Part #1: From Addiction to Regeneration

How I Broke Free and You Can Too

An expression of a world led by addictions, feeding degenerative systems. While others build their will-power and are creating a new regenerative world.

Do you control your habits? or your habits control you?

Do you eat junk food, smoke cannabis or cigarettes, drink coffee, beer or liquor, use porn, play video games, watch netflix, scroll on social media, use drugs, or any other addiction that you act upon many times a day - every day and/or weekend where you cannot stop even though you already know it is not good for you, to the point you may even be affecting the people around you?

I know exactly how you feel. Trust me. I was there. This article can help you become aware of the root problem and how to go about solving it.

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Capitalism is literally based on keeping you addicted. Here's how I figured this out - and broke free.

Addiction is the silent epidemic behind every crisis we face today. Environmental destruction, political corruption, poverty, economic collapse and even war.

All of it. All of it comes back to this one thing society is not talking about much, thus not solving it.

But here's what shattered my reality: the system doesn't just allow addiction - it feeds on it. Our pain is their profit. Our emptiness is their endless market. The more we consume, the more "they" grow. Big private companies, big pharma, big tech and governments. Most of them are together on this, addicted to money and mainly power.

I know this because I was completely enslaved. Not just by the obvious stuff, but by dozens of addictions I didn't even realize I had. Breaking free didn't just change my life - it revealed how the whole game works.

This is my story of going from the depths of hell to creating regenerative communities around the world. Of discovering that personal healing and planetary healing are the same sacred work.

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A reflection of a lifestyle that is driven by addictions, without any awareness about the existence. Looking at thy-self from a dimension of greatness and empowerment. The future self.

The Day I Saw My True Self

At 25, I stood before my bedroom mirror. Not looking, but really observing myself eye to eye for the first time in years. Right to my soul.

The man staring back at me was hollow. Empty. A ghost pretending to be alive.

My room told the story my mind couldn't face - mattress on the floor like I was camping in my own life. Piles of clothes smelling like shame and lost nights. Empty bottles of beer all around. And a PlayStation surrounded by the debris of dreams I'd given up on.

I had no money. No direction. No future I could imagine. All my friends were buying houses, getting married, building something. Me? I was disappearing into the nothingness.

"How the hell did I get here?" I express with fury to my reflection.

The mirror didn't answer. But that question... that question started an earthquake inside me. Cracking everything open. One that lead me to understand the dark reality that turns humans into consumers, where I knew the world needs change, I need change. At that moment, I took a deep breath and wave of consciousness went through me in a heavy profound blink of an eye, where a seed was planted, an awareness that something greater than me is possible, where I can have a purpose.

But first, I had to do the work. Travel back to the essence of where it all began.

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Growing Up Addicted

All this was happening while growing up in a small town in Ecuador called Pedro Vicente Maldonado, where alcohol and fights were normal. The lifestyle there surrounds working on the farmland during the day and start drinking at night, leading into terrible fistfights between people for no smart reason. In the subconscious mind, the culture is that, the more you drink and the good fighter you are, the more respected you are . My uncle was well known and very well respected. At some point I was proud of that and found myself walking the streets with “great confidence” at the age of 12 and 13. Thinking I am also respected, I was tested by many. So basically, over the years I trained myself to become a heavy drinker and street fighter.

This behavior, this person that I have become, was increasing its power. I have many stories to tell about the character I formed, especially being in a family lineage of military leaders, owning slaves and experiencing extreme lifestyle. I lived around that, which in summary, I became a fearless, careless, non-empathic, narcissist, power lover, manipulating being. In a way, I did learn to be brave and stand up for myself, but the way I did it was not the best and most conscious way. It was destructive, inwards and out.

However, behind the scenes I was truly learning something else with out realizing - how to be an addicted consumer. How to need things outside myself to feel okay, when I don’t really need any of that.

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Addictions I Didn't See

When I finally got honest about my life, I discovered something shocking. I wasn't just addicted to the obvious stuff. I was trapped by dozens of hidden addictions that controlled every aspect of my existence.

