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

Posts Tagged ‘rage’

Is that ever how you feel?  You know the pain of using drugs, alcohol, food, spending, rage, etc. but when the anxiety, fear or anger get to great here you go around the mountain one more time.  Is that you?  Are you exhausted with trying to figure out WHY?  I so understand. 

I continue to be amazed with Michael Dye’s work in The Genesis Process.  With every exercise I personally do, every individual and group that I lead through the tools I continue to be amazed at the rapid results.  The clarity of the truth.  John 8:32 says “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”  There is so much power in the format in which Michael presents the tools.   One of my favorite tools has become the Double Bind exercise. 

Here is the link – Double Bind Worksheet

All addicts live their lives in a bind “I don’t want to use drugs/alcohol and more, it is killing me but I don’t know how to cope without them.  They are what make me able to survive”.  At least this is the underlying belief of every addict/alcoholic I have ever met.  That double bind creates the fear, anxiety and anger that drive them to use again.  As people walk in recovery this same fear, anxiety and anger manifest itself in more subtle ways.  This tool is a lifelong one to be used when you are procrastinating or hitting the wall.

Most of these things are going on in the subconscious but the Double Bind Worksheet gives you a place to bring those thoughts out into the open and shine the light of truth on them. As Michael states in the, The Genesis Process Workbook “Healthy people move toward their unresolved problems, while unhealthy people run from problems. Procrastination results in crisis”. 

This is a place where the Light of Truth is shown, others are able to come along side to help show the way and God can provide openings that are beyond your belief.  I hope you find this tool as helpful as I have.  It took me continuing to use the tool to have the real breakthroughs in what is really going on in my life and countless others….

Happy Trudging,

Tammy Hardin, Relapse Prevention Specialist

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.

Hungry, ANGRY, lonely or tired…what happens next?  I often have people come talk to me about what they consider a failure.    Failures can be small or large but I always ask the question, where were you on HALT?  Were you hungry, angry, lonely or tired?  When any of those exist we are more susceptible to not sticking to our plan of recovery.  It may not be that you go back to drinking/drugging but it could be that you got angry/raged, binged, or overspent and that shame smacked you in the face.  You were uncomfortable in your feelings so you used another coping behavior in order to change the way you were feeling. The reality is that if we pile up shame, guilt, etc.  the need to cope gets greater and the ways you cope get more serious, requiring more numbing. 

Please know this isn’t an original thought this is one of things that Alcoholics Anonymous taught me. It is one of the tools in my toolbox that I pull out often to gut check myself and others. 

Blessings….

Your Emotional and Addiction Recovery Coach

There are lots of ways we use to cope from pain, anxiety and/or stress.  Somewhere along the way everyone gets emtional hurts.  We are hurt by something said or done to us.  It can be Johnny kicking over your sand castle when you are 5 or some insensitive hormonal 14 year old calling you fat in middle school.  But hurts are created, we ALL have them.  But what happens next is what makes the difference do we own them as truth or as someone’s opinion?

The Genesis Process is a process used to reveal the lies that we have been living our life as if they are truth.  It gives you concrete tools to assist you in looking at what you have been afraid to look at and have been driving your coping behaviors like controlling, rage, compulsive over eating, drinking, drugs, etc.