Turning Toward: An Approach to Addiction

One of the wonderful aspects of navigating a wellness coaching business is finding my strengths along the way and attracting those that would resonate.  I am surprised to be surprised finding out who I am.  And I am even more surprised at the people who find their way to me for support and assistance.  There, more often than not, is a shared vibration which makes even the stickiest, difficult work a joy for us both.

Whereas most nurses are very directive, that is not my favorite approach (although it has been fun to play the bossy role at times).  The bodyworker-artist in me finds my own and other's difficulties intriguing.  In relation to a healing or dealing with a habit, I can do all the linear list making a client could ever want, but what I really love and find most effective, is collaborating.  In regards to wellness, I don't personally like being told what to do, and I have found most autonomous, self-directed adults feel likewise.  I like figuring things out with the light guidance of others.  I like to be empowered in the process, not directed by an other's force (well meaning or not).  So, creating relationship with one whom helps and making relationship with that which needs attention is an adventure worth exploring.

One of the approaches I've used successfully as of late with addiction (in particular smoking) has been focusing compassion on the parts of oneself that needs smoking to survive.  Forget about the external addiction.  Who in this person needs, craves, longs for cigarettes?  Don't quit smoking out of inner/outer pressure from others or out of shame.  Quit smoking because you don't need it anymore.  Heal the original wound.

The parts of a client that need smoking are vulnerable.  The last thing they need is contempt, ridicule, disappointment  and rejection coming at them.  They hardly can admit their existence out of fear of being seen as weak, pathetic and pitiful.  Working with people to divulge these delicate areas in themselves, works best if  humor is in play.  Also, creatively using trance state, movement and play in venues that a client appreciates and relaxes in, is useful.  Buoyancy and play help in the suspension of fear and negativity.

What I have been finding in many people who depend upon smoking, is they do so because it takes the edge off of their loneliness, frustrations, sense of isolation, misery, grief, feeling of abandonment, or friendlessness.  People who smoke (maybe who struggle with any addiction or hard habit) have had a trauma around one of these mentioned areas that they could not then and have not since been able to navigate.  They started smoking when their girlfriend left them back in high school, or the kids went off to college or lost a job, etc.  Or they started smoking to quell a sense of self-inadequacy, disappointment, disillusionment.  Over time, smoking became inextricably linked to relief from these emotional states that are hard to admit to oneself or others.  Emotional states that are unbearable (without a cigarette).  This is the human condition.  In practice, this is what surfaces, the pictures that unfold, the stories that get told.  The feelings linked to the smoking are usually more shaming for the client than the actual smoking.

So, how does this compassion approach work?  What I do is set an intention with the client to not change anything overtly, but to watch, observe and even honor the need by caring for the needy-one.  This allows change to unfold organically, naturally, non-violently.  We watch the ritual of smoking; the reliable time around the urges, how a cigarette is actually handled from beginning to end, the thoughts and feelings in the inhale, the exhale, the smells and other sense involvement. I encourage practicing a suspension of judgement or self criticism during the study; it frees up that which is curious and interested.  Clients record heavy/light usage times, when is the best cigarette of the day, when is the time it is most negligible.  They record the sense of who in them requires a drag or two (the bored, defiant teenager, the lonely child?).   We also record the external and internal stressors, the hiding of it from certain places and people, when is it enjoyable and when is it repugnant.  In this process, they (and I) begin to become more familiar with what the habit of smoking is to this unique organism, what it means to all/most of themselves, the joy and sorrow around it, connected to it and the pleasure/displeasure present. And we are easy (even playful) about it.  Hell, brimstone and cancer threats are not required.

What happens in this approach is the person inside who has this habit is less shrouded in shame, becomes more self-accepted.  A curiosity is cultivated. It doesn't become about "breaking" the habit, it's more about the interesting self who participates in the habit and all the accompanying circumstances and history that support it.  It becomes an awakening of sorts that is freed from the previous inevitable guilt.  When clients start to emerge out of their shame and guilt over the addiction, I've witnessed a soaring sense of creativity and intuition from them, which then becomes like a beacon toward a movement of change.  Seemingly all of a sudden, they decide their living situation needs tweaking to abate their loneliness.  Or they acquire a pet, join a church, or take up an art class.  Experiencing this vivid creativity, they begin to feel what it is like to be more themselves.  This phenomenon by itself is enormously comforting.  And then, quite anticlimactically one day (in their own time) it is decided, "You know, I don't think I want to have smoking in my life anymore.  I don't need it." Like giving up old clothes that don't feel right anymore. And every time this happens for a client, there is a new Wow for me.  It's incredible how natural and non violent the action is.  The stopping wasn't based on withholding, denying, shame or judgement. It's based on a healing seated in a global sense of self love.

