CHAPTER 1

Addictions, Compulsions, and Recovery

EVEN IF WE WERE BORN GENETICALLY predisposed to addiction and were chronicallygiven drugs and traumatized in our childhood, we are still responsible for ouradult lives today and for our recovery. Acting out, hostile dependency,rebellion, and vindictiveness serve only to keep us bound to an unhealthy pastand to people who harmed us. Typically, we direct aggression toward those whomwe see as responsible for our harm, toward ourselves, and toward anyone who atleast unconsciously reminds us of our pain and conflicts, including ourchildren.

Wherever our negative feelings or actions are aimed, recovery urges us toredirect this energy toward resolution. Maintaining negativity toward ourselvesdeepens our wounds. Maintaining negativity toward others reinforces attachmentsto problematic behaviors and attitudes. Needing or wanting others to change sothat we can heal keeps us stuck in unfulfilled childhood dependency. All ofthese scenarios recreate familiar pain and problems and we feel increasinglyless capable and confident in our lives.

The Solution Is Up to Us

Not one of the twelve steps tells us to seek amends from others. Recovery reliesonly on our changing to more mature behavior. Inherent in addiction is avoidanceof appropriate responsibility. We court illusions of power through picking upweapons, rather than weeping for lost innocence and protection. We hide painthrough altering perceptions of internal and external reality, rendering ushelpless to find solutions. We create false selves from defensive adaptations todysfunction, and then wonder why we feel so alone and empty. Our relationshipsreflect impoverishment and degradation. We are dishonest, disloyal, diseased,and devoid of true love and wisdom. We sit on a massive mountain of wreckagewaiting for a short dose of counterfeit paradise from a bottle, needle, or pipe.We are in no position to hold others accountable at this stage. We mustdesperately desire recovery with the same passion with which we pursued drugs.

The 12 steps are designed to help us recognize our unhealthy patterns and fromwhom and from what experiences they originate. Exploring our early lives in thefourth step yields the most valuable information in this regard. We may learnthat our destructiveness to ourselves or others is a response to unhealed abuseor trauma in childhood. Perhaps we married someone who seems cold, critical, anddistant like our fathers were. Codependency and controlling behaviors may stemfrom being over-responsible for an addict parent. Deprivation of importantpsychological needs may have resulted in compulsive stealing. Childhood sexualmolestation can trigger later prostitution. Unhealthy family enmeshment maytranslate into fear of relationships. Whatever problems we suffered inchildhood, they were not due to our being impossibly challenging children, norbecause we deserved the treatment we received. It is our responsibility,however, to transform dysfunction into new healthy thinking, feeling, andbehavior.

Dysfunction comes from the giving and receiving of unhealed wounds by imperfectpeople. Recovery comes from creating a loving and understanding relationshipwith ourselves, which is modeled on our perception of how God relates to us. Theaim of examining early problems is to correct our response to them today. Weencourage ourselves to own the full depth and range of feelings that weretriggered by the harm we recall. We respond with attention, compassion, comfort,and containment. Containment means feelings can be experienced, expressed, andexplored without acting out, condemning, judging, or losing control. Emotionalhealing emerges from repeated sharing of painful experiences with theaccompanying feelings, until anger, anxiety, and fear are greatly diminished.

We examine how childhood problems influenced our thinking in order to identifyand begin detaching from false beliefs that perpetuate negativity. Our mindsabsorb everything in childhood, and these experiences and our reactions to themcreate the first and most powerful framework from which we understand life. Weneed to change our identities and life beliefs so that they no longer reflectdefensive reactions to pain and problems, but rather incorporate spiritualityand recovery tools for healing and growth. We can practice a more positiverelationship with ourselves by treating ourselves with affection, consideration,respect, and sensitivity. When confronting ourselves, we focus on learning andsolutions, rather than harsh judging. We incorporate discipline and structurethat promotes the achievement of healthy goals. We detach from people, places,and experiences that are toxic to us, and set boundaries and limits that help usmaintain recovery as our first priority. Through daily prayer and meditation, weseek God's guidance and support toward spiritual wellness. Whatever we havesuffered, our solution lies in appreciating the gift of life by refraining fromdestructiveness and making positive use of our God-given talents and interests.

Personal Growth Questions

1. In what ways do I express negativity toward myself and others?

2. What part of myself and my current life reflects childhood pain and problems?

3. What must I change in myself to resolve early and current conflicts?

Affirmations

I am capable and willing to learn and demonstrate positive productive behavior.

I practice loving and understanding myself today.

Habit-Formed Thoughts and Feelings

Dominant thoughts and feelings experienced in childhood and in active addictiontend to recur even when the elements that prompted them are no longer present.If, for example, I was abused as a child and my dominant feeling was fear, Iwill experience fear despite the safety of my current adult environment. If Iwas abandoned in childhood, felt a deep sense of loss, and believed that I wasunlovable, these will be my issues in adulthood. If stimulant drug use broughtfeelings of intense nervous energy, which I directed to excessive activity, Iwill continue to experience this in sobriety. If my dominant feelings whenwithdrawing from stimulants were depression, despair, and lethargy, then I willalso have these feelings in sobriety.

When we experience feelings and thoughts that are out of sync with currentsituations, we tend to create circumstances that justify them. So we focus onwho or what we can't trust to explain our fears. In relationships, we magnifybehaviors that we view as signs of withdrawal, which reinforces our belief thatwe are not loved sufficiently. We obsess on what needs to be done andcompulsively busy ourselves in frenetic activity when we have nervous energy. Wedwell on our shameful pasts and overwhelm ourselves with impossible visions ofwhat we must do in order to recover. And this drains our...