Understanding Life Over Time: Why Small Decisions Create Stability

 

Care Becoming Quiet Understanding

I am Dr. Conway, a Tennessee physician who practices private medicine in Nashville
I will be your doctor, prescribing suboxone to you (if you qualify) under the strict requirements of federal and state law.

With time, stability forms. From stability, freedom follows.
My work is to help you remain with what is difficult until it becomes understandable.

It is a privilege to witness life becoming more its own.

 

Introduction

Current events on social media favor drama, in which everything is painted as a big moment of eternal consequence. However, I see the opposite. Small decisions, made quietly, require daily actions, are the power of the universe. Those of us who are “in recovery” can benefit from a focus on small decisions. “One step at a time” as the saying goes.

Time is an essential but poorly understood medium. Recovery, health, and stability are not built in crisis, but with steady care, predictable routines, and decisions that compound over time.

My message to you:

Stability over time creates freedom.

 

Executive  Summary

  1. Time compounds outcomes
  2. Stability reduces fear and reactive decision-making.
  3. Education allows better long-term decisions.
  4. Consistency beats intensity
  5. Health is the master investment everything else depends on.

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Freedom from Crisis is Your Goal; Happiness is Stability.

The purpose of managing your money is happiness. A certain amount of money is required for you to live comfortably. The money required to pay today’s bills, tomorrow’s bills, and this month’s bills. If you have this money, you are financially safe, meaning.

  1. You are stable.
  2. Fear has been reduced.
  3. Your choices have been preserved.
  4. Every day’s stability grows larger.

Unable to pay your bills, today, tomorrow, this month, you are in a world of hurt.

  1. Fear activates your independent nervous system, your flight or flight nervous system, producing constant stress for your body.
  2. Your choices narrow.
  3. You have an emergency.
  4. Time spent figuring out how to pay your bills is time not spent on something else.

Good Money management produces stability over time, creating freedom over time. Many of us recovering from illicit drug use can relate to how difficult addiction makes it to earn a living and pay your proper bills. Once freed from that crisis, it’s time to become responsible and live life in an organized fashion.

 

Addiction is a Crisis of Stability

Addiction as a disease is expensive in ways you never anticipated. Your expenses are out of control. Your nervous system is suffering, in fight or flight mode, or withdrawal, producing suffering, your losses accumulate daily, and multiply over time. You are in a spiral downward, which left unchecked, leads to death, incarceration, or total impoverishment.

The objective of treatment for your addiction is.

  1. Stop your daily losses.
  2. Put your body into “check”, free from craving, excessive stress, and pain
  3. Provide stability.
  4. Reestablish choice.
  5. Built daily cash in the bank.

In the treatment of addiction, happiness is the  return of stability without constant threat. Here is a definition of addiction from the Indiana University Health:

Most medical professionals agree. The American Medical Association (AMA) classified alcoholism as a disease in 1956 and included addiction as a disease in 1987. In 2011 the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) joined the AMA, defining addiction as a chronic brain disorder, not a behavior problem, or just the result of making bad choices. Research and input from top addiction authorities, addiction medicine doctors, neuroscientists and experts from the National Institute on Drug Abuse agree in classifying addiction as a disease. Like other chronic diseases such as diabetes and heart disease, experts are still learning about how and why the disease develops. This blog post will help you understand addiction and how IU Health addiction treatment can help those struggling.

Stability in addiction to opioids comes from

1 Adequate suboxone dosing

  1. A physician who knows you
  2. Regular follow-up visit
  3. Access to care when stress arises
  4. Treatment plans that anticipate a problem

Instead of living emotionally and biologically at the edge, patients develop margin. Margin is what allows people to bend without breaking.

There is Always a Budget. Limits Cannot be Ignored

Budgeting is a fundamental concept of rational financial management. Budgeting is simply knowing and planning for your cash inflows, your cash out flows, and the difference. Happiness is when cash inflow is greater than cash outflow.

