I Can’t Stop Drinking
Does this sound familiar? I wake up in denial about the fact that I drink every day. My first drink is normally before breakfast. It started off with a few drinks, now it’s multiple drinks within a day and it’s killing me. I am being dragged down a road that I do not wish to go. Yet, I feel that I have no power to control my destiny. My wake up call occurred when my wife threatened to leave and take the kids. Somebody please help me.
To eight percent of the general population that plea for help should sound very familiar. It was, in the case of Philip Muls, a twenty-five year functional alcoholic that now has lived in sobriety for the last five years. He is the author of Mind on Fire: A Case of Successful Addiction Recovery.
In Muls life alcohol was as important as air, hooked him by the nose and took him on a life journey of turmoil and despair. “It was a very dark period in my life in which my mind was numbed by alcohol.” Muls found writing to be solace in his darkness and wrote the biography Mind on Fire to help those in the clutches of alcoholism.
By becoming brutally honest about his drinking problem and opening himself to become publicly vulnerable, Muls hopes to lead others out of their abyss. “Writing the book was my way to search and find my soul, my sixth sense, my real self. I believe that readers will find the authenticity striking. There is no doubt whether I have lived the facts and struggles as described in the book. It is painful and emotionally impactful to follow my journey throughout the book.”
Pathway of Recovery
Muls cuts through the pretense in Mind on Fire and gives helpful advice on recovery:
Get out of denial so that you can take action and be propelled towards recovery.
If you have gone through relapse do not give up.
Have the desire to become more authentic and live in a spiritual way of being.
Live now. Your past does not reflect your future.
Accept your imperfections.
Muls said that he wrote the book Mind on Fire to guide others to “live a sober and authentic life, to come clean with yourself and your surroundings. It is brutally honest and will confront the reader potentially with some ugly truths about his or her own life. It will bring a longing for a more authentic and spiritual way of being.” By addressing the addiction, it will become the means to write a new script for your life.
Mind on Fire is written in a conversational style. “It is part travelogue and part philosophical musings and brooding. The switch between therapy sessions and travel stories makes the book dynamic and driven.”
One Five Star Reviewer on Amazon writes:
If you have a loved one or even an acquaintance that has dealt or is dealing with addiction, then you will want to get a copy of this book into that person’s hands. Philip Muls well-written book not only offers hope, but also relates in Peter Baer’s journey how to contend with the existential angst of recovery. We hear about the 12 steps, about finding and committing to a Higher Power, but those things aren’t necessarily the panacea to addiction. Mind on Fire provides insights into the process of recovery that will assist addicts, as well as those trying to support and understand. This is an important addition to addiction and recovery literature.
Muls believes that surrendering the mind to the pathway of mental peace is a critical step to personal recovery. This book is an excellent resource for those that want to stop drinking, are struggling from relapse to relapse and those that are in recovery but have trouble finding a new meaning and peace with themselves.
About the Author
Philip Muls is a senior business executive in a global corporation, who has been traveling on the job through Asia for the last twenty-plus years. He holds an MBA from Leuven University and has been granted various sales and management awards in the software industry. After quitting alcohol in his mid-forties, Philip started to research and experiment with a variety of recovery treatments on the level of mind and body and also on the level of his deeper self. This book blends his amazing travel stories with an authentic account of how alcohol affects the brain and how recovery from addiction can be like navigating a minefield of existential fears and obsolete beliefs. When he is not off traveling in China or India, Philip lives with his wife Natja and his two children Monika and Alexander in Grimbergen, Belgium. Mind on Fire is available on Amazon or where ever books are sold. He can also be reached at his website www.philipmulsauthor.com.