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Erik Frederickson - Life Coach and Recovery Coach

Sep 1, 20202 min read

You're Already Disciplined, You Just Need To Apply It The Right Way - Part 1

Updated: Sep 1, 2022

If you think about it, people that struggle with addiction are already very disciplined people. For years we stayed focused on being drunk and high no matter what. That takes a lot of discipline.

What if the discipline you need is already in you, you just need a different mindset and value system to reap the right benefits from it.

When we were caught in active addiction our motivating factor was running from responsibilities and numbing the pain that life had dealt us, or the pain we dealt ourselves.

What if the same discipline can be accessed and used for your recovery?

Just flip the script on it

I believe the first step to seeing discipline as a positive thing is learning to see correction as a positive thing. When we resist correction (healthy correction from healthy people, that is) it shows that we think we have it all figured out, and we all know that we don't.

When my recovery started I had hit a new low. I was forced into a decision. Refuse correction and eventually die, or embrace correction and live the life I had been dreaming of. I took corrections and directions.

One of the first places I applied it was in my daily disciplines of prayer and reading. The results? Well, they were powerful and life-changing.

I could stay high and drunk every day no matter what, therefore I had no excuse to not be connecting with God and handling my business everyday...no matter what.

Discipline is active in your life no matter what, think about it...

You might say, “I’m not disciplined. I watch way too much Netflix.”

Well, it takes discipline to watch that much Netflix. You’re watching that much Netflix because you believe it’s providing you some kind of value. Is it?

Once you realize that applying your discipline to binge-watching isn’t empowering you to partake of the life you truly want you’re left with a decision. That decision is, do you still want to use your time and discipline to do something that isn't getting you where you really want to go?

So, where do you want to go?

And are the actions you're taking getting you there?

Here are 3 Quick Tips to Begin to Shift Your Discipline

1- Write down where you want to be in the next 90 days of your life.

2- Begin to pray into that 90-day vision on a daily basis.

3- As the vision begins to manifest in your life, update and adjust it for continued growth.

Join the thousands of people that have gone through our FREE YouVersion Devotional, "Freedom from Addiction" - JOIN HERE

If you, or a loved one, is struggling with drug and/or alcohol addiction please set up a time to connect with us. We have been coaching people into freedom from addiction for over 8yrs now. Let's talk... - text or call - 619-880-6935

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Erik Frederickson - Life Coach and Recovery Coach

Aug 31, 20202 min read

Blacked Out at the Wheel

Updated: Sep 1, 2022

For years I ruined my life with the excuse, "I'll start my recovery tomorrow."

I hated the reality that my life had become, but I wanted to put off facing the mess for one more day. I did that for over a decade. Every time I put it off, it got worse.

I had the opportunity to be done with my insane addiction to drugs and alcohol at the age of twenty-one, but I still thought that I could manage my unquenchable thirst for escaping reality through self-medicating on my own.

At the age of twenty-one, I landed in my first treatment center. I was lost, sick, and done with life. Here is what I didn't know at the time about addition, IT CAN ALWAYS GET WORSE.

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The treatment center I went to was a nine-month program, and I was five months in and I was doing really well. At least from the outside looking in. The truth is that I was doing the best I could to obey all the rules and avoid talking about the real issues going on inside of me.

At about that five-month mark I realized that I would have to open up soon and start talking about all the chaos that was swirling around inside of me. That was frightening. The idea of talking through my feelings, without drugs and alcohol to help, nearly made my heart explode from a panic attack.

So one night I just up and split. I ran right out the front door and called some friends. I was high on drugs within an hour, and the next day I was back sleeping in my parent's basement thinking about how I could somehow manage my addiction this time around.

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Within two weeks I totaled my car in a drunken blackout, fled the scene, got away, and continued my drinking all night. The next day I was in handcuffs, again.

For years I kept believing the lie that I could manage my addiction on my own. I always looked forward to one more day of partying, and then I would start my recovery tomorrow, and for over thirteen years that mentality made my life worse and worse and worse.

It wasn't until I got help and gave up doing it my way that things started changing.

That change started over eleven years ago and continues today. If I could go back and give my twenty one year old self a bit of advice it would be this, "Face your issues today, and get some help no matter what it takes. Your addiction will always get worse, so just face it and quit before it does."

Join the thousands of people that have gone through our FREE YouVersion Devotional, "Freedom from Addiction" - JOIN HERE

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Erik Frederickson - Life Coach and Recovery Coach

Aug 28, 20203 min read

4 Tips for a More Confident Recovery

Updated: Sep 7, 2022

When I got clean and sober over 11 years ago my life did not become perfect overnight. Stopping drinking and drug use didn’t magically fix the unhealthy mindsets and habits that 13 years of active addiction instilled in me.

Some of the residues that lingered surrounded my fear of how others viewed me, for years of my life I was shaped by the opinions of others. I was intensely insecure. I didn't know my identity. A deep desire for acceptance was often my motivation. Any original thought or expression of mine had to first pass through my personal filter of, “what are people going to think?”

It took some work and time in recovery and relationship with God to even begin to identify this issue, and the work ensued once it was identified.

As I learned to stop caring about the opinions of others I realized that I didn't have to think I was better than anyone just because I was confident in who I was. It simply meant that knowing how God sees me and feels about me holds far more weight in my heart than what others are thinking and saying.

The wonderful thing about recovery and following Jesus is that the opinions of others don't have to ruin my day anymore. If someone else's opinion of me doesn't line up with God's definition of me, why would I dwell on it anyways?

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Here are 4 simple tips to gain confidence in being you and letting your voice be heard. 1- “If you live off the praises of man, you’ll die from their criticisms.” -Bill Johnson In early recovery, I had to learn that validation can feel good, but validation can not be the fuel to the engine that is my heart. Freedom flooded my life when I began living from a place of knowing that I’m loved and accepted by God, and God’s opinion of me ALWAYS trumps the opinions of others.

2- Define your morals and values, and live by them. A baseline for truth is needed. A moral compass. If there is no solidified definition of what’s right and wrong in your heart, any new idea can weaken the foundation and have you getting lost in plain sight with the masses. Doing the right thing always withstands the test of time, while doing the wrong thing usually just helps us fit into a crowd that is going the wrong way anyway.

3- More people are thinking the same thing.

Say what you're feeling and thinking, just learn to do it in a respectful way. The more I spoke up, the more people would say, "I was thinking the same thing."

In early recovery, it didn’t take long for me to start noticing that some of the things commonly practiced and talked about in the world of recovery are not as effective as many people think. When I started being vocal about why we should change the way we talk about and look at some of the most widely accepted recovery practices I started attracting like-minded people. 4- Honor and Respect. “Our culture has accepted two huge lies. The first is that if you disagree with someone’s lifestyle, you must fear or hate them. The second is that to love someone you must agree with everything they believe or do. Both are nonsense. You don’t have to compromise convictions to be compassionate.” ~Phil Robertson Just because I disagree with someone doesn’t mean I have to be disrespectful. In the midst of letting my voice be heard, I don’t have to bash others or attack them. Healthy relationships are a catalyst to real transformation, and just because I am honoring and loving to those around me (regardless of their beliefs) doesn’t mean I agree with everything they say and do.