A Whole New Way to Reduce the Harmful Things You do to Yourself and Others

What is R.A.I.D?

The core philosophy of Reducing All Injurious Decisions is simple: reduce the harm we inflict upon ourselves and the unintended bystanders—lovers, family, friends.

Most programs tell you to quit everything that helps you survive just because someone else tells you that you have a problem. RAID is different.

I encourage you to evaluate for yourself what is causing you problems.

• The Definition: Harm is causing physical or emotional damage. It can be a noun (“didn’t mean any harm”) or a verb (“ways to harm themselves”).

• The Method: You must take the time to question your own behavior. If you smell like you just walked out of a hash house, you might be fine with it—but that smell could trigger a traumatic experience for someone else.

• The Solution: It’s not always “quit smoking.” It might be “hang out in the fresh air for 10 minutes.” It’s about awareness.

“Don’t let someone’s opinion matter, unless of course it sticks. Then you might want to take a look at what about what you’re doing is holding you back.”

Why I Believe This Works…

In my experience, I do more harm to myself than anyone else. I love to self-sabotage.

For a long time, I was hoping to die from an addiction to Fentanyl. I tried to die nearly every time I used it. I felt trapped, stressed, and saw no way back. That changed when I met someone who believed in me. She introduced me to harm reduction by giving me a job at a needle exchange.

The Current Reality

I learned that one addict best understands another addict. What I would truly love to accomplish is to grow a community that shares and supports each other in reducing harm in each of their own lives. If it hadn’t been for 12-step recovery to blaze the trail, one person who has experienced the utter horror of watching a loved one destroy themselves, or has completely lost hope in their own life, can understand another person’s suffering, especially when the harmful behavior ends up being just an obsession with something that brings them pleasure, despite the harm.

As of September 16th, 2024, I haven’t returned to daily use of Fentanyl. My definition of relapse was “returning to daily use.”

But RAID is an evolving process. I accidentally overdosed over the weekend. That scary moment taught me something crucial: I don’t want to die anymore. And that is the beauty of this program. I unintentionally made a decision that led to harm, and now I have the power to make a different decision on how to respond. I can also advise those others that are attempting to reduce their Fentanyl intake, and free themselves from daily use and physical addiction, going back to using after a period of success is extremely likely to be fatal. From today forward I am defining a relapse to include any use of Fentanyl. I attempted to reduce harm by cutting down to rarely using it, and I could be dead. But I sure do wish I had a group of other people to talk about my success, and my failures with using the RAID philosophy in my daily life.

For the record. Today was the birth of this website, today’s date is 2026/02/09 it’s 22:50 MST. Boulder, Colorado. I’m excited because once you see that it’s working in my life, just maybe you’ll try to let it work in your life.

I feel that RAID was my answer from God, my higher power, on my way to learning to love myself. If it wasn’t for my adoration for God, and the message of love that’s written in the bible, I wouldn’t be able to remain functional enough to have a complete thought. It is only by following his will for me that I am given grace, grace which inspired this entire way of living. Does that mean I need to be stark raving mad, because I have no way of coping with everything messed up in my head without a little weed, and for the time being, until I can be prescribed the medication I need, I am using a bit of speed. But admittedly I’m considering stopping my use of meth, out of loop concern about it’s safe manufacturing, as well as uncertainty about what I am actually consuming when purchasing street drugs.