Lee, this is such a good thread, I'm printing it right now, and I want to bring it back to the top of active topics....................hang on everybody....................!!!!
Addicted to Misery
by Lady Lee 42 Replies latest social relationships
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seeitallclearlynow
Hi there Lady Lee, I don't know how I missed this one earlier, but I've just seen it and what good information - thanks very much for posting this.
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Lady Lee
well here is some more
Expectations:
Catastrophic Versus Real
What Is Catastrophic, Anyway
?Those who are co-dependent and addicted to misery (ATM) have developed a very paradoxical relationship with catastrophe and catastrophic situations. Oftentimes, they are in what I define as catastrophic situations such as physically andlor emotionally abusive relationships. Yet at all costs they avoid changing or leaving those situations because of their perceived expectations that the change will produce a situation more catastrophic than their "real life." I?ve observed this many times in relationships which were emotionally dead. Neither partner was willing to make the first move and break it off. For them, it was the catastrophic expectation ? "How am I going to make it outside of the relationship?" ? that prevented them from leaving. Clearly it is important to understand where and how this process of developing catastrophic versus real expectations evolved.
Don?t Blame Your Parents, Just Understand What Happened
The development of co-dependency explains why it is so resistant to treatment. Co-dependents learned early in life that there wasn?t much of anything they could count on except that they couldn?t count on much. Living with constant stress resulting from the dysfunction of an alcoholic, divorced, or emotionally repressive family, produced children who understood the need for using defenses to cope. The children in these families had to cope with rules that changed day to day, financial and emotional uncertainties and looking for ways to express emotions, only to be told, "You don?t talk about feelings."
Rokelle Lerner, one of the founders of Children Are People, a program for prevention of chemical dependency in children, says that most of their perceptions are shattered. For them, the world is chaotic, out of control, not meaningful. This causes the development of a state of hypervigilance. Additionally, these children have grandiose expectations; but, more important, they develop codependent thinking and attitudes as a result of living with the catastrophic traumas produced by their families. Catastrophic trauma, unfortunately, is what the child comes to expect and before long, their level of comfort in making changes and adjustments in their lives becomes minimal, as their expectation of most changing situations is catastrophic. That sense of free-floating anxiety, which results from living in such unpredictable situations, makes taking chances and exploring other choices far too risky.
This Is Bad, But That?s Worse
Co-dependents remain addicted to misery because of a basic learned fear. Regardless of how desirable or attractive a new situation might be, when in the past most experiences involving change have produced painful or frightening results, the co-dependent?s risking behavior will be minimal. Don?t forget, I saw Godzilla eat everything. Unfortunately, those perceptions we experienced as children generally grow with us into adulthood and their permanence becomes difficult to dislodge.
Time and time again in therapy, I worked with codependent women who were in abusive relationships. The idea of leaving the relationship was catastrophic to them. A common response would be, "I know it?s bad for the kids and me, but where would we go? How would we make it? I don?t have a job that could support us. Besides, he only hits me when he?s drunk." For her, staying in the relationship is bad, but leaving presents the worst-case scenario. It is this catastrophic expectation that she won?t be able to make it, that galvanizes her to her present misery. What she has is bad, but changing or leaving certainly seems worse.
Co-dependents have an extreme lack of confidence in their ability to survive change. This will affect their recovery and keep them stuck and addicted to misery. There are two key elements which must be addressed if any improvement is to occur. The first is an intense fear of loss of control. Co-dependents grew up in environments where predictability and consistency didn?t exist. This created a sense of free-floating anxiety such that the mere idea of change causes great discomfort, especially if it relates to basic human needs such as safety, food, clothing and shelter. Look at the anxiety dynamics of the co-dependent woman in the abusive relationship. Her basic needs were the very things threatened: shelter, survival, food.
The second element supporting both, the co-dependency and addiction to misery is that staying miserable avoids catastrophic expectations. The co-dependent always expects ihe worst. "What I have may be miserable, but changing and risking is horrifying and not to be attempted."
These two notions work to keep the co-dependent addicted to misery. The therapeutic job is to convince the person that although the changes to be made may at first look frightening and difficult, they can survive and move on with new choices and changes.