Post smoking cravings and urges are there, but taken in perspective, because they've been studied with compassion.  One senses one's dimension; no longer held in these mean, contemptuous pigeonholes of "weak", "addict", "hopeless, never to change",  "disgusting", etc.  The secret corners have been exposed to benevolence.  Someone loving, kind and occasionally funny has partnered up with them--- themSelf.  They truly are no longer alone or friendless or isolated.  They've evolved caring witnesses within in the process of courageously facing their history, undisclosed feelings and their truth.

This approach is really a larger commitment to know oneself, and yet also does happen to be effective in habit cessation.  People who appreciate this inside-out work,  are the types of clients I am interested in and whom seem to be attracted to my wellness work.  I can and have done the directed, linear approach. But, it is not that interesting to me.  It requires but a perfunctory formation of a relationship to self, other or the issue. If it is at all successful, it's almost always partially so.   Compassion work is a commitment but it lasts a lifetime; once you get a taste, a gist of it, it's pretty easy to access and keep as a consistent constant in one's life.  It actually becomes almost impossible not to actively know it.  It is Love in action, something one begins to find, they can't live without.

Violence: a Cautionary Truth

“The Roots of Violence: Wealth without work, Pleasure without conscience, Knowledge without character, Commerce without morality, Science without humanity, Worship without sacrifice, Politics without principles." 
― Mahatma Gandhi 

Violence begets violence.  The peacemakers through the ages knew this.  People like you and me when exposed to brutality, senseless or purposeful-- we become changed.  Things we never could dream of feeling or doing, a depth of hatred unimaginable materializes.  A violated being is capable of the darkest manifestations.  Violence happens out of a skewed sense of justice, moral authority, unchecked righteousness and rage.  The expressions range from biting language to imposed or orchestrated poverty to crusades to holocausts.

And we are surrounded, nay bombarded with one type of violence or another almost continuously, from birth to death.  Babies are "righted" in position and inclination, made to meet expectations in their feeding and sleeping habits, children are bullied and made to tow the education line frequently, hazing in college, premeditated cultural expectations on lifestyle choices for adults, neglect often is the elderly experience and various forms of abuse are endured through all continuums. Those in the military, in the middle or on the fringes of military conflict, are exposed at the very least to an inhuman rigid structure that can violate the "call and response" mechanism normal in the central nervous system.  Ordinary we each have our daily doses, imbibed through negative media, environmental noise, traffic or toxic stimulation; or at least, that's how this sensitive organism takes it in.  One of the responses to brutality is to turn it inward.  Whereas harming others may not be an option in a moment, often we swallow or self inflict a strike on ourselves.  We partake in obsession, addictions, worry, depression, have our own personal accidents and various levels of anxiety.  Stress is rarely noted in terms of self-violence, but our failure to check stress often determines the personal level of suffering experienced.

"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent." -- Isaac Asimov

We can become mired in these indulgences rather easily.  Closed throat chakras ban all truths from being spoken.  The body is brilliant at shutting down, becoming numb, deadening the truth of what is.  The psych denies, twists, forgets and minimizes.  All of this, in the name of survival from the brutality being experienced or known.

"Social justice cannot be attained by violence.  Violence kills what it intends to create."  Pope John Paul II

Humans naturally have this propensity; it is the animal in us.  Organic (and otherwise) competition often fosters the alpha qualities recognizable in our brethren, the beast.  Ego and ambition pushes us in that direction.

Violence is a strong word to describe what may seem ordinary to some.  How can it be used in this way?  Because it is ordinary and exists in the very fabric of our individual humanity and collective culture.  Violence is an inattentive force proliferated without awareness on oneself or another. No matter how seemingly benign (ie "righting" a baby to a feeding or bathing position that is comfortable for oneself but not asked for, indicated or required by a newborn being) when done without an intention or greater awareness, violates an others sense of self governance.  This is so common it is rarely recognized as a type of strong arming.  If one was more present at the moment, the recognizable taste of use of power by size, age, economic class or knowledge would be sensed and known as a major factor in the act.

"Violence is not merely killing another.  It is violence when we ue a sharp word, when we make a gesture to brush away a person, when we obey because there is fear. So violence isn't merely organized butchery in the name of God, in the name of society or country.  Violence is much more subtle, much deeper"--Jiddu Krishnamurti

How do we differentiate violence from say, discipline?  Respect of other is always at the base of discipline and fully absent in violence.  Also, there is an integrated intelligence which is responsive and not reactive in discipline.  Energetically, violence is raw and ungrounded, usually unpredictable and ego driven.   Whereas, discipline is a focused and aligned energy that serves as a guide without an agenda.  Domination is an impulse born of fear; it is a basic animal instinct present in one degree or another, always.  The more we bring a larger attention and awareness to our daily actions, the more we will  know ourselves, become more available to our fuller humanity, the less this impulse will be tolerated in oneself, the less weight of myself violence will usurp. And we need this greater attention and awareness, because as Krishnamurti says above, the inner tyranny of violence can be quite subtle and it goes deep.

