Addictionland - Addiction Recovery Blog

It is likely there are a few things you’d like to accomplish in your sobriety. The reality is that the machinery that helps your goals manifest is the same no matter the subject, time-line, or importance.

I would like to posit that in order to reach your goals there are specific ways of thinking about them that can help. I would like to outline a few ideas and then show you to a system of goal-setting that I have found to be very helpful.

Motivation – I would like to introduce the notion that people aren’t lazy, rather, they have impotent goals. Is your goal in your life juicy enough to get you out of bed? Are you focused on what you need to do to? Were your goals created for yourself or to simply please someone else? With proper motivation, the pride and excitement provides fuel to work towards the completion of the goal. Very early in my career I wanted to be Nationally certified as an Addictions Counselor. I wanted the certification, but I wanted to pass the test before the requirements increased to sit for the exam. Eventually my focus changed from completing the exam to passing the test as a tangible recognition that I knew my stuff. When my motivation was correct the goal was easy to complete.

Passion – I like to make ‘passion’ a separate category from motivation. The way I think about it, motivation helps me follow-through on whatever goal I have set for myself. Passion is different from motivation in that when I think of what I want to do, passion is the “juice” that supports me to feel connected to a goal, energized by the possibilities, and alive that this goal will have a positive impact on the people in my life. I have been a clinician since 1984. I believe the reason I continue to do this work is my passion for affecting change. About 12 years into my career I took a break from clinical work to drive a limo for six months. While I met a lot of neat people (some celebrities as well) I was not connected to my job and did not feel engaged by my time behind the wheel. I was not affecting change and I was certainly not passionate about this job. I received a lot of compliments about my customer service skills which didn’t surprise me as I know how to relate to people. Truth be told, the third day away from clinical work, I was dying on the vine. Passion is nothing if you’re not engaged by what you do. I met a lot of drivers who loved their job, and they were really good at it. They had passion and they felt like they were contributing. I did not.

"Whether such a person can quit upon a nonspiritual basis depends upon the extent to which he has already lost the power to choose whether he will drink or not."

Alcoholics Anonymous, page 34, More About Alcoholism

Of the many internal rearrangements I experienced as a result of the steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, the most profound was in how I understood the disease.  This shift was a direct result of being able to align the experience and pain of my repeated relapses with the explanation of the disease in the first 63 pages of the Alcoholics Anonymous text book (with the help of a terrific teacher).  Ideas and concepts I had held for decades about the nature of alcoholism were rendered embarassingly inaccurate.  Many of the AA sayings  I had chanted effortlessly for years (just don't pick up the first drink!) suddenly felt like codependent sloganeering.

Had you asked me several years ago what the difference was between a drinking problem and alcoholism, I would have likely responded "not much."  Try to explain it to me?  I'd have politely nodded but dismissed you as someone with way too much time on their hands.  I simply was not there-- I had double digit sobriety, a good life and the assurance that by keeping my memory green about where alcohol had taken me, I'd never drink again.  I've since learned that alcoholism is cunning and baffling; it can also masquerade as sobriety.  In retrospect, I was unaware that the very proclamations I valued as manifestations of my sobriety were really untreated alcoholism.  And it was biding its time, trying to find another way in.

But back to the point of the post-- what's the difference?  I see it this way:  the person with a drinking problem should stop, and usually can.  The person with alcoholism must stop and cannot.

"Yet we can't well content ourselves with the view that all these recovery failures were entirely the fault of the newcomers themselves. Perhaps a great many didn't receive the kind and amount of sponsorship they so sorely needed. We didn't communicate when we might have done so. So we AA's failed them. Perhaps more often than we think, we still make no contact at depth with those suffering the dilemma of no faith."

Bill Wilson, AA Grapevine, April 1961 "The Dilemma of No Faith"

Cross posted at Thump.

I stole this Nikos Kazantzakis quote from the Facebook page of a Thump fan, Robi Carlson, because I love language that challenges conceptions of spiritual power.

"The Great Spirit does not toil within the bounds of human time, place, or casualty. The Great Spirit is superior to these human questionings. It teems with many rich and wandering drives which to our shallow minds seem contradictory; but in the essence of divinity they fraternize and struggle together, faithful comrades-in-arms. The primordial Spirit branches out, overflows, struggles, fails, succeeds, trains itself. It is the Rose of the Winds."

In order to be willing to believe in a power greater than myself, I needed to set aside all of my ideas and concepts about "God."  I wiped the slate clean, even of the word "God." My conception of a higher power could not be tethered to human expression, not because I was special or intelligent, but because all language and expression carried some baggage, and I needed to be free of that.  It was the only thing that would work.  I needed to experience a power greater than myself, not define it.

Cross-posted at Thump.

Cross addiction or multiple addictions is a fact of life inherent within the recovering community. Many of us come to the rooms of a 12-step program or treatment facility intending to tackle our alcohol and drug problem, or perhaps our eating disorder. However, many of us realize we have other addictions to manage. Putting off the need to tackle the remaining addiction(s) has brought many of us back to our primary addiction.

We heal by remembering, literally bringing back
into the wholeness of our being
that which we have lost by hiding it
from ourselves.
Joan Borysenko

When my mother first started reading my initial manuscript for Gifts From The Child Within, she looked up at me and asked, "What do you mean in the Introduction by my being a co-dependent?" My mother, being an intelligent and well-read person, caught me by surprise with her genuine lack of knowledge about the meaning of codependence. I found myself somewhat embarrassed about the necessity to explain to my mother, what for most of my life, I saw her doing with hers.

I realized I had few words to describe to her just what being codependent meant. I tried using phases such as, "too dependent on her husband," "not caring enough about herself," and "restricting her own life because of her husband's demands." These broken sentences came easily but still did not touch on the real feelings I associated with the term codependent. Finally, I looked at her and said softly, "Mom, it just means that you cared so much for Daddy that somewhere along the way you lost yourself." She understood and accepting this definition, lowered her head to continue reading.

The surge of interest in the recovery field has led us to this nebulous issue of "codependence." Some leading experts claim we all have a codependent-self, a side of us which withdraws, avoids, and denies our true Self. Others maintain codependence is a disease or illness which requires psychological methodologies and sometimes medical intervention! To assume an illness one must demonstrate a physiological, psychological, or emotional dysfunction; therefore, to label one who nurtures and cares deeply for others codependent under this rationale would commit 99% of our female population to pathology! Only when one is nurturing others to the exclusion of themselves can the ill effects of codependency be labeled unhealthy.

One of the latest definitions of what constitutes a codependent personality comes from a group of professionals who spent several hours of deliberation to confirm:  "Co-dependency is a pattern of painful dependency on compulsive behaviors and on approval from others in an attempt to find safety, self-worth and identity. Recovery is possible." This is a good working definition; however, we must remember, codependency is an individual game played by two. We must not forget it takes two to form a codependent relationship.