Feeling Good, Having Success And Winning ? Not For Me
Misery addicts have very little experience with feeling good. This does not refer to feeling good physically, but emotionally. Early childhood traumas and situations prepared us to expect a lot of disappointments and sadness, such that when a success or good feeling comes along, we seem almost to wish it away. Sometimes it appears that we purposely sabotage the success or good feeling because we are so unfamiliar with it.
One of my best "Feeling good, having success, and wlnning ... that?s not for me" clients was Bill.
Laboratory Experiments
1. The rules of dysfunctional families usually include: don?t talk; don?t trust; and, don?t feel. Try to recall if and how these messages were given to you and by whom. Write out the specific rules in your home and their effects on you as a child. See if you can make the connection of their effect in your adult life. An example might be: As a child, you did not learn to trust grown-ups; as an adult, you find it very difficult to trust anyone.
2. Describe your present (or most recent) miserable situation. Then explain, as clearly as possible, why you remain(ed) in that situation. Be sure to identify the "It?s bad" part; then the "But that?s worse" part that keeps you from changing.
3. Look at the experiences in your life which could be classified as feeling good, having success, being a winner. Ask yourself if those experiences lasted, and if they didn?t, why not? Did you play a part in their ending? If so, how?
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Lady Lee
Self -Victimization
Most modern child psychologists and experts in early child development would agree that the experiences of our early years make lasting impressions on the way we behave, think and feel as adults and how we perceive the world around us. Children of dysfunctional families, abusive, alcoholic or divorced, have learned many unfortunate things about themselves and their environment. In Chapter 3, we discussed the familiar versus unfamiliar experiences of a child in a dysfunctional family. Paramount among the results of these experiences, is that the child comes to feel victimized by his parents. When things go wrong in the outside world (school, friends, etc.), he sees this victimization as generic, that is, applying to everywhere. "People don?t like me." It doesn?t take long, then, to think, "I?m not very good," or "I might as well not try, it?s going to go wrong anyway."
This self-defeating attitude goes on to affect the way we see ourselves, enter into relationships and live out the role of victim. Even young children who feel victimized look for 5eople to rescue or help. These are attempts to redeem themselves from their poor self-image. Trying to please an alcoholic parent becomes an obsessive need in order to receive any acknowledgment or acceptance. Rokelle Lerner talks about the "getting days." Kids from these families know they must not ask for much when their parent is drinking or drugging and they carefully plan the times they know they can ask. The "getting days" are the ones when they can get some acceptance and caring, little as it may be. This complicated and unpredictable system creates children who grow up feeling victimized and tremendously insecure. A victimized child, living in an adult body, is a sitting duck to enter one sick relationship after another. We become expertly prepared to play two psychosocial roles: the rescuer, and the victim.
Drama TriangleStephen Karpman devised what he called the Karpman Drama Triangle to explain the roles we take on in relationships and the kind of people we look for to be involved with. In the triangle (see Figure 6.1), rescuers engage themselves with victims. Strange as it may seem, this odd-couple really fit each other quite well. Rescuers need people to save or rescue and victims look for people to save them. But therein lies a problem. Victims look for people to feel sorry for them and give them sympathy and rarely want someone telling them what to do. The role of victim requires one to remain a victim, so anything that would threaten that would be strongly opposed. On the other hand, rescuers never feel satisfied or fulfilled unless they are able to rid the victim of his problems. For most rescuers, this is the primary way to derive self-worth and when the rescuer is denied his rescuing because victims never really want to be fixed, the rescuer feels defeated, inadequate and generally worse than before the helping attempts.
When the rescuer stops trying to fix or rescue the victim, this apparent rule change angers and scares the victlm, for without the rescuer, who will listen or give sympathy? What is more important, who will the victim have to control and manipulate, if the rescuer leaves that role? In an attempt to pull the rescuer back into place on the triangle, the victim shifts to the role of persecutor. Using threats and overt gestures, oftentimes the victim is ible to manipulate the rescuer back onto the triangle, so bs to assume his own role of victim once again.
