Most things exist in a form which can be thought of as a duality. Would you know what ‘up’ is if there was no ‘down’? Dark if there was no ‘light’. Left and right, wrong and right. I think you get the idea. My name is Dave Cooper and I am a recovery coach and psychotherapist. I believe that setting our success goals too tightly and narrowly in recovery is a trap. Having seen hundreds of people caught in it and helped them to get out of it I want to talk about the nature of the trap and how it can stand in the way of genuine recovery. Do you feel caught in a trap when you attempt to recover from addiction? Would you like to know how to avoid this trap? Read on for the answer!
How is the trap set up?
So how does this narrow definition apply to recovery from addiction and dependence? What is the typical situation once addiction has been discovered? Common sense tells us that ‘drugs are the problem’ therefore we conclude that I-he-she-they need to stop! But what have we done here? We have defined success and in so doing we have also defined failure.
Why abstinence is not a good target!
what is the best target?
Your problem started when you defined abstinence as ‘success’. Because success is one half of a duo. The other being… you guessed it, failure. So when we invite success in we end up entertaining failure as well. They go together and cannot be separated. So you enter the trap when you believe the idea that you are only ‘acceptable’ as a human being when you are ‘clean’.
I believe that abstinence is much too narrow an aim. So learn to think much more ‘relationally‘ for authentic recovery.
Now I want to focus on the trap itself which is set up by this ‘common sense’ thinking. Aiming for abstinence. How did you get caught in this trap and what makes it so deadly? How does it work? Would you consider doing a short experiment with me? You could try this now if you like. Like a lot of these exercises it is very simple but very effective.
The cycle of addiction
One of the first things I do with new clients is to ask them to draw up their cycle of addiction. This is an exercise that will help you to make sense of the pattern of your dependence. So you will learn about yourself by drawing up the whole cycle from start to finish. Including the four phases of the cycle, Success, Coasting, Flagging and Failing will help you make sense of your experience.
If you haven’t done anything like this yet give it a try. It will really help you to make sense of your pattern of success and failure. Which is the trap you have fallen into in your life. You just need a pen and paper.
Start by drawing a large circle on the sheet of paper. Next place the figures as you see them below with 12 at the top and so on. Just like a clock face. Now in order to make sense of this idea it is important that you start and finish at the top. 12 o clock represents that moment when you have just stopped using or acting out and have decided to stay stopped.
The length of your cycle
Your cycle could be as quick as 24 hours if it involves something like cocaine. Or as long as six months if you are a binge drinker. If your addiction or dependence is more behavioral the length of the cycle could be more contingent on things like how long a project took at work. Or how long you were out on tour.
Don’t worry about the time it takes to get around your cycle, just think about the way you move through the four sections which I will now describe.
Success period
The first section is ‘success’! This one runs from 12-o-clock till 3-o-clock and may be full of hope and include a detox or treatment. It is the time where you have got clean and decided (for whatever reason) that you need to stop. You are committed and have a good reason to stay stopped. You have the recent memory of what a disaster using or acting out has been for you, and it is a fresh start!
Typical feelings and drivers at this stage are: Wanting to impress those around you that you are back and functioning again. Needing to get people to trust you and believe you. Needing to convince people that it won’t happen again. Hoping that people will not carry out the threats they have made like sacking you or leaving you.
Coasting period
So what happens? The next period I call ‘coasting’. this is often after a period of being ‘under scrutiny’ from others. maybe you have made promises etc. or are on trial at work. Once the heat is off you will enter a period of ‘coasting’. Which means that you are no longer trying so hard and you may have stopped practicing certain methods or guidance from a therapist or group. But you are still feeling good about what you are doing and you may still be getting encouragement from family friends or work colleagues.
Typical feelings during this period are: I’ve cracked it! This is easy. I am strong and I can do this. Everyone is congratulating me and I like the attention. Everyone appreciated the effort I am putting in.
Flagging period
What happens next? I call this period ‘flagging’ because after a while everyone stops congratulating you. They don’t even seem to notice that you are not doing what you like to do! They don’t appreciate you and the energy that kept you coasting has now run down. This means that things are still hard and may be getting harder but there is no longer any apparent benefit. The other thing that may be happening is that people around you are talking about how well you are doing whilst you are feeling worse and worse! as things get difficult you start to go back to old strategies like isolating or deceitful methods.
Typical effects of this phase are: Noticing unhappy or negative feelings more than positive ones. resenting people for not noticing your efforts any more. Feeling unhappy that people still do not trust you even after all this effort. Feeling bored or fed up with your recovery work. Finding that things are too much effort.
Failure period
At some stage this turns into out and out failure and you start using or acting out again. It all gets too difficult and one day using seems like a good idea again. This is often accompanied with lying or some kind of deceit. Of course the acting out or using shifts you more into the ‘dead world’ and so your living relationships start to suffer. At some point the whole thing comes crashing down and you decide you must stop and change. this may or may not include ultimatums from loved ones or your boss at work. either way, you are back at 12-o-clock.
Once you understand this pattern in general terms add your particular details in the way you see below. This can be done initially with whatever comes to mind as you meditate or become mindful around this cycle. Later you can do many of these cycles from all kinds of perspectives, such as an emotional perspective. How does it feel when you are in these different segments? Or from a relationship perspective. But first understand the basic idea
Typical feelings during this phase are: Justifying your attitudes because you are not understood. Feeling that you are being forced to be dishonest. Isolating because no one cares.
