Topic Tuesday: Denial

Denial is not a river in Egypt. Denial is an insidious, often debilitating psychological defense mechanism. When you're in denial, you:

• Refuse to acknowledge a stressful problem or situation
• Avoid facing the facts of the situation
• Minimize the consequences of the situation

Denial is an unconscious process.

When we are talking about addiction issues, denial, can be deadly. I often work with clients that experience denial on various levels. One person may have difficulty accepting that he/she is powerless over alcohol, but is able to see just how meth is killing his/her soul. Another client may believe that his/her codependent patterns and characteristics are manageable and is oblivious to the fact that his/her relationship is over; job has been terminated due to sleeping with the boss for a promotion, and the bank account is empty. Denial!

Don’t let denial keep you from the path of recovery. Get help if you aren’t sure if you are experiencing denial. Most often it takes a leap of faith and a tiny bit of trust to allow a close friend, therapist, or member of a 12 Step program to highlight the denial that you just can’t face. You are not alone. 

Sincerely, 

Step One: The Power of Attending Meetings & Prayer

Battling addictions can be an exhaustive process that can leave you feeling hopeless and scared. The power of the programs of Alcoholics Anonymous, Codependents Anonymous, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, etc., provides hope and encouragement.  

Attending meetings may be scary at first, but once you sit down and listen to others share their courage, strength, and hope, you will come to see that you are not alone. Recovery doesn't have to be an isolative process.  

Opening up about your experience brings a sense of belonging among group members. Often times, group members meet afterwards for Fellowship at a local coffee shop or diner. Here, you can talk about who you are, where you're from, where you want to go, anything! Building connections with others opens new, healthier avenues. You will learn what it means to be a part of a community that is loving and forgiving. That's something that addicts don't always know is available.  

You may also find solace in prayer. Some may believe that "God" or "Higher Power" doesn't really exist or want to help, but that's the addict controlling the situation. You get to decide what type of relationship you have with a power greater than yourself. Till then, look to the Serenity Prayer or First Step Prayer for guidance.  

Serenity Prayer

God (Higher Power), grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.  

First Step Prayer 

Today, I ask for help with my addiction. Denial has kept me from seeing how powerless I am and how my life is  unmanageable. I need to learn and remember that I have an incurable illness and that abstinence is the only way to deal with it. 

Sincerely, 

Step One: The Core Symptoms of Codependence

It is my belief that all addictions are rooted in codependence. Codependence has been referred to as " disease of immaturity" and what this means is that individuals have emotionally stunted due to issues in childhood. Those issues in childhood could be a number of things including, but not limited to: 

1. Abuse and/or neglect 

2. Parental addiction 

3. Parental mental illness 
   
   

Basically, anything that might have prevented parents from showing a child the nurture that he/she deserved. As a result of not receiving the nurture, five core symptoms develop: 

1. Difficulty experiencing appropriate levels of self-esteem 

2. Difficulty setting functional boundaries 

3. Difficulty owning own reality 

4. Difficulty acknowledging and meeting own needs and wants 

5. Difficulty experiencing and expressing reality moderately.   

Addicted individuals who experience any of the five core symptoms of codependence seek out substances or processes to numb these symptoms. 

For example, Jenny grew up in an abusive home. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother was mentally ill. Jenny's father worked and required Jenny to stay home from school to care for her mother two to three times per week. Whenever Jenny would return to her high school, kids would make fun of her because they knew her mom was in and out of hospitals, and Jenny couldn't deal with the pain. Jenny came home from school one afternoon and took a bottle of Gin out of the cupboard and began to drink. Jenny's self-esteem was non-existent. She wasn't able to develop a sense of who she was because neither parent was available to tell her. She needed comfort, love, and security, but she had to settle for responsibility, obligation, pain, anger, and shame. Jenny began to drink every day, even those days she didn't get to go into school. Her father noticed his alcohol was missing, but was often too drunk to even speak coherently. Jenny just isolated herself in her room and began compulsively drinking and eating to number her feelings of inferiority, guilt, and shame. 15 years later, Jenny  is single, still cares for her mother and is over 400lbs. She stopped drinking 10 years ago, but was unable to manage her food consumption. Jenny wonders if Overeaters Anonymous would work for her, but is too ashamed.  

