Eric Zimmer

And yeah, I would have probably robbed you at gunpoint for those.

And now they had about as much emotional significance as a loaf of bread, which is incredible.

I don't tell that story to brag.

I tell the story because it shows that what often seems completely insurmountable to us can become second nature down the road.

I don't struggle not to do drugs anymore.

It's not there in that kind of day-to-day struggle.

Now there's things that I do that I think keep myself mentally and emotionally healthy enough that those cravings or those feelings don't come back.

But yeah, it's disappeared as a problem for me.

And for anybody that's dealing with a compulsion, that's part of what's hard is you think about life without it and you just imagine that you'll always want it.

Like, yeah, maybe I could give up whatever your thing is, gambling.

I don't know.

Maybe I could give up gambling, but life would always feel like I'd always miss it.

I'd always wish I could do it.

And the truth of people who get over these things is that's not true.

The thing just ceases to be attractive to you, which seems impossible.

From where I was sitting at one time, I would not have believed you if you told me that.

I might have believed, yeah, maybe, maybe I could stay sober, but I would not have believed that I no longer would care about heroin.

That was inconceivable.

Well, I don't think it works because it's boring.

I mean, I think part of it, right, is that anything that we are trying to change that is meaningful tends to be something that is just going to have to continue to go on for a long time.