How does this fit with your cycle?
Now try adding some of your particulars to this idea. To help you get started I have included another diagram below with some of the typical things I see in my clients work. Such as – Getting back to work, being part of a team again. Functioning and earning. Of course it is likely that you will be trying too hard to impress everyone that ‘you are back’!
Notice below how the client starts off by ‘feeling great’! This is one of the biggest problems with the ‘abstinence aim’. What I want you to see is that the better you feel when you start at 12-o-clock, the worse you feel when you start using again! This is how the trap works.
Detailing your cycle of addiction
If you completed the exercise you can probably see how your experiences fitted with the four phases of success, coasting, flagging and failing. Of course your cycle may look somewhat different but most of you will have got a lot from this exercise. Now apply this learning to the main idea of this piece, which is the trap of success and failure.
Putting it all together
I am going to give you an example of this which sometimes explains better. If we take the story of our client who says “I have to stop” to the next stage, what usually happens? Well, he stops! So what’s the problem you ask. He has achieved his goal on Monday eight-o’clock day one! Not bad. But what happens? Notice that this is not a growth goal, it is achieved instantly and instant ‘triumph’ brings a sense of pride. You often see this at this stage. And it’s often made more intense by the family who understandably want to see more of it.
Okay, so what happens now? He starts to count the days and maybe starts to wonder what all the fuss was about. This was easy! But he starts to feel worse. Maybe the family don’t appreciate his efforts as much after a few weeks. Maybe the boss is being too hard on him. At some point the inevitable happens and he is drunk again. Now he plummets from being a great success to being a terrible failure. Depression and isolation can follow.
Dealing with our success and failure
No one put it better than the poet Rudyard Kipling in his poem ‘if’. If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEFMVIfl2UY
Triumph and disaster are ‘success and failure’ and he calls them both ‘imposters’! He suggests that we treat them both the same, by which he means that we should reject them both.
If I ask you to think about the product of these states you will probably end up with something approaching pride and shame! That’s where they lead! The last thing you need is to get caught up in these as you cannot thik clearly about your situation and how to help yourself from these ‘states’.
I hope that you can now see the trap of success and failure and maybe you know that you have been caught in it. Please try your best to avoid feeling bad about this, rather concentrate on what you have learned today! (Did you notice what I did there? I got you out of the trap!)
I help people to see the trap for what it is and how counter productive it is. Similarly you can outgrow this trap for yourself. The way the trap works is through the addictive cycle and your efforts to succeed.
The healthy alternative
Remember at the beginning of this I called success and failure a ‘duality of concepts’. We have just spent some time looking at how these opposites can create a trap which you can become stuck in for years. But what is the alternative? I help my clients aim for something that is not part of a duality but is more of a unity or single thing. Growth!
I tell them that….
growth produces abstinence but abstinence does not produce growth!
So try to avoid thinking of things as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and start asking the question “what does this have to teach me”? Want to know more about this? here is a link to the ‘recovery box’.
You will only be able to get the most out of your learning if you are not working from a strong sense of shame or pride (which the trap of success and failure produces) so you can see why I asked you to do your ‘addictive cycle’ and how it could be so helpful in making progress.
As a result you will avoid setting yourself up to fail again! Remember you are not a success! You are not a failure! You are a human being! if you could go any faster you would.
Finally here are a few thoughts that will help you avoid the trap or dissolve it.
People will trust you when they decide to.
Your recovery is based on healthy thinking and values, not how long you have been ‘clean’.
People see more than what you show them.
Also at the end of every day ask yourself, “have I learned everything I can from what happened today”? And “Am I willing to apply what I have learned in the future”? If your answer is yes then you will become unstoppable. Then your recovery will become inevitable. And of course you will be out of the trap!
My work in this field took a huge leap forwards when I took on board the complex nature of being a human being! I often remind my clients that when we say ‘I’ we are using a complex statement! So the core principle here is something like ‘you are always working with what is between your ears’! To start using our daily experiences and challenges to grow into our recovery we need to understand what is happening during difficult moments and the relationship between our brain and our mind.
SELF MANAGEMENT
So I want you to consider the idea of differences. Internal differences. Can you accept or even consider the idea that there are parts of you that do not see things the same way you do? That do not have the same beliefs that you do?
There is no more difficult moment for my clients than when they are recounting some ‘crazy’ thing they did or said. Describing it as something they are ashamed of or how it was ‘just not like me’ can be one of the most challenging things for people in early recovery. But once they understand the way their brain works when threatened they have a coherent method to work with.
Before my clients enter treatment their options are limited. They can either attempt to fight these compulsions (conflict) or attempt to deny their existence (fragment). Only when they enter treatment and understand why these things are happening can they accept themselves (harmonise). Let’s take these options one at a time so you can check out if this is what you have been doing.
Conflict
When we take the fighting option we are led into conflict, but it’s okay because it’s conflict for a good reason, right? There are so many articles and books about how to win and how to be strong and how to fight that you may think of it as an obvious thing to do. So you try to banish the negative thoughts or to aggressively replace them with ‘positive affirmations’.