Imagine a triangle with the point at the top marked "Victim"
At the bottom two corners of the triangle are the words "Rescuer" and "Persecutor"
(sorry but the graph didn't work out)
It would be insulting to assert that men and women who marry one alcoholic after another are doing so because they want to. Yet it is uncanny how many people do this. The two conditions and characteristics described in the Drama Triangle seem to lend a reasonable explanation for this repetitious choosing of one bad relationship after another. Rescuers are people with a mission. They seek out people they can feel sorry for and think, "They need my help." The key element is that they have attached their self-worth to the success of others. I?ve always joked with my rescuing clients that they are like Boy Scouts looking for little old ladies to walk across the street. No merit badges (recognition) unless they do. But, I point out, there are not enough little old ladies in all the world for the badge they are trying to earn, that of unconditional acceptance and approval. Therefore, they will always fail.
Victims, too, have a mission. They go through life looking eternally for recognition of their tragic plight. Everybody and everything has gone wrong for them and they keep trying to find people who will hear their cry and lend sympathy. When they meet someone who suggests changes to end their misery, they quickly discount them and look elsewhere. Their self-worth is poor, but improving it removes their ability to gain any acceptance as victims. They actually believe that if people didn?t view them as victims, nobody would pay attention to them.
It isn?t surprising then, that these two types of people seek each other out, and once engaged in a relationship, find it virtually impossible to break out, for fear of losing the very things they need: attention, acceptance, self-worth and approval. The attachment to one another is so great that leaving poses incredible interpersonal security risks. That is why when one of the players stops playing his role, the other becomes extremely anxious and worried. Extreme defensive reactions are expected and there is nothing more frightening than living with someone who has stopped playing by the rules or being predictable. When a partner in the relationship steps off the Drama Triangle, emotional recovery begins. However, without support and help, people used to living on the triangle either return to it or go out and look for other partners to play with them. This perpetuates the unhappiness, which feeds the addiction to misery.
Laboratory Experiments
1. Look at the Drama Triangle. Identify the role you have played and with whom. Determine if you play one role more often than others. Describe if and how you have or might stop and get off the triangle.
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Lady Lee
Again I want to remind people to try seeing the WTS as the parent in much of this.
I think that the references to alcoholism is easily transferable to any kind of addiction including spiritual addiction.
For the previous exercise it might help to draw the triangle.
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Lady Lee
Oh and there are 4 more parts to this
Disavowing Painful Reality: Denial
Feeling Good, But It Won?t Last
Breaking The Addiction
Recovery ? A Here And Now Process
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Lady Lee
Disavowing Painful Reality: Denial
Regardless of where I go or whom I see, it seems all of us, when faced with something we don?t choose to experience, will disavow painful reality, that is, we deny. Denying a reality when it is painful is normal; in fact, it works as a defense mechanism to assist us in actually learning to deal with painful reality.
Elisabeth Kiibler-Ross, in her book, On Death and Dying, spoke of the emotional process she observed in people dealing with grief. She identified five stages we go through in the grieving process: denial; anger; bargaining; depression; and acceptance. The person suffering from grief can only move on or feel better after he passes through the first four stages and progresses to acceptance ? acceptance, not only of the situation, but of his own feelings about it.
Kubler-Ross saw the grieving process extended by two things: being stuck in the cycle and not crossing over to acceptance; and trying to deny the basic feelings about the death. In many cases, misery addicts and co-dependents struggle similarly. Their grieving comes from all the losses they experienced in their dysfunctional childhoods, like loss of safety, loss of rituals, loss of spirituality, loss of boundaries, loss of friendships, and the most important loss of all, the loss of memories. Dealing in adult situations without those experiences makes us feel that much more lost. ATMs and co-dependents have storehouses of hurt and pain that need processing, not to open up old wounds but to let out what has never been dealt with.
A young woman I worked with had kept inside herself for many years the pain and hurt of her father?s sexual abuse. To deal with that tragedy, she turned to drugs and alcohol. She also put herself in one abusive relationship after another. She had made several attempts at sobriety, returning to chemicals after each treatment. When I met her, she was in her fourth treatment. Once she was past the detoxification period, we began looking carefully at her relapse patterns. Each time, there were clear associations with the men she had had relationships with. As noted, each one involved abuse. This seemed so similar to her tragic childhood that she looked for any way to escape the pain. She had disavowed the painful reality of her past long enough and had to begin to address those haunting emotional issues.
