I was golfing the other day and happened to wind up with another addict who has been clean for some time. At some point we got started on the “why did you quit” topic. At at some point in our lives after addiction this question will come up for all of us.

Someone might ask us and we may be surprised at how little previous thought we’ve given it. There is a pat answer in 12 step programs that goes, “We got tired of being sick and tired”. The problem with this, as a cause for quitting, is that almost all people who have been addicted a while are tired of being sick and tired. Most of these never quit for any extended period of time, let alone for good.

A Conscious Rearrangement

My fellow golfer/addict and I gave our overall reasons and they were what they were. But the whole truth is, for each of us,  the culmination of our experience up to the point where we quit was sufficient to create in us – a conscious rearrangement.

Many people go through everything we had. Many people go through more than we had. Whatever is sufficient to jar the psyche into a different state is different for everybody. This morning I was going over some of the stuff I’d written a while ago, trying to clean it up, and I ran across that conscious rearrangement statement.

I started thinking about Carl Jung telling the Alcoholic, “I’ve been trying to create a conscious rearrangement in you” – but was unable to do so. I wanted to write this real quick for anyone who was wondering, maybe frustrated, at their own inability to stop. Or those watching someone who seems unable to stop. I wanted to impress the concept that this conscious rearrangement is a crucial component in all behavioral/cognitive change.

Something needs to click. The right conditions have to be met in all of us for this “Click” to occur. Those conditions are different for each individual. But it seems that there could be  some way to instigate that conditional response. I’m sure there is. I’ll continue to think about it and get back to you.