Why Do I Do What I DON'T Want to Do?

Posts Tagged ‘fight’

It seems like I am constantly talking about the 5 trillion pound phone when meeting with early recovering addicts. You know when they offer phone calls as life lines on T.V. shows no one hesitates but when it is suggested as a way to save your life then it becomes a different story!

Week after week I meet with people early in recovery and talk to them about using the phone. The deal is we need to call our sponsor or mentor daily. I know, I know,  I saw that eye roll and felt the panic in your heart. And here comes the ticker tape in your brain…. I don’t want to bother anybody, I am sure they are busy. They don’t really want me to call them. I am not having a craving or being emotional so why should I call, I don’t need them. I got this thing licked so I don’t need to call. I am not really doing that well, I will bring them down. I don’t have anything to talk about. The list is ad nauseam.

Folks all this garbage in your head is just that garbage. You need help. If you knew how to stay clean or emotionally balanced you have done that already. But the truth is you don’t have a clue or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. The deal is you have to invest in the game. You have to take the risk and put yourself out there. That means pocketing your pride and picking up the 5 trillion pound phone.

This is a posturing issue, posturing before the Lord. It is a stake in the ground that you intend to be sober whether physically, emotionally or both no matter what and you are willing to go to any lengths to get there. You as an act of faith need to pick up the phone and ask someone else for help. Share with that person how life is going today, what your actions are for today and what your thought life is for today. You see recovery is worked in 24 hour periods. 

There are two things that happen in this process. One someone that is further down the path will be able to tell you when you are about to step off a ledge or into a pot hole. When someone has plowed the ground before you they have experience to share regarding places that hung them up and can recognize it when you are about to step off into an abyss. Secondly, you will be creating muscle memory. Muscle memory is when your body responds without thought because it has practiced so many times. So if you practice using the phone when you in fact are in trouble you will automatically pick up the phone because that is what you have been practicing.

You know none of this is rocket science.  If you want life to be different you have to do life different.  Recovery is about what your action today, not what your thoughts are, your intentions are, what you did last week or last month.  You have to take action today. Not taking action is like wanting an Arnold Schwarzenegger body without ever putting forth the effort to lift weights.  Insanity!

Fight for your recovery, fight for soundness of mind, fight for your new life.

Blessings ~Tammy

I am currently teaching a Genesis Change Group and this week’s topic is FEAR!  The Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous says that “fear is an evil and corroding thread and that our existence is shot through with it”.  Wow those are some pretty strong words.  After all these years I can tell you without question fear is driving THE bus.  That is what motivates most everyone to act out in unpleasant manners.  Fear is the thing that says “I am scared that I will not survive so I need to numb (drugs, alcohol, food, anger/rage, sex, etc.) in order so I won’t have to feel this pain”. 

As we learn in the Genesis Change Process fear has three responses Fight (anger), Flight (escape) or Freeze (play dead, go numb or appease).  Anger is probably the one that I personally have pulled out of the rabbit hat more than any others.  It can seem like an effective response because it appears to increase control, which reduces vulnerability.  When kids grow up in an abusive home (alcohol, physical or emotional) they are often shamed, they in turn become bullies and begin to protect themselves by shaming others. 

Anger is designed to anesthetize the emotion of fear.  Remember God has made you in His image.  As stated in The Genesis Process for Groups Book 1 “ALL of your emotions were designed by God for your good and can be used both positively and negatively.” (Michael Dye, CADC, NCACII, 2006)  That had never occurred to me.  ALL my emotions are designed by God for good.  Wow!  I guess this is like the brick story.  The brick is a brick, it can be used to build a house for comfort, protection or it can be thrown through the window in an act of violence.  The brick is still just a brick.  Wow!  When you grow up in an abusive home you are so off kilter all the time in regards to emotions.  People are raging one minute and telling you it didn’t happen the next.  You become so unsure of fact and try to make sense of it all with the limited knowledge of a child that it creates so much anxiety.  Children are pretty self-centered so they typically assume that the problem is them and they begin to think they have some control over it, that they caused it and can fix it.  Big responsibility for a kid! 

My experience in working with individuals is that most people are trying to anesthetize fear of criticism, rejection, abandonment, disrespect, shame, embarrassment, secrets, vulnerability and especially intimacy.  Have you ever said “that guy really pushed my button”?  Have you ever gone from 0 to 100 in less than one second and you are not really sure what happened afterword? That is a sure sign that you are responding in the current to a past hurt.  I want to reassure you it can all be redeemed.  No one is too broken to be fixed.  Jesus worked with a lot of hard cases!  Then the thing every addict hates to hear; You have to FEEL to HEAL.  I wish there was a shortcut or work around but the truth is you have to begin to feel again both good and bad in order to walk in freedom from anxiety, fear and addiction/compulsions.  We will continue to talk more about what it takes to walk through that process.  I will remind you that if it was easy everybody would do it!

Blessings ~

Tammy Hardin, Relapse Prevention Specialist and Life Coach

Works Cited

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Michael Dye, C. N. (2006). The Genesis Process Change Group Book 1. In C. N. Michael Dye, The Genesis Process Change Group Book 1 (p. 35 and 36). Auburn, CA: Double Eagle Industries.