Most of us come into this world with addiction
propensities. Some addictions are more
obvious than others (drug/alcohol, food, anger, sugar, smoking, enabling,
gambling, work) and others are easier to hide and turn away from (closet substance
abuse, drama, sex, chronic financial crisis, pornography,
electronics/technology). It is always
destructive, usually on many levels. Addiction is something one accommodates
frequently through a day, whether it be partaking, thinking/feeling about it or
hiding it. We play games with our
addictions, pushing the pretend-envelope and the edge where it is likely to be
revealed to oneself more fully or to others.
All of this takes up a fair amount of time but most of us are well
practiced at making it look like it doesn’t.
One of the more difficult aspects of addiction is
acknowledgement of the presence of it when the use of a substance or an enabling
pattern is altered. Unless the
spirituality aspect of the disease is addressed, addictive behavior takes up
residence in one’s attitude, emotional responses or some other behavior that is
less noticeable, but still considerably insidious. Whereas the street derelict wears his
addictions on his sleeve, it is much harder to acknowledge the problem for the
addict who is able to outwardly function (work).
May blessings abound on the Alcohol Anonymous (AA) programs. Besides
helping hundreds of thousands of people for over 50 years with their addiction
struggles, they have identified most rightly that an addiction is not a solo
problem but part of a larger group dynamic and also that it is a spiritual
disease.
People turn to substances or deleterious repetitive
behaviors to relieve their unbearable sense of lack of spirit, to fill the hole
hollowed out by grief, pain and self-hatred.
In addition, it can be a karmic or generational cultural transference
(ie: Celtic, Nordic and Russian predilection for alcoholism), effecting our DNA
and our children’s DNA. Addiction is
insidious and in the worse cases, wreaks absolute havoc with an assured ripple
effect. Modern culture at large
encourages addiction, especially patterns that have to do with consumerism. One’s well being is undeniably in one’s own
hands and the ability to be aware and resist that which doesn’t bode well for
one’s welfare is necessary.
As a nurse, to take care of an addict strikes dread in my
heart like no other disease. Those
addicted are often manipulative, belligerent, their denial deeply entrenched and
therefore, practically impossible to make relationship with or to provide meaningful help. When working with this type of patient, one’s
boundaries have to be almost rigidly in place and one has to be totally on
one’s game. And it is extremely wearing; their unrelenting dysfunction tugs at one's own sense of health and equilibrium. Most professional efforts at impacting a positive outcome, being
effective and providing any type of healing is either negligible or a crap
shoot. I couldn’t begin to count the
hours I, as one of dozens of other hospital staff persons on a detox team, have dealt with an
addict, helping them detox just to discharge them with the certainty they’d be
back within a month to repeat the entire hellish process again. Proof that getting clean with all its
difficulties is a piece of cake compared to staying clean.
How can we heal from our addictions? The AA programs spell out the steps with
absolute clarity. It begins with
bringing awareness and admitting that I am not in control in relationship
to the substance or behavior. AA’s
precepts, in the broadest of terms, seek to help people build a foundation to
finding a sense of their spirit(uality), introducing ways to experience honesty,
acceptance, forgiveness, serenity and courage;
qualities that are often denied and sorely missing in an addicted
person’s inner resource pool.
Addiction healing, like most healing, is a life long
process, because addiction is a chronic disease. Living a life (as opposed to avoiding it) is
a preparation for the next step and then the step beyond. What we are ready for now is something we
were not ready for two years ago. Addiction healing is incremental, in its own time and is absolutely tenuous and fragile. And
if the end of a life comes sooner than a “complete” healing
is possible (whatever that is), grace sometimes makes it apparent that the struggle and the
working of the “pieces” was what mattered.
Hopefully.
God, grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
My experience with addictive behaviors is not as dramatic (read: interesting) as what you describe. Nonetheless, I've had my struggles. In my case(s), I found the following:
ReplyDelete1- The addiction presents itself to me as a friend, as help, enhancement, promise.
2- It is always a liar, i.e., not my friend, no help at all, no improvement, etc.
3- It speaks in the first person, that is, as "I," and uses my own voice, and sounds just like me -- except... if I actually listen to it, I notice it is not my voice at all, but an approximation.
4- If I do not indulge it, it starts whining.
5- They are clever, wily, manipulative ... why, just like myself!
Who knew!?! Oh, wait ... now I do.
I've found that if I attend to addictive behaviors along those lines, they wither -- though they stay alive as long as I do since, er, they are part of me (but a withered part).
There was an interesting, somewhat related passage in A Sense of the Cosmos, by Jacob Needleman, and comes at least into the neighborhood of your discussion:
I recently had an ailment that kept me in more or less constant severe pain for several months. Although the pain was intense, it was limited to my legs and did not affect my vital functions. Moreover, at no time was it possible to believe my life was threatened. For the first two or three weeks, my life remained generally the same. Certain that the pain would soon pass, I was "brave." I abjured pain-killing drugs, I complained and joked, I stayed away from doctors. I drank in sympathy from others. I actually admired myself for the way I was bearing up.
But the pain did not get better; it got worse, and eventually my composure dissolved. I became frightened, and during the next two months I tried every doctor and healer I could find and every nostrum I could lay my hand on. They all failed, but each time I felt sure I was on the track of what was wrong and how to fix it -- and each time panic set in when the timetable broke down.
Gradually, I began to notice something important out of the corner of my eye. I saw that my efforts were being expended not simply to stop the pain or to become well, but to get back my habits. I discovered that I loved my habits -- of eating and sleeping, sitting and walking, talking on the phone, meeting people, reading, laughing, shouting. When I took pain-killing drugs (which I began to do, in great amounts), I was relieved not simply because the pain lessened, but because my habits returned. I learned that I depend on my habits to feel alive.
I do not want to appear naive. I had certainly always known how disturbing it is to have one's habitual ways interfered with for any reason. But I am speaking about something different here, something about human nature which i had never heard of before. When I was in pain, I was actually a freer human being. My habits no longer compelled me; I was no longer lost in them, I could see them and sense them as though they were children calling out to me not to abandon them. But I could not bear this freedom because there was one habit that not even the constant pain could dislodge: the habitual feeling that I know what to do, the sense one has in all circumstances day and night that I am doing the right thing, or at least the best thing possible.
And I think in this everyone is alike. Even in the most difficult situations when action is blocked on every side and I become limp, there is still the accompanying sense that this is what I must do. Even the most "passive" among us feel this beneath the surface of their lives. This feeling, this sense of agency, is something very small, but since it is I, it is also something very big. This habit is "myself." It is the ego.
The Needleman passage is very interesting, Walt. I am in question if there is a difference between a habit and an addiction. We are all creatures of habit; we live by them, find comfort in them. When do we consider them addictions? Possibly, AA's premise of "they have you, you don't have them" is a clue. We are dependent on many things for a sense of wellness: moving, resting, eating... it goes on and on. Are these habits/addictions? In their absence we get cranky and "not ourselves". Who am I? Am I, say, my moving self? Without my moving self, do "I" exist? What is being cultivated when I engage my habits or addictions? Who is calling in me?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the thoughtful response.