What the Addict Imagines and What Really Happened

Hahaha, thought this was hilarious. Totally true. Hope you can read what is being said. Funny comic-strip. 

Living Now

I read something in A Gentle Path Through the 12 Steps by Carnes. He talked about children.

       Children live in the present completely. They don't really have a past to relate to, and they have no concept of the future. They are 100% in the here and now.

     This means that they experience the present with all of their senses. They are totally in the now. We addicts need to be a lot more like them.

     It made me think of how the now is all we have.

      There is no past. We can't turn around and go back to it. We view the past as something behind us but that's only how we distinguish memories and life experiences. The past does not exist.

      The future is the same. It isn't in front of us. We can't view it. It doesn't exist. It's not real. We only put things in "the future" so that we can plan on certain things.

     So all we have is right now. It makes sense then why God says that we can change right now. We can choose to be a different person right now. At least people who aren't addicts can.

     So how does this apply to the addict?

       Because we can't focus on anything else other than now. Like I've said before, our perception of reality is flawed. We think of how things "should" be and what we "deserve". This isn't now.

     NOW is rolling down the window and feeling the air on your face. NOW is looking at all the trees with amazement if how tall they are and how magical it is that they exist. NOW is meeting people and being amazed that they are human and have their own likes and dislikes. NOW is feeling your feet in soft carpet, in a puddle. It's using all of your senses to the max. NOW is understanding your an addict and can fall at any second. NOW is accepting your wife for who she is right now. Not who she was before the fiasco when you were caught or when you told her, and not who she can be or will be. NOW is NOW.

     Addicts are less in the now than anyone. Every experience and sight and sound and sense transfers into what we want TO happen (in the future, which could be seconds or weeks or years away but still not real), how now isn't good enough, we believe that now doesn't give us what we want but it's all we really have.

     We know for a fact that as addicts we make tidal waves over spilt milk. We turn into the hulk and destroy city blocks at the drop of a hat. These little things boil our potatoes....(did that even make sense? Maybe that was a bad metaphor).

      I get frustrated with my children, not for the way they are acting right now, but because I "think" that if their behavior goes on unchecked now, it'll get worse when they are older. Again I'm thinking about the future and not the now.

       I cannot control the future because the future doesn't exist. (And because I'm an addict and control kills me.) To prepare for it is kind of hopeless because nothing ever goes according to my plans.

          It has been very helpful to me, when I see something or want to see something, while I'm at work or shopping or whatever, to stop and think, "one day at a time," and focus on what is going on around me. To keep myself in the present. I focus on the heat of the sun and how I can feel it cooking me. I roll down the window and feel the wind, and focus on the feel of the wind. It really helps me be open with wonder to realize how awesome life is.

    This pulls me out of my desire for lust. Because it grounds me in reality and in what I'm doing and nothing kills lust faster than reality.

      Because when I think about the Times I'm in an addict fueled state of mind and I'm seeking lust, I'm not in reality. When I'm arguing with my wife, or even I'm angry with her or the kids, I'm not in reality. I'm thinking 80 million steps ahead, "if the kids are loud now and I don't say anything they are going to get worse and worse!" (Worse and worse what?) "If she sees me doing (or not doing) this or that she's going to think I'm bad or acting out again!"

      

       Think about it. There are so many times I try and pre-empt what my wife "will say" and begin to have a discussion then argument in my head (at which I am always the victor). This isn't only bad because I'm thinking negatively, but I then react to reality as if we were fighting. I come home from work and I'm short with everyone and quick to anger and end up causing malcontent.

     The same is true when reading my wife's texts. (Or anyone's for that matter). I misread and add implications. I assume she's mad when she isn't. The reality is I have no idea what she's feeling unless she tells me. And I should never base anything of of what I think she's feeling unless I'm told or the expression is plain as day. (If she's smiling and laughing then she's happy.)

      One way to keep in contact with reality is to check how I'm feeling. Really feeling, throughout the day. Talk with (or text) my SA guys. Acknowledge my unmanageability constantly.these all help me stay present. They keep me from taking that first step into an alternate reality where I'm always right.

     It's hard work. I'm no where near that good at it yet. But then again, that's me not living in the now and trying to think of how long it will be before I'm really good at it.

    

I Don't Know How to Do Hard Things

I realized yesterday that I don't know how to do hard things. Really. This isn't a metaphor or anything. I'm not saying that I'm unable to do hard things, just that I don't know HOW to do them.

    

    This started when I was molested at 7 years old. My body AND my brain shut down. They didn't understand how to compute the data off what just happened and so programmed me to get physically tired and mentally in a fog. This made me unable to correctly judge what I was seeing feeling and hearing and let me guide myself into la la land to avoid pain, guilt, shock, trauma, uncomfortableness.