Sound like you? Let me ask you something, did it work? The fact that you are reading this is pretty good evidence that it didn’t. Let me tell you something. If you want these inner negative voices to get stronger, keep exercising them. It’s your resistance to them that is making them stronger. You need to harmonise not argue.
But these books are talking about our relationships with others not ourselves. Then we might think it works for the relationship with our self just the same. You see I fully agree that conflict and it’s resolution is the key to personal growth (on the outside). Please click this link for my take on this. But our relationship with ourselves needs a different approach.
So in relationships with other people difficulties are good. The problem is that things are very different on the inside. When it comes to yourself conflict is not the way forwards. I always remind my clients that “Your mind runs your life…. on licence from your brain”. So when you are dealing with a part you are dealing with a child. But a child that is much stronger than you! Overpowering it is not an option!
Our brain protects us
Now this understanding doesn’t mean that we should just allow all kinds of hateful and demeaning language to go on in our heads. It doesn’t mean that we should stop trying to control ourselves in challenging situations. It means that we should understand that we have parts of us that are trying to protect us and do not necessarily think the same way that we do about things. For instance you as an adult may genuinely want to stop drinking but a younger self does not!
You see there is a very good reason why the mind and brain relate in this way. The brain is much better at helping you survive genuine danger! It is faster and more ruthless in it’s decision making. And it does not waste time philosophising or meditating, being mindful or even things like hunger or desire. It makes the decision that you are in danger and simply shuts your mind down and takes over, at lightning speed! Once the danger is passed, you are given your licence back and can start making decisions again.
Once we get the idea that we have younger parts, and that these parts do not have the same maturity wisdom or experience that we do we can start to approach these things from a more effective angle.
Fragment
Whilst it’s true that nothing works for everybody, we can also say that everything seems to work for a while! Even the worst ideas can appear good in the short term. Denial fits into this category because it would be everybody’s short term pick. Just pretend it didn’t happen! Just convince yourself it isn’t true! For as long as it works it’s the perfect solution since there’s no effort, no cost and no time wasting on solutions. If you have felt the effects of long term denial then you know what I’m talking about. For this article I want to show you the damaging effects of fragmentation.
Denial in addiction is like trying to pretend that an embarrassing relative actually does not belong in your family. As long as you are convincing yourself and others that you don’t know this person you don’t have to feel the shame of what they do. But you are tearing yourself apart.
The start of integration
I help my clients to be grateful for what the ‘part’ is trying to do. I help them to understand that when they were very young they had limited knowledge of how to handle a dangerous situation and so they could not expect much in the way of growth. These were what I call survival strategies and their only aim is to keep you breathing! My clients learn that they are no longer in a war zone and so the survival strategies are no longer appropriate. What they need now are flourishing strategies!
So you will take a very different approach once you acknowledge the part of you that is trying to help you and to start to work with it. I call this ‘integration’. Here are three things we say about our ‘parts’
1 They are created by trauma
2 They are triggered by threat
3 They are always trying to help you survive
Harmony
So why is it they screw things up with what they have me saying or doing? “I behave like a madman sometimes”. “I say I’ll never do it again and then there I am, at it again”. These are very typical things to hear in my line of work. Let’s apply this new understanding of our ‘parts’ to these stories and see what happens.
Inner harmony begins to be created once you assume that anything you do that is out of proportion with the situation is being decided by a ‘part’. In other words you start from the assumption that your ‘adult’ is not only able to handle things in a measured and grounded way but that your adult will always make the best decisions based on the circumstances. Inner harmonising develops when you accept the three things above and work with your younger part to deal with whatever your brain is perceiving as a threat.
When someone is introduced to these ideas they can be a little difficult to take in. When someone is struggling to take it in I ask them which football team they support. I tell them that I support another team and ask them if it seems crazy to have two different opinions in the room? Of course there is no problem and so I go on to ask if we can still talk and get on? Again no problem.
Sometimes I ask them if they always believed what they now believe. “If we went back in time to when you were ten, would you have the same beliefs or understanding you have now”? Of course they would not, and this helps them to make sense of what is going on between their ears.
Understanding your parts
Your ‘parts’ screw things up because when your brain perceives a strong enough threat your mind is ‘shut down’ and a much younger part of you is pushed out there to deal with whatever is going wrong. Imagine a six year old having to come up with a solution to your ‘grown up problems’. Here are three things I want you to know about the way your younger parts think
1 It is always about now (they don’t think about the future)
2 It is always naive (they do not think about the health consequences or any other consequences)
3 It is always radical (If one adult proves untrustworthy, don’t trust any of em)
Look for these things in your ‘triggered states’.
Integrating your ‘parts’ is part of your recovery journey
In a process I call ‘self-parenting’ or ‘self-management’ you will learn not to fight with your parts who are only trying to help. Nor will you deny your role in things when a part takes over. Rather you will learn to parent yourself as part of your growth into recovery. I go into more detail in the links to podcasts below but I will say a little about how this is done here.
The actual trauma that created this particular ‘part’ may not be known to you or be very obvious to you. Remember that trauma is how something affects you, not something we can measure by the size of any particular event. But even if you can’t remember anything it can still help to have a picture of yourself at a certain age (photos work well). A nickname can also help since the first move towards integration is to develop a little separation (ironic I know).