Defended by nothing, angry at everything, this woman was not only chemically dependent but severely addicted to misery. After some trusting began to bond in treatment, she told us of how diligently she worked as a little girl to protect her father from her mother?s accusations. Finally, when her father walked out, her mother just quit mothering and she became the primary caretaker of her three younger brothers. For her, the role of rescuer fit perfectly. She sought out men who cried the blues and played the victims. The perfect match! Recovery from drugs and alcohol was easy; follow the 12-Step program and attend AA and NA meetings. But recovery from her addiction to misery and co-dependent thinking was clearly more difficult. First, she would have to understand why she hurt and make peace with the reality that it wasn?t her fault, a burden she had carried for a long time. This treatment was different for her. Besides developing standard treatment plans for drugs and alcohol, several were created to address her specific ATM and co-dependent ways.
Specific assignments addressing repression of feelings and denial were given. The concept of attachment was explained to her and she wrote an essay describing the way she would attach herself to people, especially men, and how she only let go after taking significant abuse. We began to teach her ways to care for herself and pointed out how to begin detaching. We used a symbolic exercise to rid her of the terrible guilt and anger she had felt since childhood about her sexual abuse. She was instructed to write her father a letter describing all her feelings, both then and through the years. Then she was told to burn it and let it go. The process of disavowing painful reality had ended. Today, after two years, she remains sober, continues to work her recovery program and is no longer co-dependent or addicted to misery.
Wanting To Get Better
ATMs want to get better. Often, it is easy to see what is causing their misery, yet relieving the misery is not easy. ATMs have pre-existing developmental impairments such as repression of feelings, obsessive-compulsive thoughts and behaviors, catastrophic expectations of change and familiarity with unhappiness. These things act in ways to block and prevent change. Wanting to get better isn?t enough. And, even when life gets better, our experience with the "better" is so unfamiliar that we find "better" uncomfortable and even miserable. The basic system which supports the addiction needs to be identified, understood, accepted and, finally, changed before the pain can stop.
Like all addicts, ATMs look for ways to medicate their distress. They continue to disavow painful reality and avoid change.
Medicators: Do They Really Help
?Misery addicts look for ways to keep from feeling lonely, inadequate, shy, scared, guilty, in any way uncomfortable. They want to put those feelings to sleep or to numb them. This is usually much easier than dealing with them and making the changes to stop the pain. Numbing feelings and stopping the pain is done by medicating, in the same way the dentist numbs or medicates your gums before he drills your tooth. This is a temporary halt; as we know, when the medicator wears off, your mouth still hurts. For our purposes, medicators include alcohol, drugs, food, sex, cigarettes, work, money or anything that is used as a way of coping until one is ready to risk and make changes to stop the pain.
Ridding oneself of the medicators lets the feelings come out. Their ability to survive the processing of feelings is probably the single most important revelation for ATMs. That emotional expectation system that says, "You won?t survive," must be challenged and denied. Living with feelings is necessary to recover from addiction to misery, even though our past dictates so much of what we think and how we act. Major obstacles must be confronted to stop the pain, accept the reality and move on from the misery.
The reminder that misery?s absence is going to feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable and at times miserable, needs to be a constant part of our recovery. Misery and our familiarity with it evolved over a long period of time. The journey of becoming familiar with its absence will also be long.
Laboratory Experiments
1. Identify the losses you had as a child, e.g., loss of safety, boundaries, ritual, spirituality, friendships, memories, etc. Try to connect each of these losses to yourself as an adult and see how you carried each one over. As an example, if you felt, as a child, that you never really had boundaries, describe how you may still have a problem following directions.
2. Describe clearly and in as much detail as you can, the specific events and memories you have tried to forget. Remember, writing or talking about something can never be as painful as actually living through the experience. Then see how you have let those experiences affect your relationships with others, your attitudes and beliefs.
