What I have found is frequently there has been a lack of clarity in the purpose of the first, fourth or fifth step. The first step identifies two areas: powerlessness and unmanagability.
Powerlessness relates to loss; such as the cost of alcohol and/or drug use, money, health, legal, or other losses. This should not be minimized. Most of the time the losses associated with addiction are the most significant losses in one’s life. That means when the person truly recognizes these losses, they go through a profound grief experience. One of the results of notgoing through this experience is what often is called self-defeating behavior.
Next is the fourth and fifth step. Sometimes it is looked at as a way to express and vent all of the resentments which have accumulated, and not much more. As I see it, from what I have observed, the most helpful to recovering people is using a few examples of resentments as a way of identifying the recovering person’s behavior pattern. Usually one or two types of behavior patterns are repeated over and over in a self-defeating cycle.
The other important part is during the fourth and fifth step process to identify your values and how the behavior differs from your values. The further the behavior is from the values the more it creates unconscious conflict, and the greater likelihood of self-defeating behavior.Obtaining and using a copy of
The Grief Recovery Handbook should be helpful. This was written particularly by recovering people for recovering people. Keeping a daily record of your behavior for two weeks, or more can be revealing, too. Make sure to record specific behavior,
nothow you are feeling. Finally, check out A.A. Back to Basics information.
Q 2. The All or Nothing EffectDear Ernie,By the grace of God I have been sober for twenty years. Even with attending meetings a few times a week, sponsoring others and doing volunteer work I still see addiction running rampant in my life. You see, it seems I have an all or nothing pattern in my life. I latch on to things with a vengeance and soon it overtakes my life.For instance, sponsoring women; for a period in my life I sponsored so many women that all I did was work and meet with other women. I loved it, was great for the ego, but I soon realized it was like my drinking. All I did was work and create ways to drink. When I realized the sponsoring was overtaking my life, I cut back and got more balance to my life.
Then, it was shopping, then reading, then exercise, and now volunteer work. What is this about? Am I correct in seeing it as an addiction issue? What can I do to keep things in moderation instead of living life like a pendulum?Sincerely,
Kathy
A 2. Kathy,
It sounds quite likely that you have a codependency problem. This may or may not mean much to you because the term has been used at the public level for so many things that the term has become somewhat meaningless.
For those who correctly assess and treat codependency, it has a very specific meaning. I tend not to view it as an addiction because I have found that many can change through education and do not need the ongoing support that is necessary for drug or alcohol addiction. But that may be more semantics than anything else; resolving the problem is important.For my own use in treatment I consider codependency as supporting other peoples pathology. Contrary to popular belief it is not a matter of helping others too much. An important part is the motivein helping. If a friend had a flat tire, you could help, and your goal was to get the tire changed, that is not codependency.If your concern was, “Oh that will be too stressful and she might relapse so I better help her”, that is codependency.In the last instance your job is not done when the tire is changed because you have taken responsibility for her recovery. So, the problem is trying to control the uncontrollable. It ends up being an external way of trying to protect oneself.After working in chemical dependency treatment for many years I believe asking a simple question which is revealing: Describe the goal of helping another person.
Normally, most people can describe the goal in one or two short specific sentences and it makes sense. A person with a problem will go on and on with vague generalities.I will give you another example of how codependents trap themselves without realizing what happened. I worked with a person in a treatment center that would answer the telephone and take messages for others.He would always end by saying, “I will have them call you.”
Then he would be in a terrible state if that person choose not to follow up on the call. This even started loud arguments in the unit. When we suggested he finish the call by saying, “I will give them the message,” he calmed down. Simple, but a serious problem for some.
Codependents have an abundance of stress in their life. Helping others is an attempt to avoid their own inner turmoil and remedy their own lack of emotional boundaries. If one doesn’t have adequate emotional boundaries there is no way of shutting out other peoples painful emotions. Then they experience overload.
An example of how a codependent might behave with a friend who has had a severe loss would be to avoid having the friend talk about the pain. That avoidance could be by distraction, indicating they should talk about something else or by justifying leaving, offering unsolicited solutions, and the busy, busy, busy syndrome. Which is an attempt to take care of themselves not the other person.
If you want a quick assessment of the amount of personal turmoil in a persons life listen to how much chaos is in their life. They will keep the external chaos just slightly above their internal
chaos as a defense mechanism. Some possible examples of that chaos might be, excessive shopping, gambling, credit card debt, etc.So, the lack of adequate boundaries is one of the primary problems with codependency. Codependents Anonymous states their purpose as that of improving your relationships.Where can you start on this problem? First, have you tried Alanon? Many times the older Alanon members are very helpful. There are many books written on codependency; a few are helpful. One of the most useful in treating codependency is Diagnosing and Treating Co-Dependence by Timmen L. Cermak. His books are focused on the clinical side, but they are right on target describing the necessary changes needed.
In following people who have made significant changes in their lives, one of the surprises was many people have benefited from reading, listening to, and using the information from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey. He doesn’t address the word codependency, but he does a remarkable job of addressing the issues.
Let me know if this has been of any help.
Q 3. Love Turns to Sour Grapes when Surrounded by Crap Heads
Dear Ernie,My friends noticed that when I first get involved with things I absolutely LOVE it, whatever it happens to be. A new man, a new job, a new friend, a new car, the list goes on. For the first few months I am enamored with IT, then after a few months the love wears off, and in the next few months I begin to hate it. Everything is wrong with it, so I move on. I never noticed this pattern until my sponsor pointed it out to me and then friends verified it when I spoke with them. My sponsor said to go to more meetings but I don’t see it changing how I feel about IT. I still get those hate feelings and I am going to meeting five times a week. BTW, I have been sober for three years.
Debbie
A 3. Debbie,
This reminds me of an A.A. speaker I have heard a few times. His name is Clancy I. He talked about moving to new areas and everything, and everyone was wonderful. In about six months he found he was surrounded by crap heads and had to move again.
You may be suffering from what is unceremoniously called a dry drunk. There have been a number of jokes circulating in twelve step meetings that give us examples of dry drunk thinking.
One of them: A man is out in the country late at night and has a flat tire. He finds he has a spare tire, but no jack. Off in the distance he sees the light of a farm house. On his walk to the farm house he starts thinking…They will be to bed before I get there or maybe they won’t want to help anyone in the middle of the night. His self-talk gets more and more negative.
He gets to the house, knocks on the door, the farmer comes out and says to the man, “How can I help you?”
The guy says to the farmer, “You can take your jack and stick it up your a#*!”
There is a serious point being made here. Many times a dry drunk is not understood. It’s important to know there are physical and psychological reasons causing a dry drunk. The medical experts in addiction estimate the physical healing period to be at least four years. Without going into a lot of detail I would suggest reading Under the Influence by James Robert Milam and Katherine Ketcham or Beyond the Influence by Katherine Ketcham.The physical part of the healing is the part that is most frequently ignored. All too often the quantity of the meetings is used to make up for a lack of quality in the step work. Check out A.A. Back to Basics either on the internet or, if available locally, attend the educational meetings. Regularly seeing a physician is important, also.In the next few weeks I hope to have some information regarding dry drunks on my web site Alcoholism Answers. Let me know if this is helpful.Ernie Hooker, CADC II, NCAC II
The other issue the first step deals with is the first recognition of unmanagability, or defects of character. Those that developed, or increased as a result of the damage from addiction.