The Life After Addiction Project

Everyday I’m faced with a choice between saying something comforting or delivering the facts. Many years ago I was introduced to a book, and a movement of sorts, titled, “Everything You Think You Know Is Wrong”. It started me on a journey of discovery.

I guess this idea of investigation and moving information on the pathways of the modern internet is, for me, about the most important thing happening today.

I don’t know how many people are completely unaware of the facts about medicine, government, war, science, religion and “Everything Else We Think We Know” but it’s substantial. Enough so that millions of people are laying hope for their future on some political election. Millions of people think our wars may be justified and so on.

So everyday I’m faced with the unpopular choice of saying to friends, family and readers – Look at this, that’s not real, no that’s just a story etc. It gets old, for me and for others. But what choice do I have? Really? I don’t see that I have one. I do sometimes not say anything. I get tired of it.

The thing about finding things out is it destroys all those comforting fantasies we lived in. It tears up the family, the social circle, maybe messes up our career, most likely ruins our life. But what kind of a life is a life based on make believe?

After the initial unraveling it gets better for us personally. But we still have to deal with what is gone. Like I said, it’s a choice.

I thought this was worth a look. There is always the question, “What does it take to stay clean, stop an addiction, change your life and behaviors and so on”. This is something to consider:

… a hundred years ago—Carl Jung reclaims the term archetypebecause he sees archetypes at work in people’s psychological experience—in their dreams, in their visions, in the unconscious, as the recently published Red Book reveals. More generally, he saw it in the psychological phenomena of human experience, whether in a person’s artistic expressions, dreams, or psychopathological phenomena. Jung believed that these enduring forms that structure the human psyche, which he called archetypes, were the fundamental structural principles of human experience and the human psyche. He wouldn’t say, however, that they are the fundamental principles of the world, of reality itself.

Jung argued that all of our experience is ultimately psychologically shaped. So seeing these archetypes empirically within the human psyche, as when people have experiences of gods and goddesses or of God or other numinous qualities, doesn’t mean that gods and goddesses or God actually exist in the way that another time would have assumed. They might. But Jung said he couldn’t conclude that on the basis of these experiences people have. He could only conclude that these archetypal factors are fundamental to the human being but couldn’t tell whether they transcend the human psyche.

However, in the later years of his life, Jung fully developed something he’d been noticing through much of his adult life, the phenomenon of synchronicity. He noticed that external events could happen that perfectly reflect with great coincidental force what is going on internally in a person’s psyche at that time. It was as if there were some orchestrating factor, something that was bringing the inner and the outer worlds into a coincidental correlation that could be so significant in meaning that it could act like a paradigm shift for them. noetic.org-the timing of paradigm shifts

Most addicts in recovery eventually get to the place where they accept full responsibility for their condition. Full responsibility for their lives, choices and behavior. We know that “They” don’t make us do anything – It’s always our choice.

That type of personal responsibility is very important to life after addiction. Taking responsibility for ones actions makes life easier. Whenever we blame others we take on the imaginary role as victim and I’m sure you can see where life as a victim is hard. How hard is not being in control of our own lives? It’s pretty much like free vs. slave, and it’s always our choice which role we play.

There is another level of responsibility we can explore and enjoy. We could call it emotional responsibility. If we play it right we’ll end up with emotional autonomy. We’ll see that “They” can’t make us feel a certain way. Like choosing our response action, it’s up to us. Now, how about stuff like guilt, remorse, regret and shame?

Who decides when and where those psychological acts come into play? How could it be any different from any other choice we make? Doesn’t it have to be us?

One of the things that happens with addicts entering and working at recovery is we become very in tune with what’s going on inside us. We are set on a path to search ourselves. We are encouraged to find that within ourselves that would bring us down. Many who choose not to do this are gone. Gone from sobriety or gone period. So we look and examine and in time we become our own best friends.

I am going through a re-examination of – I’ll just use the word – guilt. I’ve been watching the feeling when it comes up and asking myself, “Is that what you want?” In other words is the feeling you’re feeling there because of a autonomous choice – or does it stem from an outside source.

My premise is basically this: Guilt is taught”

Guilt is taught and we either learn it – or we don’t. We accept or reject the teaching and the teachers . Sometimes I’ll use the “If I were in charge” tool. If I were in charge would this be something people should feel bad about?

I’ll just pick something for an example and use wasting time. I often feel kind of ashamed of myself for not getting enough done. Even if I can’t really think of anything to do I feel like I should be able to and not being able to is most likely because I was somehow fucking off. If I examine this I can see that the whole idea of wasting time is somebody elses. Left on my own I probably wouldn’t even have words like wasting time in my vocabulary. Who’s to say any time spent is time wasted? But somewhere along the line I accepted the teaching at the subconscious level and now it’s really in there – like a thorn.

So for some time now when I feel something like this I get a hold of it and examine it and if it’s origins aren’t Doug – I reject it and decide for myself what is important and therefore how I should feel. This is basically how I’ve done everything in my life after addiction. It’s my own method of carving out my self determined path.

I’m not trying to fit in. I tried that as an adolescent to some degree. It drove me nuts and most likely contributed to my getting started with addiction. So fitting in is out.

On the self determined path I am responsible for every aspect of myself as a human being. I can’t be responsible for anything outside of this since I have no knowledge of it it would just be guess work. But I do know how I feel and if I stay on top of things I know why I feel how I feel and then I can take responsibility for it and change it if I want.

Happy Hunting

I was thinking about this the other day and thought it must be the regaining of control. Drug Abuse, drug addiction, including alcohol abuse and alcoholism is all about losing control.

I remember sitting in bad places: Jails, stranded, homeless; making plans on what I was going to do about it. The problem with these plans was, as long as I was using, I really didn’t have control over the outcome. Very late in my career as an addict did I associate my circumstances with my addiction. I used to wonder “How did this happen”?

The answer was simple: drug addiction. I didn’t have control over the future event because I was an addict. My first real connecting of the addiction with the situation was made in regards to a physical feeling. The feeling was “I’m to tired to do this anymore”. Addiction had worn me out. Once I made the connection I was able to get free.

We can still get ourselves into ridiculous, miserable, situations in life after addiction but we get to control this. Drugs and alcohol no longer takes over and puts us there: It’s all us. Well, us and some others. But we can avoid those “others” to some degree.

At last we are back in control. We might not be any good at it but we’re there. Now we get to live and learn just like every body else. Got a favorite thing about life after addiction?