and treat it like a finality. Once you meet failure, it simply means you’ve found a way that didn’t work. Use that knowledge to find another way.

I created a list in my head. Anything unconstructive got eliminated. I stayed away from the people, places, and things that didn’t align with where I wanted my life to go. I knew these corrections wouldn’t happen all at once, but by making small changes one day at a time, one week at a time, one month at a time, I began to remove those negative influences and distance myself from problems, drama, and temptation.

Never let your emotions rule your intelligence. Get outside your body and try to understand what is happening. Understand the bigger picture of things. Get back to your standard operating procedure. Be grateful for today. Be grateful for the simple things like your job and family, food in the fridge, and your health. If you come from a default of positive energy, you attract more blessings and abundance.

Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you react to it.

it dawned on me. I didn’t get what I prayed for until I became the person that should receive it.