Budgets always exist in all decisions. The budget may be spoken. The budget may be unspoken. But the budget exists. In all personal transactions, there is an expected cash inflow and expected cash outflow. In any negotiation over money, you need to estimate what the other person’s budget is.

In health, you always have a budget. Addictions cost. Ignoring a chronic illness which can be treated costs. Stopping an effective long-term treatment required to keep your disease quiet produces future risk and future cost. Unmanaged health always collects interest. As a suboxone clinic in Nashville, we can help determine if you qualify for treatment and, if you do, use suboxone to help you in an addiction-recovery plan (if recommended). The first step is to book a consultation, so we can assess your health issues. Then, we can make a plan – together – on the best way to treat your issues. As a private practice physician in Nashville, I strive to provide a comprehensive strategy for the health of each patient as an individua.

Keep Sufficient Cash in Reserve to Avoid Crisis in Nashville

Unexpected expenses occur. Unexpected failure to receive payment occurs. To be secure, to avoid crisis in this unexpected, but very predictable situations, you must have cash in reserve. Cash in reserve is the buffer which protects you from

  1. Panic decisions
  2. Short term thinking

In addiction cash in reserve is a metaphor for  security from relapse. Relapse occurs when there is no buffer when life applies pressure.

Common Sense is Not Enough: Invest in Education

The rules of rational financial management are only partially obvious. Having more cash coming in than going out is obvious. The fundamental ideas of time value of money are not intuitively obvious.  Warren Buffett, perhaps the greatest investor who ever lived, stated that his life is a monument to compound interest.

You need education in financial management. You need education in health. Understanding addiction is a first step. Overcoming it is a second step. Maintaining your good status – step three – is your long-term strategy.

Make the Time Value of Money Central to Your Life

Time value of money is the central idea of finance. Time is always the hidden variable. Time is your most valuable resource. Time is what you cannot replace. The time cost of any decision must be identified. You must learn to estimate what the impact of today’s decision will be on tomorrow.

In health, small daily health decisions compound. Long term care always beats episodic rescue.

My patients who remain with me have learned that.

  1. To stay in treatment
  2. To show up consistently
  3. Today’s decisions foster tomorrow’s recovery.
  4. To Choose boring stability over dramatic change.

Health is Your Most Important Investment in Nashville

Health is your most important investment. Without health, you do not get the full measure of joy. Declining heath leads to suffering. Declining health imposes limits. Declining health can lead to early death. Tennessee doesn’t always score well on health scores. For example, check out the statistics on men’s health in Tennessee:

The Tennessee Department of Health’s The Health of Tennessee’s Men 2013 report examines demographic trends, leading causes of death, and behavioral risk factors affecting men across the state. In 2013, men aged 20–29 represented the largest age group within the state’s 3.17 million male population. Heart disease and cancer were the two leading causes of death, accounting for nearly half of all male deaths, followed by accidents, chronic lower respiratory disease, and cerebrovascular disease. Lung cancer had the highest cancer death rate among men. The report highlights significant behavioral risk factors, including high rates of overweight and obesity (over 73 percent), smoking (approximately 27 percent among white males), physical inactivity, high blood pressure, and diabetes. While some alcohol-related behaviors declined slightly, diabetes prevalence increased. The findings emphasize the importance of lifestyle modification, preventive screenings, and early detection to reduce premature mortality and improve long-term health outcomes for Tennessee men.

Good health, stable health, improving health, all give the possibility of longer life, of better life.

Suboxone is an investment in brain chemistry. Primary care is an investment in your health. When care is consistent and coordinated over time, health improves.

I will partner with you in the stewardship of your health.

 

Conclusion

Everyone’s life unfolds differently.
Good decisions are rarely dramatic.
They are repeated, modest, and sustained over time.

 

Decisions which count most

  1. Staying in suboxone treatment
  2. Maintaining primary care
  3. Making small, steady choices
  4. Allowing time to work

My work is to walk with you through those decisions — quietly, steadily, and without judgment. I am William Conway, MD in Nashville

 

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