3. List the medicators you have used and continue to use to deal with pain.
4. If there remains a tragic pain in your memory, write a letter to the person who hurt you. Be sure to describe how you felt, but don?t make this a hate letter. Then burn it, letting go of the pain with the ashes.
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Lady Lee
Feeling Good, But It Won?t Last
Over and over again I?ve heard misery addicts say, "When things are going well, I don?t expect it to last," or "When things are going badly, I expected it." These two notions feed the ATMs? expectation system and lock out emotional optimism.
This becomes the real focus of the misery addict?s recovery. We can be taught to stop the co-dependent thinking and behaviors. Our co-dependency ends when we stop trying to control others, repress our feelings, worry about everybody and everything, and start caring about ourselves. This will take time but IT CAN BE ACCOMPLISHED. Unfortunately, our co-dependent thinking and behaving didn?t evolve in a few weeks, months, or even years of crazy experiences. Instead, it evolved over a long period of time. In some cases, it existed during our entire childhood and adolescence, and with the co-dependence came a feeling of long-standing misery. Now imagine that the co-dependency stops, self-caring begins and life feels great. What experience base do we have to deal with this? Our waiting-for-the-ax-to-fall philosophy is as much a part of us as our skin. Thoughts like. "It feels so great to be away from the insanity, but I?m so afraid it won?t last," are normal for misery addicts.
Our familiarity with feeling good and having things go right is generally so limited, that we tend to experience a feeling of discomfort which soon is just as bad as the feelings of misery and co-dependency were. Sounds crazy! It happens all the time. Recovery from co-dependency occurs but the unfamiliarity of feeling good is so powerful that we end up worrying about its lasting, or looking for ways to leave it and return to the misery.
Carly Simon, in her hit song, I Haven?t Got Time For The Pain, speaks so clearly to what ATMs and co-dependents believe, that suffering is the price of survival. The words say that we came to expect bad things and we have to suffer just to survive. Addicts of misery expect it and actually nurture it. When it?s absent, things feel unfamiliar, or worse, "wrong." But our misery only stops when we take the responsibility to stop our pain and start recovering.
ATM Philosophy
ATMs and co-dependents share similar philosophies. Both are other-oriented, meaning that they believe responsibility for what happens to them is based on what others do. They share a pessimistic approach to life.
"?When others change, things will get better." This other-than-myself thinking is at the heart of the ATM?s belief system. By passing the responsibility to others to maintain or make changes which will affect us, we keep ourselves in their control: If he would only tell me I am wonderful. If I didn?t always have to please her. Why can?t they ever be happy with me? They never like what I do.
These power/controlling words take away our own control over the feelings we have about ourselves. Every time I give someone else the power to approve, recog
nize, validate or judge me, I lose power over the way I think about myself. We all look for these things from people but I am specifically addressing the way ATMs and co-dependents habitually look to others for self? validation. When we talked about the Karpman Drama Triangle, we saw that our poor skills in choosing relationships makes the potential mentors we select to learn and receive acknowledgment from, are the least likely to support us. Instead, we get ridicule, put-downs, blame, rejection, victimization and a sense of never being good enough.
The belief that when others change, things will get better must be denied. Instead, our belief must become "When we change, things will get better." Our responsibility for our behaviors and happiness must be defined clearly. Ridding ourselves of the emotional?philosophical dependency is difficult but essential if our misery addiction is to end.
Self-Talk And Lifestyles
I worked with a man who told me his philosophy: "You can?t trust anybody! Anyone who gives me something must want something. Don?t tell anyone your business ?it?s none of theirs. I?ve been this way all my life and I don?t want to change."
These reclusive, repressive, almost paranoid attitudes are typical of ATMs and many co-dependents. This man?s approach to life is basic to breeding chronic unhappiness, distrust and misery, as though he were living in the classic W.C. Fields movie, Never Give A Sucker An Even Break. If you give in, someone will certainly be waiting to take advantage of you. I have worked with hundreds of people of all ages who have these views. They all share one common denominator: They all come from dysfunctional families.