Now ask yourself “when things got hard for me at that age, what could I have really done with from my parents but didn’t get”? This gives you a starting point for self parenting. When feeling ‘triggered’ by anything you can now apply this parenting from your adult self and integration of your ‘part’ begins.
I will leave a link to a three episode series I’ve done on ‘inner child work’ that will go into more detail on this approach.
Finally, if you are interested in learning more about this approach or running a group based on these ideas, please watch the video below
So one of the main principles of growth is…… growth? I know, it seems a silly thing to include. But the importance of this demands that it gets its own section. Let me first extract the principle here so that we have a context for the rest of this section.
The only way to authentic recovery is to outgrow your difficulties
This then reflects back to the whole process. Where it also becomes a part of the process is when we look at the day to day attitude we have towards our life and experiences. You will not be able to say that you have accepted growth as a basic principle until you stop seeing your daily experience as problems you need to solve and start seeing it as lessons you need to learn!
Have you been trying to recover and clean up your act without accepting that you need to grow? Every time you do that you are in conflict with yourself (or should I say parts of yourself that do not want to stop. You are having to manipulate others into changing to suit you. And let’s not forget that you are having to work with the resources you started with.
Growth builds resources so you get more as you go. Now I’m not looking at you when I say this but, there are lots of people that pay for a gym membership and then don’t go! What does this mean? It means that, on some level at least they believe that just paying will do it. Just wanting it will do it. Just agreeing to it will do it. Of course none of this works but it is revealing how many people must struggle with these sort of ideas.
It’s the same with your recovery. Recovery is the healthy consequences of growth. Addiction is the unhealthy consequences of not growing.
Psalm 40 – Being lifted up
“I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings”. The King James version includes the ‘horrible pit’ and so I included it even though the language is a bit obscure for the modern reader. The NIV says
I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
What ‘horrible pit’ is the psalmist referring to? Clearly this is not a physical place and ‘miry’ refers to the type of prison the Romans had in Athens and in Rome where there was just one hole at the top but you could never get out because of the clay and mud. You could never get a foothold to climb and so you were trapped in a place where you could make no progress.
You must be ‘lifted up’ in order to make progress. That means firstly that you need help from outside yourself. Through Gods word and his ways. The power that resides in his eternal truth. Put more simply, you grow when you face the difficulties of doing things the right way.
But first you must acknowledge your problem. Until you ‘Cry out in your distress’ you don’t enter that relationship where you can be helped. As long as you maintain that everything is alright you will never accept radical solutions. These only look possible from a position of extreme circumstances.
Growth is permanent
As long as you are feeding your habit whether it is substance or behaviour you are running to stay still. It will become increasingly hard to maintain this position and keep this ‘groundhog day’ going. It takes a lot of energy to stay where you are! You are now learning from this that the ‘static view’ of things flies in the face of reality. Your natural place is to grow and develop.
Growth is not temporary. Anything that has created genuine growth will benefit you for the rest of your days. You will not shrink back to how you were. In every situation and issue we bring all that we are to the moment. Growth is all about being able to bring more to the table when facing responsibilities and challenges. It’s cumulative in that you are not only using your growth resources but you are also creating more growth as part of the process.
Your world may look interesting and exciting, but if it doesn’t have living relationships in it, it actually looks like this.
The attraction of the dead world
I spoke about in the last episode on isolation about the ‘dead world’. There is another reason why this world attracts people who are suffering. It’s not just about the lack of scrutiny and accountability that makes it attractive. The dead world also attracts you because it doesn’t move! One of the main shifts I made when I started to study the ‘systemic approach’ was the challenging idea that the world is in a state of ‘flux’. That means that everything is going somewhere, all the time!
It made me think about my world view, which was definitely a ‘static’ one. I viewed the world as full of static objects that basically stayed wherever they were put until someone or something moved them. In my training I was connected up with the very challenging idea that the natural state of the world was change! This basically blew my mind and it took some getting used to. Ask yourself now, which is your world view closer to? Static or changing?
How this changes everything
Once I believe that change is the natural order of things I have to deal with two big ideas. Number one, I have to allow change in others and accept that brings challenges to me. The first of which is to become sensitive to those changes. Number two, I have to accept that I have been putting a lot of energy in staying the same! Staying the same may feel safer and more secure but remember that you are going against the natural order of things. this can be exhausting and for a while gave you a sense that you were doing something. Ultimately you are running to stay still.
The consequences of staying the same
Once you were in the groove, now you’re stuck in a rut
You are probably right in the middle of facing these consequences right now. So you know what they are already. But here’s a recap just so we can be clear. There are health consequences, relationship consequences, family consequences, financial consequences and career consequences.
as the addiction and dependence on unhealthy survival strategies continues, the consequences get worse. there is a strong connection between attitudes and physiology. You develop illnesses and health problems. These can get very serious and life threatening.
recovery generally begins in an active sense when the ‘cure becomes worse than the disease’. Don’t forget that what now may seem like a problem started off as a solution! You did it because it felt better! Like any unhealthy strategy, the consequences grow and grow until… yes, the moment when you realise that it’s no longer worth it. It’s time to stop. Are you at that stage?