Jenny is codependent, alcoholic, and an overeater. My recommendation, get to a Codependents Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous meeting. The pain and shame of growing up in Jenny's family of origin has kept her emotionally immature. One wrong thing or perceived injustice, and Jenny acts out in her addictions.  

This is what the five core symptoms look like in action. 

Questions to Consider 

1. How was I treated as a child? 
2. Did I feel valued? 
3. How were my imperfections used against me?  
4. How might my addictions be related to my childhood?  

Wisdom Wednesday

" I enjoy an abundance of happiness."-Anonymous

I get to spend quality time with loved ones that don't have ulterior motives to take advantage of me or cause me any harm. That makes me happy. I watch tv with my husband and our pets and that makes me happy. I run a successful business. That makes me happy.

All the things that make me happy were once threatened by addiction. Today, I get to enjoy what I have and no longer have to crave the things that I don't need.

What makes you happy?

Sincerely, 

Step One: Powerless & Unmanageability

Admitting powerlessness is absolutely essential to breaking the addiction cycle, which is made up of five points:

1. Pain
2. Reaching out to an addictive agent, such as work, food, sex, alcohol, or dependent relationships to salve our pain
3. Temporary anesthesia
4. Negative consequences
5. Shame and guilt, which result in more pain or low self-esteem

For example, the workaholic who has low self-esteem (pain) begins to overwork (addictive agent), which results in praise, success, and achievement (relief). However, as a rule, family relationships and his personal relationship with God suffer terribly because of preoccupation with work (negative consequences). The result is an even greater sense of shame and guilt because of inadequacies, both real and imagined, which brings him back to point 1 in the addiction cycle. Now the workaholic feels compelled to work even harder to overcome his guilt. 

Understanding the addiction cycle is important because it helps explain why for both the Oxford Group and for Bill Wilson, the admission of powerlessness is the first step to recovery. Otherwise, we remain caught. If we rely on willpower alone, then the only thing we know to do is to escalate our addiction to get out of the pain. Step 1 calls us to do less - to yield, to surrender, to let go. - Serenity, A Companion for Twelve Step Recovery, p. 22-23.

Unmanageability looks different for each person. Life became unmanageable for me when I:

1. would abandon my job and pursue my addiction at all times of day and night.
2. hooked up with other people, leaving my husband at home wondering where I was and if I were safe.
3. couldn't make a decision that wasn't tied to whether or not I would get sex, attention, or "love" from someone else.
4. had unprotected sex because I stopped caring about whether I lived or died.

Unmanageability can take people to the extremes. I have worked with people that stopped eating because they believed themselves to be fat and thought starvation was their only option; people that had non stop sexual encounters till their bodies gave out, because they felt like crap and just wanted to feel wanted; and some even drank themselves into a black out, hoping to never wake up to deal with the consequences of their actions. Scary stuff!

The 12 Steps and all the anonymous programs are beneficial to breaking the addictive cycle and regaining manageability in people's lives.

Questions to Consider
1. How would you summarize the powerlessness and unmanageability of your life in the face of your addiction?
2. Describe any irrational or crazy set of events that have happened since you began you addictive behavior. Did you rationalize this behavior? If so, in what way?
3. Describe attempts that you have made in the past to control your addictive behaviors.How successful have they been? Do these attempts show the powerlessness that you have over your addictive behaviors?

Step One: The Facts

Step One: We admitted that we were powerless over our addiction-that our lives had become unmanageable.

In the rooms of recovery, I have often heard "The Steps are the Steps" meaning that The 12 Steps, pioneered by Alcoholics Anonymous, can be applied to any addictive process that one may be experiencing difficulty over.

Step One is our gateway to freedom. In this step, we have come to the conclusion that whatever our addiction is (alcohol, sex, drugs, relationships, shopping, masturbation, etc) we no longer have the ability to control ourselves. The substance or process has control over us. As a result of that control, our lives have spun out and are no longer manageable.

For today, ask yourself about your own addictive process.

1. What substances and/or processes do I feel no control over?
2. What consequences have I suffered?
3. Am I ready to admit that my life has become unmanageable?

Sincerely,