You can see how these feelings and attitudes about life will affect your day-to-day life. You become very limited in what you do. Venturing out or taking risks of any kind is rare. Dealing with emotions and feelings occurs only internally, making you subject to explosiveness. Irrational behavior is the way you defend yourself against confrontational situations. In general, it is a lifestyle of disassociation, repression, loneliness and misery.
Laboratory Experiments
1. Make a list of the good experiences or feelings you have had in the past year or so. Indicate if you felt they would last, and if not, why.
2. Look at the section, ATM Philosophy. List the power/ control words you use to make you dependent on others for feeling good. Describe what must happen to stop feeling bad and what your responsibility is.
3. Write out your daily self-talk. Explain how it keeps you addicted to misery.
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Lady Lee
Breaking The Addiction
Recovery from any addiction requires abstinence from the thing we are addicted to. Alcoholics and drug addicts must abstain from all mood-altering chemicals. Eating-disordered people must stop their addictive eating behaviors. Gamblers must stop gambling and co-dependents must abstain from trying to control others.
The key to all recovery is caring about yourself. Beyond taking care of yourself, you must begin to care for yourself. I heard Robert Ackerman, author of Let Go and Grow, say one time, "Stop doing what you don?t do." Before recovery, addicts don?t ask for help. Stop doing that! They don?t go to self-help groups or get sponsors. Stop doing that! They don?t say what they mean or mean what they say. Stop doing that! Mainly, they don?t care about themselves. Stop doing that!
Misery addicts have to abstain from those situations which support the misery. Worry is to the misery addict what alcohol is to the alcoholic. The more worry, the worse the misery. As I have said over and over, the basis for recovery is admitting the problem and then understanding the causal connection between the pain of the addiction and the obstacles preventing recovery.
You can?t begin to dismantle misery thinking until you can clearly identify the pain it is causing. Earnie Larson, author of many books on recovery and co-dependency, talks in his book, Stage II Recovery, about how we never move on from our pain until we?re ready to make peace with reality, make peace with ourselves and let go. I see this with misery addicts all the time. Elements of addiction such as denial and repression of feelings keep the addict from ever looking at the reality he must face. When he is ready to look at and accept reality, the pain stops and the misery ends.
Steps To Dismantle Miserable Thinking
The first step in dismantling the kind of thinking that reinforces misery addiction is to identify what I call miserable thoughts. These are ideas which make us unhappy, sad, depressed, worried, scared, or to have other negative feelings.
The second step is understanding. Trying to dismantle miserable thoughts without understanding how they were conceived is just plain frustrating. Chapter 3 identified the ways in which miserable thinking is developed. You may want to go back and re-read the chapter to help you understand the origins of this thinking.
The next step is to redefine our reality. For so long, we have looked at our misery as something to be expected. We came to expect things to be the way they were because of our past experiences. A child from a dysfunctional home doesn?t grow up expecting life to be smooth and wonderful. Quite the contrary. Those chaotic childhood experiences made us expect that when things are going well, it won?t last, and when things are going badly, it?s just normal.
We need to see reality as "Things can go right and when things don?t, it won?t last." We must look for more positive ways to see things and finally, we must find and work at ways to leave the pain.
The process of beginning to care about ourselves is the next step. After we have redefined reality, we must look for ways to forgive ourselves. How often have we blamed ourselves for misery when in actuality, we didn?t cause it. This final step affords us an opportunity to make peace with ourselves. It is a way to let go of our miserable thinking once and for all and to stop blaming ourselves.
Identify and Remove The Medicators
In the process of dismantling the thinking which supports our addiction to misery we must look for the ways in which we cope with our distress. We have to know those things we use to stop the misery. Recovery can?t start until the medicators are gone. If we continue to drink, drug, eat, not eat, smoke, etc., as a way to disavow painful reality, we only perpetuate the misery. Our medicating must stop and we need healthy emotional ways out of the misery.
Begin Risk-Taking
Probably the single most powerful change we must make is to begin risk-taking. Looking at ways to change our misery generally requires us to risk, and as you know, if we expect Godzilla to eat us up, we will never make it out the door. After our miserable thinking is dismantled, our realities changed, our medicators removed, risktaking is easier.