By staying in the same place you are getting into a habit of reacting the same way to things. Denying, avoiding, procrastinating, stealing, lying, arguing. All these things become reinforced over time as they become your only option. When ponds become stagnant the problems are obvious. It’s the same with you. Ask yourself now. Is there still a good reason to be ultra safe? To never change and grow? Is the war still on?
The war is over – be grateful that you are still alive
Finally surrendered forty years after the war was over
Years after the Second World War was over Japanese soldiers were still being discovered on remote islands. They had lived for years thinking that they were in a war that had finished decades ago. Are you thinking you are still in a war that is actually over?
The need to become stagnant was a ‘survival strategy’. If the war is over then it’s time to develop ‘flourishing strategies’. In order to do this you need to realise that what you did was necessary. You may have developed these strategies as a result of being abused or mistreated. Having to live in a home with mental illnesses or addiction. Mistreatment. Children cannot leave like adults and so you had to survive. You used your child’s resources and came up with a plan that got you through. It worked! You survived. Now you need to acknowledge that the war is over.
Honour your child self for helping you to survive. Be grateful that it worked. Appreciate what you have done for yourself. One of the first challenges i recovery is developing this better attitude towards yourself. You have been taught that you are not worth caring for and you look back on your past with self loathing because of what has happened. You must find some appreciation for what you have done for yourself.
Survival strategies work best in times of crisis, times of war. When survival would be a result! They come from a time in your life when they were completely appropriate. You must ask yourself now, are they still?
Here is the big problem with survival strategies. They do not bring any growth. As long as you are still breathing at the end of the day they have worked. It’s as simple as that. Ask yourself now how would you feel if someone did not appreciate you when you saved their life? When all they asked of you was to survive and when you were 100% successful, they resented you! If the war is over then swap those survival strategies for flourishing strategies. Choose life!
Flourishing strategies
Here are a few pointers towards the flourishing strategies. Remember that you should go at your own pace. I always recommend 5% growth aims for my clients. Don’t set yourself up to fail by rushing into something you are not ready for.
1 Communication – When you don’t say what you want and don’t ask for what you need, you are saying that you are not worth anything. Try improving your communication by getting a little closer to what you want to say. Here is an exercise you can try.
2 Authenticity – I often say to my clients “you need to go home and let them know who you really are”. When you think you will be rejected or that you are not worth anything you will not show yourself. Again, making small shifts works best. Here is a blog on the subject.
3 Vulnerability – If you have been hurt or abused in the past then you will not show any vulnerability. I couldn’t be wrong for thirty years because I ‘knew’ what would happen to me if I was. it would be used against me. Again, a survival strategy. Rather than attacking people or starting another argument, try saying where someone has hurt you or how it feels when someone says ‘those things’ to you. Here is an article on the subject of relationships affected by addiction.
Hope that helps and thanks for taking the time to read this. The final episode in this series will be the fourth one and it will be on self management.
So this post is on isolation but the principle could be called ‘relating’. This is the second in this series on the core principles of growth into recovery from addiction. I want to continue to remind you that these are ideas that will produce personal growth and development. As such they will be useful to everyone who tries them.
That’s why when I train people to run a ‘Building Recovery’ group I always remind them that they are to be participants in the course, not just teachers. So let’s take a look now at why I want you to think of isolation as one of the if not the main enemy to growth and recovery.
ISOLATION
Let’s start with a definition before we go on to talk about why isolation is so bad. The definition of isolation is ‘keeping apart’. Cambridge Dictionary. Notice how close this is to a definition of ‘holy’ which is to be ‘set apart’. Never confuse these two! Remember that the Bible tells us that even Satan appears as an ‘Angel of light’. 2 Cor 11/14. Bad things often appear as good things and good things are often lost for fear of doing a bad thing!
Separation is not isolation. We are to be separate but not isolated! Seeking solace in quiet times, going on retreats and meditation breaks is not isolating. What’s the difference I hear you ask. Well Separating is a thing but isolating isn’t!
Isolation is not a thing
Be careful when you think about something. You see when you think about something you make it a thing. Did you ever think about a problem and get all worried and anxious but then found out it wasn’t anything? Well you made nothing into something for a while didn’t you? Isolating is like that. You can be tempted to think about ‘isolating’ because it seems like this is the problem you need to solve. Once you turn it into something you have been distracted away from what is effective because isolation is more like the absence of something.
Isolation is not a cause it’s an effect. Isolation is what happens when we stop relating to living things. It happens when we stop talking about what’s real. It’s what happens when we stop being honest and when we stop being authentic. Choosing to be alone is not isolating.
Why is isolation so common?
So if isolation is the consequence of withdrawing from the world of living things. The first question becomes “why is it so popular”? I mean if it’s so bad for you, why are we all doing it? To answer this question we need to look again at it’s opposite. Not why are we doing this but what is so hard about the alternative.
One of hardest thing you do is to be involved in the living world. Ask yourself now. How involved are you with living things? When you think about this, don’t be fooled by things like how busy you are or how many meetings or events you attend. Not even how much charity work you are doing! Think about your close relationships. How authentic are you in those relationships?
If your answers disappointed you, I want you to think about why and how you have developed this situation. What makes the dead world so attractive? Here is a list that is not comprehensive but will give you a few things to think about changing and to help you to be understanding and empathetic as to why you have got to this stage. This list is relevant to most situations whether you are talking about alcohol, work or any other dead thing.
