Yeah, money is important, but not essentially important to determine quality of life issues. Like I said, I've been on both sides of the wealth / poverty equation. Money itself is useless for attaining a quality of life.
This is not to be confused with money easing hardships that otherwise must be endured. I am speaking from experience though, so its not just some thing I'm projecting out there. Money can make life easier. It can also make it harder, however, is also true.
Quality of life is more about the person themselves, and not about the status of their wealth, their jobs, their education, their political correct associations, etc.
I didn't win a lottery either, btw. For several years now earn my money on the stock exchange. It seems I have a kind of easy success with my stock choices. Before I got into stocks, I worked for myself, and had a 5 figure income along with a disability pension in an up and mostly down business with my ex-wife. And ton's of debt too, using one credit card to pay another. Not cool. Before that I worked in the addictions field and before that I was a drunken sob. I grew up in the 60's and 70's dirt poor. I have no graduate diploma. Not even high school.
I'm still successful nonetheless. Despite my health issues. Despite my mental health issues too. Despite my first day sober I had nothing but me, myself, and I. And a dream. And some promises to myself. I started at the bottom. It wasn't pretty.
When I remarried, my wife also had considerable wealth from her divorce settlement. Does any of this equate to quality of life? No, it doesn't. Money can actually destroy more then it makes right if not embraced properly. I know enough millionaires to know first-hand they don't have quality of life simply because they have wealth. Money is simply not what creates quality of life. People create quality of life for themselves. Or they don't. Its all about personal choices. It's not about external environments.
Quality of life is who I am, and how I behave, how I am responsible and authentic to my inner core beliefs, how I am still myself in good times and in bad times. I've learned more about how to keep being a non-drinker sober spiritual person by doing my best to be me then I've ever learned from any technique to help me quit alcohol and drugs.
Like I said, I'm amazed at just how much people say they just want to quit and get on with their lives, yet they really don't want to talk about their lives, they would much rather talk about quitting, like as if their lives were secondary.
Quitting was for me a means to an end, and not a goal in itself. I never would have stayed quit if I couldn't be the real me after quitting. Since I never went back to drinking, and I had a hard life for many years after quitting, I believe I'm not speaking with idealistic projections. Do I think people return to drinking because they didn't figure out a step or a technique or something external?? No, I don't. I believe people return to drinking, even if only for a day, because they did not find themselves. They were looking for something else thinking that would suffice, it didn't, and so back to where they last left themselves: drunk and drinking.
Again, I don't expect a lot of "thanks for this useful post"...
Still though, quality of life is the best ride out of addiction, hands down. Techniques are excellent tools, but they fall short on creating subjective quality of life, for this recovered alcoholic drug addict, anyways.
