DISSOCIATION
Dec 20, from
“Strengthening My Recovery” daily reader
“Using a substance to alter the feelings is the second way to dissociate from feeling pain. The most easily available substances are alcohol, sugar, nicotine, and caffeine. BRB p. 87
Many of us came to ACA with addictions to drugs or alcohol. Others came with addictions to money, food, sex, or gambling. With the help of other 12 Step programs, we successfully worked on these presenting problems. But there were other seemingly more acceptable addictions that we picked as a way to mask our pain. In our quest for emotional sobriety in ACA, our feelings have to be available to us in order to locate the underlying trauma in our lives. Even if we’re participating in these more acceptable addictions like watching hours of TV each day, a nicotine habit that interrupts everything we do or excessive caffeine, our feelings are being masked.
If we continue to alter our feelings in these or similar ways it may be because the underlying trauma seems too scary to face. But to find true freedom for our Inner Child requires that our feelings to be accessible. We need to be “present” to work our program if we are to become our own loving parent, which means rejecting the role models of our childhood. We make a commitment that the abuse stops here! We allow ourselves to be imperfect and move towards our ultimate goal of being fully awake without reservation.
On this day I will be honest about what I may be using to numb my feelings. I will reach out for help so that I may find the peace I deserve.”
My experience:
Wow, mind blown!! A lot of us tell ourselves we are okay because we are not alcoholics or drug addicts. But what we don’t admit to, or even know, we are addicts. How many of us regularly watch television numerous hours per day. You get home from work, put the television on, and it does not go off until you go to sleep, sometimes it stays on after you have gone to sleep. How many of us, love cake, ice cream, pie, candy, etc. and most days indulge in those tasty items? How many of us cannot function until we get caffeine in us and readily admit that. You have withdrawal symptoms if you don’t have it, irritable, headache, etc. These are all addictions folks and they are used to mask some pain. Like it says above, we cannot have our feelings available in order to locate the trauma in our lives while we are actively pursuing these, and other, addictions.
Since this is the Holiday season where there is much merriment that includes food, sweets and alcohol, it would be unreasonable to attempt to curtail the intake during this time. I do hate the idea of New Year’s resolutions as they are rarely kept. So what I am putting out there is a New Year’s Challenge. In the next 17 days, I challenge you to identify those things that you are addicted to. I further challenge you that on January 7th you give up, or severely curtail, those addictions for 60 days. There is a replacement aspect to the challenge as well. You also have to identify what you will institute in place of. So, if you regularly watch 5 hours of TV per day, what will you do now with say 3 of those hours? Go to the gym, walk, read, make connections with friends, etc. If you regularly eat a box of cookies during the evening, what will you replace it with? Healthier snacks like carrots and hummus, cheese sticks, etc. Or decide that you don’t need any snacks at all. And if caffeine is your drug of choice, what will you replace it with. This challenge is for you to gain more clarity and be in touch with your feelings in order to heal yourself. This is a challenge of progress not perfection.
Here are the rules (if you can call them that): You decide what you want to improve on. You decide how you are going to improve (i.e. read more instead of tv, lose weight, walk more instead of snacking, etc). You decide what the measurement of improvement is (i.e. pounds lost, books read, cholesterol scores lowered, miles walked, etc.). Then provide me your name, what you’re going to improve on, and what the measurement of improvement will be. I will check in with you from time to time so see how you are doing and offer encouragement and ask for encouragement from you as well. To make it interesting, the first 25 people who join me in this challenge will receive a free copy of my book, “A Gladiator’s Journey.” On March 11 (60 days is actually March 8), for all those that provide me the information that you have completed the challenge and provide me information on how you did (i.e., I lost 10 lbs., I read 10 books, I walked 100 miles, etc.), I will put the names in a hat and randomly draw a name. The name that is drawn will receive $100, but all of us will be winners because we all will have some measurement of improvement!!
Please remember that this is a challenge of progress not perfection, so if you wanted to lose 10 lbs. but lost 5 instead, you improved. If you wanted to read 10 books but read 3 instead, you improved if your goal from where you are today is to be able to walk 1 mile in an exercise session, but you have gotten to the point that you can walk ½ mile, you have improved. Get it!! If you set a goal and meet it, that is awesome. I will be your biggest supporter in that. But the drawing will not be based on some measurement of perfection (meeting of a goal), to be included in the drawing you will just have to show some measurement of progress!! And I for one will by everyone’s biggest supporter.
Let me know who is going to join me in this challenge!!
Good Books to read during this challenge
The ACA “Big Red Book”
Al-Anon “One Day At a Time”
The Healing Journey – Daryl Quick
Recovery: A Guide for Adult Children of Alcoholics –Gravitz and Bowden
Recovery of the Inner Child – Lucia Capacchione, PH. D
The Book of Forgiving – Desmond Tutu
Just Mercy – Bryan Stevenson
The Audacity of Hope – Barack Obama
A Gladiator’s Journey – Brian Coates A