It’s easy – It’s safe – It’s less challenging – It’s consistent – It doesn’t answer back – It’s always where we left it.
You may be surprised at the amount of things I am including in the ‘dead world’. It’s much easier to say what is in the living world, people! Whatever spiritual beliefs you have you will probably recognise that people are the most alive thing we have. So, in essence they are the opposite of the list above. They are not easy. Often not safe. They are challenging, often inconsistent, they answer back and they do not stay where we thought we left them!
When we look at the difference between these lists it’s pretty easy to see why most of us are choosing the dead over the living. But there are consequences!
Why is isolation so bad for us?
Isolation is something we always knew was bad. I have worked in addiction treatment centres for years and we always cited it as something to avoid. Neuroscience is now showing us that it’s even worse than we thought. Don’t take my word for it, go and do your own research. Any short view of the internet will tell you that the science is consistent on this question. If I were coaching you into recovery I would want you to be interested in discussing the following short list.
We need outside influences
Firstly let’s take a look at your thinking. What would you say about it. Is it good? I know that you have to mainly rely on yourself to get through life but how are you at solving problems, critically analysing situations etc? Well, here’s the problem. Whatever issues there may be with your thinking, they are multiplied when there are no outside influences.
When you don’t share your problems. Don’t let people in. Don’t engage in open ended conversations or let people know what you are thinking. Every time a thought goes around your head any flaws in your thinking are multiplied. Engaging in the living world and improving your relationships is the best way to iron out any flaws in your thinking.
You may have all sorts of problems with doing what I am asking. Trust issues can be huge when it comes to other human beings. Vulnerability can also be a big issue. Don’t think you have to do all this straight away! I always ask my clients to think of these things as aims.
Dead things don’t change us
I don’t care how much you love your work, your heroin or your gambling. The biggest problem you have here is that relationships with these things do not change you. Think about it. You are being made worse from both directions! Not only are you needing to change and withdrawing from the things that change you. You are also getting more involved with the things that keep you the same!
You will have noticed a tendency to stagnate in your life through your addiction. The ‘Groundhog day’ experience is common in addiction. The more you become involved (enter a ‘bonded relationship) with dead things the more stuck you will be. No matter how rich you get or how safe you feel.
Modern forms of isolation
New forms of developing relationships with dead things are emerging all the time. They are becoming more and more disturbing as you might imagine. At one time we thought of isolation as people who were uncommunicative. Distant spouses and people who were always at work. Loved ones who were always high on some drug or other. More recently we would be talking about people who were forever online gambling or gaming.
Today we would add people who are always on their phones and tablets. Social media (or antisocial media as I like to call it) is quickly becoming a huge problem. As things like FOMO (fear of missing out) and greater ranges of news feeds are available. Internet addiction or IUD as it’s sometimes called is a fairly new phenomenon. However given the short amount of time these things have been available the rate at which it is growing is becoming a real concern. And even more concerning might be our reaction to it with attitudes like “some people are not ready for the technology”.
Sex toys are becoming more life like. A new generation of robot sex dolls are about to hit the market this year. As they become cheaper they will be common place in our lives before long. Sex therapists are saying that some people will be vulnerable to ‘falling in love’ with them. Forgive me if this just got a little bit too disturbing for you but this is where we are now and best to know that. Catering for and encouraging all manner of perversions, and drawing in the vulnerable through these manufactured dolls.
The Simple Solution
So this article has been about one of the founding principles of growth and recovery from addiction. Isolation, or, more specifically avoiding it, is one of the most important principles and the solution is simple but challenging. Make it an aim to move further into the living world. Do a little bit every day. Ask your self “is what I am doing now part of the living world or the dead world”?
Please do not try and change too quickly! I always suggest 5% to my clients. Imagine a set of controls for all your relationships. One for honesty, one for authenticity. One for how quick you are to apologise. Another for assertiveness.
Try asking yourself in any given situation “If I turned up this slider 5%, what would that look like here”?
Thanks for taking the time to read this. See you on the next one.
I have been very busy recently filming my online course (Building Recovery) and finishing my book (of the same name). So I was wanting to get back to writing my Blog and thought to myself “what are the core principles that inform all my work with clients who want to recover from addictive lifestyles”? So I wrote down everything that informed my work, basically things that I would not contradict or stray from in any situation.
This could be valuable to you in your striving for recovery for two reasons. Firstly because I believe these principles are valuable for everybody, not just for addicted people. This is because, like all the rest of my teaching are about personal growth. Secondly because they will provide an overview of how I have learned to approach this work. So reading about them will help you to understand the coherence in this approach. How it all fits together as a useful whole. This will help you to understand why I sometimes suggest certain things that might not be obvious to you.
So these are the principles my recovery building stands on. If you include these principles in your recovery they will provide you with the best foundation and serve you well.
The Core Principles
So what are the core principles? What is it that I could not do without in this work? You will notice a theme in the following list. It is a theme that speaks to my beliefs and experience over the last thirty years.
The only way authentic recovery is to outgrow your problems
My belief is that you cannot recover by improving yourself in the place you are in. You must outgrow your difficulties. You must be lifted higher. Psalm 40 says “I cried out to you in my distress and you inclined you ear to me. You lifted me out of the miry clay and placed my feet upon a rock”. Here is a list of things that will be part of this series.
