Addiction

                                                       Addiction

                                   

          "I'm convinced now that virtually every destructive behavior and addiction I battled off and on for years was rooted in my (well-earned) insecurity."
                                                                     Beth Moore

To address the disease of addiction we will start with the ideas of awareness, relationship, intention, and outcome. One's awareness in relation to whatever behavior or substance is greatly diminished or absent in the process addiction, others can see clearly that we have a problem but we can't, so we must start with some process that builds awareness. This can only happen if we allow some new information to come into our system, often this is precipitated by a crisis or some deep reflection/introspection about our lives.

The relationship part of addiction is that we have a relationship with whatever is our addiction, whether it's a behavior or a substance, we are in relationship to and with it, so we must find a way to honestly assess how that relationship is going, is it abusive, dysfunctional, toxic etc.? If so, we again must have some way of getting new information and behavior into our current level of relationship. The research is very clear that there is not one way to approach recovery, abstinence is not something that should be proposed or 'required' for everyone, however, for a great many people they will respond and need a group like the 12-steps in which people are oriented toward abstinence. But in the long game, there's only a 10% recovery rate for that approach, and that sucks as a percentage!

A person should assess their intentions with relation to their addiction, that is to say they should be able to be bone honest about what, how, and why they do what they do. People do drugs and addictive behaviors because they deliver (at least for a while), a certain level of fulfillment. In addiction that fulfillment rapidly drops off to the point where a person can get to where they hate the substance, themselves, and everything associated with their addiction, yet they continue to do it, that is one way of describing a 'bottom' as it's stated in the 12-steps.

The outcome or results are the last piece in this introduction to this subject. What kind of results are directly related to a person's addiction? If they have had problems with health, marriage, work, and self-esteem, then clearly the cost is outweighing whatever “benefits” they may have deluded themselves into thinking. Each person must come to this realization within themselves, no one can make a person realize the damage an addiction has caused. This is where separation and detachment from an addict is what is most needed, yet it is the hardest thing to practice for loved ones, friends, and family of the addict.

Again, related to our culture and modern society, we are a compulsive culture that strokes people for all kinds of dysfunctional behaviors. A recent study of CEO's found they exhibit an array of psychopathic tendencies that were needed for them to rise to the level they are in their field, these include;
1) being able to easily put on a “mask” of normality that is likable and pleasant, doing good deeds to surreptitiously gain trust, 2) a false believe that they are smarter than they actually are, 3) a need for constant stimulation, action, busyness, 4) distorting the truth and rationalizing the need to do this, 5) using cunning and manipulation to get people to do what they want, 6) feigning guilt but really feeling no genuine compunction over their behaviors that effect others, 7) a general indifference to emotions, positively or negatively, an inability to empathize 8) parasitic lifestyle using others to get what they want or rise in status, 9) behavioral control problems, indulgence and promiscuity to extremes.

These are symptomatic behaviors of addiction as well as people who are considered successful in our culture, doesn't that give us pause to consider what our cultural norms should be, and how we should be educating and socializing our children?