Taking inventory is the place you want to start when making the decision to tackle any addiction. taking inventory consists of two parts time and money. To do this, if you're still using cocaine, you'll need some way to track your use pen and paper, your phone, whatever it is you need. If you're not still using cocaine, then you can go off memory. As you track your use, there are two things to track how much time you spend every day, not in your right mind space, and how much money you spend every day on cocaine. Now, the time part can be a little subjective, but here are some things to think about.

How much time do you spend every day trying to buy cocaine. This includes calling or texting your dealer, taking a trip to buy some and thinking about when the next time will be. For example, if you wake up in the morning around 9am and you immediately start thinking about when You're going to get some, and then text your dealer around 10am and wait for the response. That's an hour right there. While you're waiting for their response, you're thinking about this constantly. But let's say they end up responding around 1030 and you meet up at 11.

You take your first hit, and you're hi till three, and then you take some more in your hike and until you fall asleep, maybe around midnight, if you add those hours up, you'll get about 15 hours per day. Another example, maybe you're a weekend user. So if you haven't done cocaine in a few days, but you start to think about it on Friday night, around eight o'clock, you text your dealer, you meet up around 10, and you stay up Friday night, all the way through to Sunday morning, around 8am. And then you crash, then maybe you don't do it again until next Friday. That would be 36 hours over seven days. However you calculate your time, be honest with yourself.

And once you have that figure out a weekly average. My first example, let's say it's every day, that would be about 105 hours per week. My second example would be about 36 hours a week, yours is likely to be somewhere in between, or may not even be close to either side of this spectrum. But once you figure out your weekly average, then times that number by four, and you'll get your monthly average. So for example, 36 hours a week times four, that's 144 hours per month, or 105 hours a week, times four, that's 420 hours a month. Alright, so now let's talk about the money part.

Again, you'll want to figure out how much you're spending daily and weekly to get an average and then times that number by four. So for example, let's say you spend about $10 per day. Well, that's $70 per week. That's $280 per month. Let's say you blow about $100 on the weekends, then you're looking about $400 per month. Once you have your monthly averages for both time and money, you want to start thinking about what you're going to do once you quit.

So starting with time, this is huge. At first, you might feel like nothing. And that's perfectly normal. And we'll talk more about that in our detox lecture. But over time, you're going to start realize that you have more time than you thought. For this lecture, I want you to start to think about how you're going to be spending your free time when you're not high or thinking about getting high.

It can be something as simple as being more present with your family at home, or something more like training for a marathon or taking up a hobby you've always wanted to try. Whatever it is write it down and start thinking about it today. About how you're going to achieve that. Next, you'll start to think about the money you spend. If the money you spend on cocaine is extra money you have laying around then think about how you might spend that money a little differently. Maybe you'll spend it towards a new hobby or maybe buy some new clothes or a gym membership.

Use it for yourself in ways that will help you feel better. The biggest thing that I hear though, is how people who quit their addictions thought they would have more money, but instead they feel just as broke or they don't see any extra money laying around. If this is you, this is common. Here's what's going on with that. When you partake in any addiction, specifically substances, you're going to do whatever it takes to find money to buy your drug of choice. Chances are though, other areas financially have suffered while doing so.

Maybe you didn't pay your credit card bill or your car payment. Once you stop using cocaine. You start using your money for wearing It's meant to go and you don't realize how much you've been neglecting your finances. Maybe Maybe you got paid and instead of blowing $40 you made a car payment on time. So think about your financial winds while working through this. It may seem gradual and very subtle, but every little win should be celebrated with pride.

All right, so now you have some work to do here on taking inventory. Once you've done that, go ahead and go to the next lecture and we'll talk about setting a quit date.