"In violence, we forget who we are." -- Mary McCarthy

Stress, Self-Responsibility and Health

Caretaker/caregivers are usually an innate, dyed-in-the-wool breed.  They caretake in one way or another their entire lives.  Because they tend to be hyper-responsible to others, the phrase "take responsibility" sometimes has negative connotations for them (they think they're doing it ALL the time). So, sometimes the usual stress management precepts having to do with taking time for yourself, or taking care of yourself sends a shrill and automatic irritation through them.  Having to take responsibility for yet another person (albeit the most important one in their life--themselves) by being endlessly vigilant about diet, exercise, sleep makes them a bit crazy. They usually KNOW all that stuff, tell them something new. Or better yet (they secretly wish), take away the accumulated burden they bear.

When we wind up in a strung-out, desperate, severely stressed state due to having taken on too much on behalf of others it's often because we have avoided taking responsibility for our own deep needs and also the unwillingness to give up the seductive hero(ine) role.  The answer is not to take better care of yourself by getting more rest, more time away and more fun (although these all help, they usually are not possible when one is over one's head).  The answer is to STOP.

Stop having expectations of others and yourself (disappointment is guaranteed). Stop projecting your dis-ease on everyone and everything (it's unbecoming in an adult).  Stop trying to control the world (it usually doesn't comply anyway). Stop trying to be perfect (it's a no-win deal no matter which way you look at it). Stop indulging in the terror you are alone (you're not; that's probably a carry-over from childhood).  Buying into that you are alone in the circumstance isolates you, puts you squarely on the no-where-to-go pity pot and prevents you from receiving what is available.  Stop ruminating, constantly thinking and strategizing; let it go. Stop this compounded, vicious cycle making it possible to finally get off that misery merry-go-round. This is a lot to give up, and not in most caretaker's comfort zone.

Most of us become caregivers because the approval rating is so high (disappointment factor low). It's a reliable "feel good" fix. And we get kudos a lot easier taking care of others than taking care of ourselves. 90% of the population is not up for an intensive care taking of others (all those body fluids! yuck).  We've decided (way back when probably) to be "special" and become one of the 10%.  Those deep needs mentioned before are masked by our constant doing (showing off that spectacular energy resource we have been generously blessed with).  We don't stop. Even when we stop doing, or are layed low, we don't stop.  The inner machinations continue, often dreaming up yet other ambitious projects to undertake (usually involving "helping"). It is common to dismiss or minimize others attempts to assist.  Our non-stop doing pushes people away, leaves no room to accept and acknowledge others, exaggerates our capacity and other's lack of capacity.  Enough is never enough.  We have to stop.

Stopping means just that. It means taking a lot of deep cleansing breaths and readjusting our life's approach. Stopping is to mourn the sorrow of the chronic pain you are in and your abject neglect of yourself, your well being and feeling the poverty of that.  Stopping is to excruciatingly admit one's sense of being less worthy than almost anyone or anything else.  And also admitting the untruth of that sense and that only you are responsible for that feeling.  The deep dark hole we feel cannot be filled up by others.

This is the daily, hidden stress in our lives. The caretaking of others.is absolutely difficult and can be supremely stressful.  But it is not the reason we are being brought to our knees. The constant turning away from who I am (or have become), the organism's distress at not being listened to, ignored and unrecognized (by myself, not others).  The daily forsaking in tiny little ways over and over compounded with reinforced certainty the buried deep secret that my worth is based on what I do, and usually what I do for others. These are lies that we (in most of ourselves) complicitly reinforce. And we suffer this. Somehow, one is not of value or worthy of just being.  And that is the stress that is a killer, not the taking care of others.


When we begin to start to listen, pay attention to the small voice(s) inside, to unplug from our internal manual over-drive circuit, we start to be less angry and overwhelmed. We start to begin to naturally do what all those previously irritating stress management precepts have layed out so succinctly. Previous emotional addictions (the mother of most other addictions) begin to fall away. Gratitude becomes a normal daily occurrence. Joy becomes familiar.  A deeper, grounded sense of self responsibility becomes the norm and is effortless. And surprisingly, external circumstances probably haven't changed, one is still the caretaker extraordinaire most likely. One still has that supreme knack for compassion and deep empathy. Only now, one is aligned from within. One has practiced those possessed gifts and healing talents of kindness and mercy on oneself.

Addiction

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.

Alcoholics Anonymous :   

Welcome to Al-Anon Family Groups