Here's the list of the most dominant addictions I had, which after I look at it. It blew my mind:

Substances:

Alcohol (the foundation of everything else)

Cocaine and MDMA, being in party mode all the time, distracted from myself

Cannabis keeping me in the same cycles of distraction and procrastination

Junk food that kept my body inflamed and sick

Eating animals, keeping me in a heavy, slow, mind-foggy state of being, disconnected to life itself.

Behaviors:

Pornography that messed up my relationship to women and the sacredness of sexual expression.

Video games that let me escape reality for hours, keeping me in a never ending loop of anxiety

Social media and the need for validation, keeping me depressed by comparing myself, and non-stop scrolling viewing ridiculous content.

Movies and series taking me from sleeping day and night, hooked to the couch.

Sleeping excessively and/or not sleeping at all. No sleep structure, no health.

The extreme laziness would take over. I knew I was lazy, and will continue to do nothing.

Parties and meaningless social gatherings, getting distracted with "friends".

Always finding ways to make money. The more money I had, the more power, thus the more addicted I was becoming.

I was consuming stuff, left and right. A complete shopaholic. I would spend it all at once, things I didn't need at all. Going to the mall & Amazon shopping.

Staring at myself in the mirror for hours. Vanity to its purest. Even with my bald head.

Cheating on my girlfriend, and not respecting women. Lying in all forms. A perfect actor.

Emotional Addictions:

Depression - I loved being sad, listening to romantic sad music while drinking hard liquor alone in my room, pretending I had heartbreak even when I didn't have a girlfriend. While truly feeling I alone and useless.

Anger - I loved having my perpetual mad face because it made people respect me and fear me

Adrenaline - stealing, fighting, dangerous stunts that made me feel alive

Psychological Patterns:

Lying about everything - lying to people, lying to my family, lying to myself about who I was, what I did, where I was going. Big lies, small lies, dangerous lies, innocent lies. I was completely addicted to dishonesty.

Stealing - it started with stealing liquor from my house, then money, then my family's car, then shoplifting from stores. I became good at it, but it wasn't about the money - it was about the adrenaline rush.

Love addiction - overwhelming people with obsessive care because I felt so empty inside, giving everything to girlfriends and friends in a way that was overwhelming to them.

Fighting people and confronting fear everywhere I went.

Hanging out with people in the streets, doing a whole lot of nothingness.

The Weirdest One: After months of successfully quitting hard drugs and letting go of unhealthy habits, I find myself with an-almost impossible addiction to get rid of. And that was my obsession to ice cream. Vanilla, Chocolate, Hazelnut, Rum Raisin, etc. I would eat at least a whole liter every day, sometimes combined with french fries. This innocent treat was harder to quit than cocaine and all the other addictions combined. It blew my mind how hard it was. Nowadays, you can find much healthier organic non-gmo coconut ice cream with monk sugar. That would of been good to have back in the day.

Plot Twist: Surprisingly, I never got addicted to coffee or cigarettes, even though I liked them and had some. I didn't get addicted, which most people struggle with. Maybe because I was too busy with everything else.

Looking at this list and learning overtime, I realized addiction isn't about the substance. it's about the habit I have created for myself, of using external things to avoid feeling what's really inside. And each person is unique to their desires and addictions. Thus, implemented strategically through the consumption and plutocratic culture.
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The End of Part #1

Continue with Part #2 on our Substack.

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Part #2 reveals:

The moment I flipped addiction into my greatest power. How saying "no" to everything rebuilt me from the inside out. The 3-year death and rebirth that led from broken boy in the mirror to regenerative communities across continents.

But more than my story - the system that's designed to keep you trapped. The exact strategies they use to harvest your life force. And why breaking free isn't just personal healing - it's how we heal our dying planet.

The path from consumer to creator. The "Exit & Build" revolution happening right now. The vision that's already becoming reality in Ecuador and spreading worldwide.

Your free Regenerative Culture Principles guide. The community waiting for you. The future the Earth is begging us to create.

The old world is ending. The new world needs you. Your transformation matters more than you know.

Link to part Part #2