We are reminded too well of the times we tried to make changes by risking new behaviors, only to have them end in tragedy. These experiences are the most important ones which shape our present responses. Again, we must understand our past to explain and begin to change our present.
We must look at the things which we see as changes needed to move away from misery and then clearly define the risks. Write them out. Talk with friends or people who can support you to see if they view your risks as you do. Often, our catastrophic expectations are so unrealistic and unreasonable that we need others to help us see that. We can calibrate our risk-taking and scale it up or down by doing more, or less, to change our misery. First of all, we must reduce our catastrophic thinking so as to free ourselves to take the risks and make the changes.
A.W.A.R.E.
? Able, Willing And Ready To ExchangeMisery addiction is not much different than any other addiction when it comes to recovery. The basic steps on the road to recovery are the same.
I developed an acronym which I gave to clients on a card as a constant reminder of what they needed to do to recover: A.W.A.R.E.
A. Able: We must be able to look our problem in the face and see that we can make the necessary changes to recover.
W. Willing: We must be willing to make whatever changes are needed for our recovery.
A.R. And Ready: We must be ready to live with temporary discomfort in order to recover.
E. Exchange: We must exchange our old thinking, attitudes and behaviors for the new ones of recovery.
Our awareness of our ability to survive, of what we?re willing to do, and our readiness to change, put us on the firmest ground to begin recovery from addiction to misery.
Laboratory Experiments
1. To help dismantle miserable thinking, list as many miserable thoughts as you can. After each, write out what you understand about its origins. Where did this thinking come from? You may have to go back to your experiences as a young child. Describe the realities that might replace your miserable thoughts. Finally, list ways in which you might forgive yourself if you selfishly made changes that others might not like.
2. List the medicators you use to deal with feelings. Begin with what you use to deal with anger, sadness, fear, boredom and loneliness. Now add any other feelings and medicators.
3. Write out the specific risks involved with changes to leave misery. Ask others to tell you ways to reduce the risks and help lower your anxiety about making the changes.
4. Make your own A.W.A.R.E. card. Carry it with you for one week. As you experience situations which make you miserable, use your A.W.A.R.E. card to remind you of your ability to make changes and stop the misery.
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Lady Lee
Recovery ? A Here And Now Process
I sat listening to a client, one morning, tell me the many reasons why she was miserable. She had been living with an alcoholic husband for many, many years and recently quit work for health reasons. She wanted to feel better but was unwilling to change. For her, every option for change had a what if attached to it. For example: What if I left my husband, and my family was upset? What if my children don?t want me to leave? What if I can?t change to make them happy? What if I get a job I don?t like? What if I have to move from my house? What if? What if? What if?
Finally, I said to her, "So what!" Nothing she was saying to me had the potential to cause more misery than she was already in. In fact, I was certain most of the changes she needed would result in less misery. I had to convince her of that. Living with what ifs cripples our chances of leaving our misery addiction. For meaningful recovery, we must step into the here and now. The process of leaving our painful past prepares us for the experiences we must cope with in the present. This here and now process is the main element in our recovery. If we continue to use the past to predict the outcomes of our present and future, we might just as well remain there in the misery. At the very least, we need to declare an emotional neutrality which says: "I?m not going to use the experiences of my past to predict how successful I will be in my changes." This neutrality is so important that without it, we will fail to find any relief. It will prevent us from reaching the here and now stage to address the issues of recovery.
Basics Of Recovery
People who are co-dependent and addicted to misery believe their plight will improve only when others change. This belief system, that of being convinced that "I can?t feel better" or, "Things won?t change for me until others change" must be removed. The premise that others are responsible for our happiness and are the only possibility for things to improve, is what treatment must address. Melody Beattie, in Co-Dependent No More, talks about taking our hands out of other people?s emotional pockets and putting them back into our own. Recovery doesn?t begin until this process starts.