1 – Harmony
No I’m not offering singing lessons! Although the way music works in creating a beautiful chord through different harmonising notes is a great start. So the actual principle here is something like ‘stay on your good side’. So this is about inner harmony not outer harmony (often confused). The reason it makes it onto my list of core principles is because we simply cannot move (grow) whilst we are in disharmony.
2 – Isolation
Yes I know, we always knew that isolation was bad! The point here is that all the most recent research is showing us that it’s even worse than we thought. So the principle here is something like ‘develop relationships with living things (people preferably)’. Coming out from isolation (inside) is one of the most challenging things we can do and so it needs preparation and a deep level of acceptance that tings like this are journeys ‘aims’ rather than quick fixes.
3 – Growth
When we are threatened one of the most common aspects of our survival strategies is to stop growing. To avoid challenges and to ‘shut down’. Addiction becomes one of the ways we can do this and develop a ‘Groundhog day’ type of life. It makes sense then to see recovery as a reversal of this process. So the principle here is something like ‘have the right aims’. So often addicted people start with the latest problem such as “I have no money” or “I need to stop taking drugs”. These are usually ‘post addiction problems’ when we should be concentrating on the ‘pre addiction issues’.
4 – Self management
My work in this field took a huge leap forwards when I took on board the complex nature of being a human being! I often remind my clients that when we say ‘I’ we are using a complex statement! So the core principle here is something like ‘you are always working with what is between your ears’! To start using our daily experiences and challenges to grow into our recovery we need to understand what is happening during difficult moments and the relationship between our brain and our mind.
So there it is. Take the time now to study the episodes in this series. Starting with number one HARMONY.
HARMONY
Let’s start with a definition before we go on to talk about why it’s such an indispensable part of authentic recovery. Harmony is defined as ‘the combination of simultaneously sounded musical notes to produce a pleasing effect’. Cambridge Dictionary.
It’s this idea of difference in the sounds that is so important. Notice that harmony is not lot’s of same sounding notes. A bunch of ‘E’ notes may make a nice sound bit they do not make a chord.
If you have been thinking of yourself in the most obvious and simple way then your behaviour and thoughts will often make you feel crazy! Every time you contradict yourself in your behaviour speech or attitude you will be wondering “how crazy am I, I mustn’t let anyone know”. Let me reassure you. Contradictory behaviour does not mean that you are crazy! It’s a matter of understanding how complex you are.
I would say that ‘I’ is shorthand. Short and convenient for everyday life. “I did this” “I want that” makes sense. But this is not sufficient for a rich understanding of what it means to be human. In order to manage yourself well and grow into a full recovery you must start to take into account the fact that you are a complex package of different, sometimes contradictory ideas or ‘parts’. Did you ever say “I’m in two minds about that”. Or “there’s a part of me that just won’t let go”. These are examples of this complexity. You are going to learn how to first take this complexity into account and then use it in your recovery journey.
Team YOU!
A great team creates a great harmony. Look at this picture. Imagine if they all turned up and wanted to paint the boards. Nothing would be achieved. Of course they all have the same ‘big picture’ but it is the harmony created when all the different skills are used to achieve an agreed upon goal that makes them a great team.
Conflict
I want to talk about what happens when you think too simply about yourself. You have an aim in your mind, which is to stop drinking let’s say. So far so good. At some point other thoughts turn up. Thoughts that say ‘why bother. No one will appreciate it’. or ‘No one will know if you drink on your own’. You can add some of your own. The point is these thoughts are not in agreement with your intention to stop drinking. Did you ever ask yourself why would such thoughts exist? If you have decided to do something why would you not be completely behind this decision?
Internal opposition to our own decisions in the form of temptation and compulsion, fear and selfish need are so common in our experience that we stop questioning the reason for these opposing ideas or think about why they exist. Often our reaction to these voices is to fight them.You feel a pressure to appear ‘normal’ and so try to bully or hide these things so as not to appear strange or abnormal.
One more reason we avoid doing something about this state of affairs is that we are much more focused on what can be seen than what is hidden from view. Trust me on this one little thing, it is the things that are hidden from view that are the most important and that will offer the most potential for growth and change.
Stop fighting
In the fourth episode in this series (self management) I will go into more detail about the nature of these ‘voices of influence’ but for now let’s stay with this theme of creating harmony through removing conflict. When we take the ‘fighting’ option we are led into conflict, but it’s okay because it’s conflict for a good reason, right? There are so many articles and books about how to win and how to be strong and how to fight that you may think of it as an obvious thing to do. So you try to banish the negative thoughts or to aggressively replace them with ‘positive affirmations’.
Sound like you? Let me ask you something, did it work? The fact that you are reading this is pretty good evidence that it didn’t. Let me tell you something. If you want these inner negative voices to get stronger, keep exercising them. It’s your resistance to them that is making them stronger. You need to harmonise not argue.
Don’t make the mistake of confusing your relationship with yourself with your relationship with others. These books are mainly talking about our relationships with others not ourselves. It may seem obvious to you that the same approach will work for the relationship with your self. It won’t. You see I fully agree that conflict and it’s resolution is the key to personal growth (in our relationships with others). Please click this link for my take on this. But your relationship with yourself needs a different approach.
