The Gift Hidden in Addiction: Turning Weakness to Strength

"What if the thing that nearly broke you is also what built your greatest strength?"

I believe addiction is a disease. I also believe it shows up for a reason.

Some of the most creative, brilliant, or visionary people I’ve met are in recovery. Not just users, recovering addicts. People who survived the dark and came back with something rare: perspective, clarity, edge, purpose. It's far from a coincidence, it’s a pattern.

Society numbs the mind. It dulls the spark. And when you're born with a brain that refuses to stay dull, you reach for something, anything, to bring color back into the world. That’s what drugs did for me. That’s what they did for a lot of us.

Straight-edge, law-abiding, societally acceptable people may never understand this. That’s not a judgment, it’s just different wiring. Some people drink because it’s legal. Others smoke weed and wonder if they were lied to in D.A.R.E., then keep pulling at the thread. What else isn’t true? That mindset, the need to question everything is often what leads people like me into addiction.

Here's the good news: that same mindset, that same fire, that same obsession, it doesn’t disappear when you get clean.

The energy it took to stay high every day, the time, the planning, the dedication, that is power. That’s persistence, creativity, craftiness, and resilience. And if you can redirect it, if you can survive long enough to point it somewhere else, you become unstoppable.

I put that energy into music. Into healing. Into building something that might help someone else one day. You could build a nonprofit. Write a book. Start a movement. Whatever it is, that obsessive, determined part of you isn’t bad. It just needs better direction.

And this is where we zoom out.

Because this isn’t just about addiction.

This is about any part of you that you’ve been taught to hate. Any “weakness” you thought disqualified you.

Like, take my OCD for instance. It can completely hijack my day. I’ll spend two hours changing the same font 57 times, stuck in a loop of perfectionism. But that same trait, when I’m focused and clear, gives me an unmatched level of detail. When I work with intention, my OCD becomes a creative superpower.

Or how about anxiety. Most people define it as fear of the future. Future-tripping, overthinking. But what if that anxious part of you is actually a heightened imagination? What if your brain just has a stronger vision than most, and that energy could be used to manifest your future instead of fearing it?

It’s all about direction. Energy doesn’t disappear, it transforms.

So no, addiction isn’t just a curse. OCD isn’t just a burden. Anxiety isn’t just a diagnosis.

They're signals of a deeper intensity. And when you learn to work with that intensity instead of against it, you stop trying to be “normal” and start becoming extraordinary. You become you again, or maybe for the first time.

If this resonates and you want to dive deeper, I’m creating some new tools in the Resources section under “When You’re Feeling Powerless.” They're all designed to help you turn your greatest weaknesses into superpowers.

Keep turning toward the unknown. Keep choosing yourself 🧡