As we saw earlier, we must start challenging our denial system. This means giving up the medicators that prevent change. Once this is in process, the emotional system begins to recover and wake up. Surrendering to powerlessness is probably the most difficult stage of recovery for co-dependents and persons addicted to misery. Feelings are finally beginning to emerge, and there is a re-identification of ourselves as the ones in power over what we do. With this realization comes the pain and frustration that "I really don?t know how to take care of myself. I feel sad, hurt and angry and I don?t know what to do." We come face to face with our recognition that although others may cause the pain, hurt, fear, disrespect, etc., it is our own power and control that keeps us in those situations. I am amazed at how little we credit our own survivability, which has allowed us to make it for so long. My client had taken care of her husband, raised her children and worked most of her life. Yet she was questioning her ability to take care of herself. Her what ifs of the future and, as she put it, "failures of the past to fix things" had kept her addicted to misery. She had never been able to get into the present, the here and now.
Here And Now
Why is recovery a here and now process? Let?s look at some reasons. At the heart of AA?s recovery program is the admonition to take things "one day at a time." Over and over, patients ask, "Why do this?" Of greater concern is, "How can I do this?"
The why of living life one day at a time is fairly simple. If I stay in the present (here and now), I greatly reduce the number of situations which can cause imbalance, that is, there are fewer distractions. It is easier to maintain emotional balance in the course of a day, rather than a week, a month or a year. Also, I stop worrying about the outcome of future unknowns. Predicting the future is not particularly satisfying and certainly becomes stressful, and it sets us up for disappointments.
Living one day at a time (here and now) is not easy, but the most important thing you can do is to stop predicting. Make plans, explore opportunities, set goals. But, don?t attempt to predict the outcomes. Repeat!! Don?t predict the outcomes. Deal with what you know, not what you think. By doing this, you greatly reduce worry, frustration, anxiety and fear of what you can?t control. Getting into the here and now gives you back your power and control over what you can change today. This is so important to recovery.
These are two terms I invented to describe what ATMs and co-dependents do. Simple to understand, yet hard to change.
Past-ing
is a process of using the past as a way to affect everything today. Here?s how it works. Take something that goes wrong or shows our limitations, something like losing a job, or breaking up a relationship. Truly, these are significant events in and of themselves. Yet, we would expect to recover and move on. ATMs and co-dependents come to the table of life with many feelings of inadequacy; they feel incompetent and worthless. As we said, this comes from the earliest experiences in our families-oforigin. We would expect to take these situations very personally. When things go wrong, ATMs and codependents magnify the wrong by attaching it mentally to all those other experiences in their past. This magnifies the effect tenfold. This is what I call past-ing, an emotionally crippling device which holds back our thinking and ability to move on.Futuring
is a process whereby we become so worried about what?s going to happen that it disables us from making changes to end our misery. ATMs and codependents do this all the time. It fits the what-if syndrome and stops change. When we become paralyzed in the present (here and now) due to futuring, we can?t move on; we remain stuck.These two notions act like terrorists on a plane, holding you captive and not allowing you to proceed. We either have the memories of the past to increase our present pain, or worry so about what the future might be with change, that misery remains. This cycle must be broken. Identifying, understanding, removing medicators and beginning to take risks are necessary steps to end addiction to misery. Becoming A.W.A.R.E. and using the technique to exchange old thinking, behaving and attitudes, starts the recovery, removes the pain, creates new hope and ends the misery.
I Can Make It
This book was written to help us look more openly and honestly at ourselves than we?ve previously been willing to do, to give ourselves the maps and tools we need to leave the misery we?ve had for so long. I wanted to stop the feelings of inadequacy, worry, loneliness, guilt and shame for a long time. My best friends were therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists and social workers. Advice from them was easily given yet rarely followed. It wasn?t until I understood how I got the thoughts and feelings about myself that I could even begin to see why the misery lasted so long. My family were good people who cared in the best way they could, but they only knew what they learned. My needs for acceptance and approval seemed insatiable and I could never figure out why. No one ever made me feel or think the way I did but I developed my own coping process. To avoid disappointment, I would do anything. In that process, I remained locked into one miserable life situation after another. A therapist finally said to me one day, "Congratulations, Rob. You?ve finally hung up your suit of armor. No more dragon-slaying or rescuing damsels in distress." I knew what she meant because for the first time in my life, I began to care for myself, care for others and stop trying to take care of others. The changes happened because I came to believe I?m important. I?m competent and I can make it.