So in relationships with other people difficulties are good. The problem is that things are very different on the inside. When it comes to yourself conflict is not the way forwards. I always remind my clients that “Your mind runs your life…. on licence from your brain”. So when you are dealing with any ‘part’ of you are dealing with a child. But a child that is much stronger than you! Overpowering it is not an option! Remember your brain can shut down your mind but your mind cannot shut down your brain!
Acceptance – the key to growth
I want to talk about a word now that has got an increasingly bad press lately. Acceptance. You know acceptance is a fantastic thing! It is the key to personal growth and development, improved relationships and greater effectiveness. But it has become known as a bad thing. Somehow we have managed to turn one of the most valuable things in our resources into an unclean unwanted thing. It is now thought of as something akin to a doormat. “I suppose I’ll just have to accept it” is nothing more than a sad sounding capitulation to our modern ears.
I want you to know that acceptance is one of the most valuable materials you can build your recovery with. Let me tell you why it is so valuable by telling you what acceptance isn’t! Acceptance isn’t agreement. When we accept something we are not saying we agree with it. We are not saying it is correct. Or that it’s permanent. Not that we don’t want to or can’t do anything about it. We are simply saying that it’s real.
You should accept something because it’s real.
The power of acceptance is felt once we have accepted something. You don’t overpower it, you don’t destroy it. You don’t disprove it. And yet, somehow you get past it!
Acceptance versus knowledge
If you have viewed my post on this subject you will have more detail by now but I still want to say something about the difference between just knowing something and truly accepting it. Knowledge is a concrete thing. It can be a block to change in it’s brutal presence. we can hate something that we know is true but we can’t change it! Acceptance is much deeper than knowledge. It is a spiritual thing not a scientific thing. When we know something we cannot change it, when we accept something we transcend it! The alcoholic who ‘knows’ he is alcoholic carries on drinking. The alcoholic who ‘accepts’ he is alcoholic stops drinking. You will see very different behaviour resulting from acceptance than from knowledge.
When I run my workshops I show an image of two men wrestling. I ask the participants to tell me what is happening. They tell me that there are two men wrestling, not surprising right? I tell them to look again and see two men who are stuck together. Neither man can leave, move, or grow whilst they are still wrestling! Again this is not about agreement or being stuck with something. It is about being free of something!
I want you to start practising acceptance as a way of life. Try saying to yourself “just for right now, this is how I feel” and “just for today, this is what is happening”. Try “I accept that I just thought that” and “I accept that a part of me does not want to stop”. Look for changes in your behaviour and different reactions to situations as you develop this acceptance habit. Remember you are not trying to change your behaviour, that just gets you back to fighting. Changed behaviour is evidence of a changed relationship with yourself.
What would your last words be?
If you had one chance to say something valuable to those you love. Only one chance to leave a thought with them that would be the last word, the last opportunity to offer advice. What would it be? What is the most important thing you could say to someone? If there was one last chance.
This was the position Jesus was in on the night he was to be crucified. His words to us are found in John 17. He first prays for himself and then following prayers for his disciples he prays for you and me! Yes, all that will follow, that’s us! So what is this last prayer. What is it that Jesus himself knows to be the most important thing he can leave us with. The most important thing to pray for. Is it that we should build great big churches? That we should convert millions? Or it that we should raise large sums of money? It is none of these things. It is harmony. Harmony is his prayer for us.
Now I have heard this harmony preached and taught as harmony between us as people but this is not what is meant. Listen to Jesus words as he describes the harmony or unity he is talking about “that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me”. He is talking about internal harmony. He is talking about our relationship with ourselves. Let me give you one more example.
In Mark 3:25 Jesus says 25 If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand. Again this is often taken to mean the Church or our relationship with others which of course is important but listen what He says in the next verse.26 And if Satan opposes himself and is divided, he cannot stand; his end has come. Clearly placing his words in the context of personal harmony and unity.
Whether you are a Christian or not, these words are a powerful reminder of the importance of personal harmony.
Be a good friend to yourself
One last word on internal harmony. Be a good friend to yourself. I know what it’s like to hate yourself. When I first got clean I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror to get a decent shave. To create inner harmony you have to be a good friend to yourself. You will not be effective in anything you try to do as long as you are not helping yourself. No matter what you have done or said. No matter how wrong it was. Accept it. I am not suggesting that you not be responsible for yourself I am suggesting that you take the best stance to grow out of it.
Here is a simple method you can try to get around self hatred. Imagine a family member or best friend telling you their problems. Except they are telling you your story, exactly the same as your experience. What is your advice for them? What would you say? Now act on that advice yourself, no matter how difficult or awkward it seems. You have just tricked yourself into giving you your best advice!
I will be doing three more episodes on this subject of core principles. Speak soon
Please do not try and change too quickly! I always suggest 5% to my clients. Imagine a set of controls for all your relationships. One for honesty, one for authenticity. One for how quick you are to apologise. Another for assertiveness.
I have been very busy recently filming my online course (Building Recovery) and finishing my book (of the same name). So I was wanting to get back to writing my Blog and thought to myself “what are the core principles that inform all my work with clients who want to recover from addictive lifestyles”? So I wrote down everything that informed my work, basically things that I would not contradict or stray from in any situation.
HARMONY