I have been working on my 'bricks' in "A Course in Weight Loss". The 'bricks' are basically a 4th Step inventory. A great format though, I would recommend to anyone doing an inventory to check this book out. Anyway, the biggest character defect that has emerged this time around is fear. All my woes and crappy things I have done and continue to do boil down to fear and my reactions to and efforts to alleviate or numb myself to fear. Almost all the fears I have seem to be unfounded, unreal things to fear as well as the fears I share with everybody else of the human race, death, war etc. I still have a lot of the forgiveness work to do mostly with myslf though. I have already done a lot of forgiveness concerning others and the real or imagined slights they have wrought upon me.
I have come to the conclusion that all those with addicitions are not abnormal. In 12 Step groups there tends to be a lot of talk about,'us' and 'them'. I have even used the word 'normies ' to describe social drinkers and users. The natural human reaction and indeed any living thing is to avoid harm or at least lessen it, be that harm real or imagined. In my case and many others I have talked to, I use and drink to numb myself from feelings. Admittedly, this is a very dysfunctional way to do it but it is natural. I have made it a habit to try to control my body and emotions through outside substances or actions. I blame Western culture and one particular psychiatrist from my past who encouraged and reinforced this notion. I am not trying to deflect blame from myself, now that I know all that I know, I have no excuse for not changing my ways. I was led to believe in my early formative years and much of my adult life that if I took the right pill or pills I would be "OK". This mindset has become firmly entrenched in my mind and daily habits and proven the most difficult to let go of.
A lot to thimk about and a step in forgiving myself and letting my self off the meat hook for making mistakes and falling.
Well thats all I have for now, time to get ready to go to work. Wow, it feels really good to say that!!
Steve
I have come to the conclusion that all those with addicitions are not abnormal. In 12 Step groups there tends to be a lot of talk about,'us' and 'them'. I have even used the word 'normies ' to describe social drinkers and users. The natural human reaction and indeed any living thing is to avoid harm or at least lessen it, be that harm real or imagined. In my case and many others I have talked to, I use and drink to numb myself from feelings. Admittedly, this is a very dysfunctional way to do it but it is natural. I have made it a habit to try to control my body and emotions through outside substances or actions. I blame Western culture and one particular psychiatrist from my past who encouraged and reinforced this notion. I am not trying to deflect blame from myself, now that I know all that I know, I have no excuse for not changing my ways. I was led to believe in my early formative years and much of my adult life that if I took the right pill or pills I would be "OK". This mindset has become firmly entrenched in my mind and daily habits and proven the most difficult to let go of.
A lot to thimk about and a step in forgiving myself and letting my self off the meat hook for making mistakes and falling.
Well thats all I have for now, time to get ready to go to work. Wow, it feels really good to say that!!
Steve
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