As a few will know I've been attending N/A meetings recently and somehow I feel right at home amongst fellow addicts.
I'd just like to share some words of wisdom I read yesterday that have helped me start to accept my addiction for what it truly is.
The first step in N/A says: "We admitted we were powerless over our addiction...." N/A focuses not on what we used but on our addictive personalities that forced us to abuse many things. Addiction creates the emptiness inside us that drives us to seek contentment in all the wrong places. This step asks us to surrender our self-loathing, destructive thinking and behaviours. THEN WHAT?
Upon closer examination, we have found that; every harmful behaviour exists, because we do not love ourselves enough. We may deny this, but look at what we do to ourselves. It takes time, repeated effort and a willingness to learn real love. Many of us covered our general failure by maintaining special skills or abilities. Our abilities diminished though and even the special skills we used to hide our addiction began to fail us. That strategy was to do an especially good job and keep others off our back. It was another thing we did to carry on using/drinking. We knew we were in conflict with the world. Making excuses, criticizing others, feeling inadequate, unworthy, guilty and fearful was our existence. Negativity became a way of life for us. Because of this unhealthy spiritual condition, we tried to escape. Our mental processes broke down and out thinking became obsessive. We thought that the answers to our problem were out there somewhere and if we could only get enough of one thing or another we would be alright. The obsessive thinking that follows the process of spiritual disconnection ends with compulsive activity. This is a recurring and dangerous pattern. We have seen this pattern emerge in many ways after we got clean/sober.
Addiction has created a pattern of fears and defense mechanisms to help us deal with life. When we could no longer face the fact that our addiction had taken over our lives, we faced total collapse. The concept of addiction is one of reaction. When something happens, the fear that grows from our self-centred thinking pushes us into reacting. We feel threatened at every turn so we try to defend ourselves. When we feel attacked, we attack. Sometimes the attack only happens in our minds as we indulge in resentments and fantasies of revenge. This is a common reaction but healthy recovering people do not dwell in this type of thinking for long. They interact positively with people and events in their lives. They have learned to align their actions with their principals. Addiction is rooted in the spirit and we call this self-centeredness. It is more than simple selfishness seeking it's own way. The self-centeredness of addiction results in isolation, loneliness and alienation. It is feeling alone in the midst of a crowd, unloved in the bosom of our families and seperated from our fellow human beings. We think no one can possibly understand how we feel because we believe no one has ever felt this way before.
While in this state of mind we may think of ourselves as the worst or the best. We fear letting others know who we really are because we believe that we are unlovable. We see every situation in the light of how it effects us. We are so insecure that we continually seek approval and acceptence from others, but seldom feel that we receive what we need. Self centredness tells us us we are totally alone. This is a fearful state of mind and many of us have lived in it for years. After a time we can't remember what it was like to live without those feelings. As individuals we deal with many spiritual and philosophical issues. We need to feed ourselves mentally and spiritually in order to deal with our emotional differences.
Where other people can use/drink WE cannot. Where they can control what and how much they use WE cannot. Where they can predict what will happen when they take even a small quantity of a drug, we cannot. So we tried dealing with life by buying things, gaining social acceptability, eating, gambling, working, not working, suffering emotional swings, feeling self pity, having sex and all the other 'fixes'. In the end we had the same spiritual void that the drugs/drink could not fill. We give our thoughts power as we plan the outcome without expectations. We begin to see how acting out on our desires can fix us. We imagine all the intricate details needed to accomplish our goal and justify our actions. By now it may seem impossible to turn back.
People have painful living problems and suffer from the illusion that life's lessons aren't lessons but personal misfortunes that they deserved. They confuse this with their personal worth as human beings. As addicts we base many of our feelings, reactions, and decisions on experiences that took place in the past or while we were loaded. We were in denial over the fact that all our perceptions of life where where drug/drink induced. We spent all our time with other addicts who told us that we were doing just fine.
Our addiction makes us forget our past and non-addicts expect us to snap-out of the patterns of addictive thinking, acting and reacting by just putting down the drink/drugs. They think that we can act like nothing has happened. After all isn't that what recovery is about? NO! It is learning a whole new way to live. We do that by facing the past and healing, not by avoiding it.
Dont give up 5 minutes before 'the miracle' occurs! As long as there is life left in us there is hope for recovery.