    Was me shutting down all my body's and mind's fault? To an extent yes. I have always had a good imagination and I've always been very creative, but I've also learned how to handle things by my parents.

    My dad was and is an addict. I would learn nothing from handling hard situations from him. He would isolate into history books or he would attack people or things he could control i.e. kids, wife, punching walls, break things. Is he fully to blame? No. And where did he learn his behavior? From his parents.

    My mom didn't know how to handle hard situations either. When ever she was faced with something hard, she isolated inside herself by not talking and living in her own head. She wasn't good with emotions. She didn't know how. And when she did speak when she was in a hard situation, it was full of passive aggressiveness. Is she fully to blame? No. She too learned her behavior from her parents.

    If it sounds like I'm trying to pass the blame, I'm not. At age 8 I was baptized and held accountable for my own actions. I do believe that just like an alcoholic still has a choice and still has some judgment, his perception is not clear. Looking through a glass darkly. Lust addicts are the same way. So is being raised by the foolish traditions of your fathers.

   Yesterday I confronted shame all day long. I'd start in on the "I'm bad" talk, realize I was doing it, change to the "I did something bad" go for a few minutes with a more positive attitude, and then the "I'm bad" phrase would slip back in almost unnoticed.

    It got me thinking about how I try to keep up the appearance of knowing and doing the right thing. For example, ever since I found out that one of my negative core beliefs was that I am not good enough, I'd try to act like it didn't affect me anymore. When my wife would ask if I was feeling like my negative core belief was true, I'd say no because I felt like I knew it wasn't true so I didn't have to worry about it anymore.

    This is a lie. I was thinking yesterday on how it would be impossible for me to assume that my negative core belief would change just with the understanding of it. I've been telling myself and believing that I wasn't good enough for almost 30 years. One day of realizing I've got it wrong doesn't change 20+ years of programming.

   Why do I fight with guilt and shame? Because I don't know how to do hard things. Working with guilt is hard. Maybe for the godly man it isn't, but for the addict is the plague. I've never dealt with it and taken it in and let it help me. I've always run from it.

     And that goes for everything hard. I'd daydream my way through, or fantasize, or lust, or look at porn, or act out. So really, since I learned how to evade hard things as a child, I'm running into hard things now and trying to get through them without the "drugs" to keep me from feeling how hard they are. What's more is its like using my underdeveloped child's mind to work through these hard things because I never developed how to.

       So, I don't know how to do hard things, (which is probably all important things) but at least I'm present enough to know that I don't know how to do them.

        One thing I've realized, affirmations help. Seriously. I've been telling myself I'm bad for so long, it's not going to change by itself. I need to tell myself good things as much as possible to at least negate the bad things I've told myself. It actually helps!

Guarding Sobriety

The other day at work we were at a woman's house getting rid of some things she didn't want anymore. When my co-worker wasn't around me the woman became a little flirtatious.

       I wasn't sure once we left, because we addicts always like to think we are God's most bestest gift to women. (Fantasy thinking for sure) but when I talked to my wife and others about it they assured me it was flirting.

        When she would say these flirtatious things I would just laugh and not give a response. Why? First, I just wasn't sure if she really was and second, I felt embarrassed for her. I felt obligatory to give a response so I wouldn't make her feel embarrassed or stupid.

   

         Then it suddenly hit me. WAIT A MINUTE! I'M THE ADDICT! I NEED TO PRESERVE MY LIFE!!! I cannot be swayed by what other people think or do. If I continue to think like that, I'm bound for hell.

          So then I just stopped being around her when my co-worker wasn't there. I would not meet her gaze, I would not look at her, I would not speak to her unless asked a question and then would only give short direct responses. I would not laugh at what she said or anything. It felt more than good, it felt awesome. I was standing up for myself, even if I was the only witness.

           We left soon after. I don't know if her feelings were hurt, but her feelings being hurt compared to me giving any little sway to my addiction is really no comparison at all. I cannot let anyone's thoughts or feelings get in the way of my sobriety. I cannot appear to be the nice "good" guy anymore if that means letting my addiction come closer and closer to fruition in even the slightest of ways. Because anything else would be suicide.

      I know what would have happened if I'd gone on giving her no response which would ultimately have been correctly translated to mean I was giving her a positive response to her flirting.

        It probably wouldn't have been that day, and I'd have to be WAY further into my addiction to commit physical adultery with another person, but I would have taken in that flirting like it was a bowl of nice hot brownies and cold ice cream. I'd have drank that cup of lust and sought out more and more until I gained enough resentment for my wife not being like my fantasy wife that I'd act out. I'd look up pornographic images in my head or reality and act on them, I'd eat like crazy, I'd sever my ties with reality and drift away in a sex fueled fantasy that would chain and bind me even more deeply to my addiction.

        It was a humbling experience and I'm glad I was able to recognize it enough to run from it.