My love and happiness to you all
Hippie
xx
I'd just like to share some words of wisdom I read yesterday that have helped me start to accept my addiction for what it truly is.
The first step in N/A says: "We admitted we were powerless over our addiction...." N/A focuses not on what we used but on our addictive personalities that forced us to abuse many things. Addiction creates the emptiness inside us that drives us to seek contentment in all the wrong places. This step asks us to surrender our self-loathing, destructive thinking and behaviours. THEN WHAT?
Upon closer examination, we have found that; every harmful behaviour exists, because we do not love ourselves enough. We may deny this, but look at what we do to ourselves. It takes time, repeated effort and a willingness to learn real love. Many of us covered our general failure by maintaining special skills or abilities. Our abilities diminished though and even the special skills we used to hide our addiction began to fail us. That strategy was to do an especially good job and keep others off our back. It was another thing we did to carry on using/drinking. We knew we were in conflict with the world. Making excuses, criticizing others, feeling inadequate, unworthy, guilty and fearful was our existence. Negativity became a way of life for us. Because of this unhealthy spiritual condition, we tried to escape. Our mental processes broke down and out thinking became obsessive. We thought that the answers to our problem were out there somewhere and if we could only get enough of one thing or another we would be alright. The obsessive thinking that follows the process of spiritual disconnection ends with compulsive activity. This is a recurring and dangerous pattern. We have seen this pattern emerge in many ways after we got clean/sober.
Addiction has created a pattern of fears and defense mechanisms to help us deal with life. When we could no longer face the fact that our addiction had taken over our lives, we faced total collapse. The concept of addiction is one of reaction. When something happens, the fear that grows from our self-centred thinking pushes us into reacting. We feel threatened at every turn so we try to defend ourselves. When we feel attacked, we attack. Sometimes the attack only happens in our minds as we indulge in resentments and fantasies of revenge. This is a common reaction but healthy recovering people do not dwell in this type of thinking for long. They interact positively with people and events in their lives. They have learned to align their actions with their principals. Addiction is rooted in the spirit and we call this self-centeredness. It is more than simple selfishness seeking it's own way. The self-centeredness of addiction results in isolation, loneliness and alienation. It is feeling alone in the midst of a crowd, unloved in the bosom of our families and seperated from our fellow human beings. We think no one can possibly understand how we feel because we believe no one has ever felt this way before.
While in this state of mind we may think of ourselves as the worst or the best. We fear letting others know who we really are because we believe that we are unlovable. We see every situation in the light of how it effects us. We are so insecure that we continually seek approval and acceptence from others, but seldom feel that we receive what we need. Self centredness tells us us we are totally alone. This is a fearful state of mind and many of us have lived in it for years. After a time we can't remember what it was like to live without those feelings. As individuals we deal with many spiritual and philosophical issues. We need to feed ourselves mentally and spiritually in order to deal with our emotional differences.
Where other people can use/drink WE cannot. Where they can control what and how much they use WE cannot. Where they can predict what will happen when they take even a small quantity of a drug, we cannot. So we tried dealing with life by buying things, gaining social acceptability, eating, gambling, working, not working, suffering emotional swings, feeling self pity, having sex and all the other 'fixes'. In the end we had the same spiritual void that the drugs/drink could not fill. We give our thoughts power as we plan the outcome without expectations. We begin to see how acting out on our desires can fix us. We imagine all the intricate details needed to accomplish our goal and justify our actions. By now it may seem impossible to turn back.
People have painful living problems and suffer from the illusion that life's lessons aren't lessons but personal misfortunes that they deserved. They confuse this with their personal worth as human beings. As addicts we base many of our feelings, reactions, and decisions on experiences that took place in the past or while we were loaded. We were in denial over the fact that all our perceptions of life where where drug/drink induced. We spent all our time with other addicts who told us that we were doing just fine.
Our addiction makes us forget our past and non-addicts expect us to snap-out of the patterns of addictive thinking, acting and reacting by just putting down the drink/drugs. They think that we can act like nothing has happened. After all isn't that what recovery is about? NO! It is learning a whole new way to live. We do that by facing the past and healing, not by avoiding it.
Dont give up 5 minutes before 'the miracle' occurs! As long as there is life left in us there is hope for recovery.
My love and happiness to you all
Hippie
xx
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