Comfort and Healing Addictions

Art by Clifton Baker

I've been talking to a new Facebook friend recently. Michael and I, of course, ended up in a spiritual discussion. He suggested I research Bill Wilson. I did a quick Google search and saw that he is the guy who founded Alcoholics Anonymous and created the 12 Steps. 

I read the short version of the 12 Steps and stated I felt it should be revised and updated with information I have learned on my spiritual journey back to self. I thought maybe this is what my guides were asking of me.

As I was ruminating about it all, different syncs came in from women I respect and admire who have also been on journeys of self-discovery and growth. Amy posted specifically about addiction of all kinds being a form of escapism.

Brigit Anne McNeill posted a beautiful image and piece about self-discovery and self love. She talks about how worth it is to look at all the wounded parts of ourselves we avoid and give them love and understanding.

My daughter wanted to watch two shows on YouTube, one called  "Freaky Eaters" and the other is "My Strange Addiction". As I watched these various people who seem to be on public display as more of a freak show than anything, I clearly saw what they all seem to have in common.

Is it escapism? To some degree, but for the woman eating candy all day long and the twenty-year-old drinking 30 cans of cola a day, this was more of an issue of the repeated act bringing short term comfort and so they keep repeating the act over and over to reproduce that comfort sensation.

For the cola drinker, her family came to the United States when she was five and she had her first fast food and cola. That memory is her association and connection to a comforting and happy moment. Her comforter will likely bury her if she doesn't face what she isn't facing in her life.

Art by Mark Bryan

The woman eating sugar in different forms started eating a lot of sweet treats after she divorced and lost custody of her kids. She felt empty and lost.  A sweet treat lifted her temporarily, but she wanted that lift to stay and didn't want to face her grief, so she kept getting more and more comfort fixes to the point that real food with nutrition was left behind and all she consumes is sugary products.

Any number of activities, behaviors, things we consume can become destructive addiction in our lives. The food isn't inherently bad. For many people, a soda is a rare thing indulged in. Sweet treats are often reserved for special occasions and celebrations. It isn't consumed to a point of addiction and self destruction.

Addiction has been a huge theme in the clues and players I have been guided to, so when Michael started talking about the 12 Steps, I knew my guides were prodding me through him.

I even made a list of various people I had been guided to and their issues:

Kurt - drugs, smoker
Deryck - alcoholic (recovered), smoker (quit)
Laura - drugs of various kinds (recovered), smoker
River - drugs, smoker
Brandon - coffee, smoker
Keanu - work, work, work, smoker
Ava -  promiscuous, alcoholic, smoker
Jean - alcohol, prescription meds misuse, smoker
Me - coffee, smoker (quit)

Some of the other addictions I have encountered in others on this path have been sex, porn, drugs and more drugs, hoarding, food, gambling, etc.

I'm sure I could make an endless list but there was certainly a pattern of addiction for everyone I was guided to in one way or another and it all can be peeled back to that comfort feeling it gives us.

Smoke a cigarette to calm and relax after a stressful encounter.
Drink a cocktail to help you relax and give you the courage to engage with others.
Shoot up to let it all go and empty the mind.
Snort a line to help you force yourself to keep socializing even when you would rather go into seclusion but your job doesn't allow for that.
Pop a Valium to ease your anxiety.
Eat a sweet treat to lift your sadness.
Buy something from the internet or at the store because for a moment it feels like Christmas.

For a little while it feels good.
For a little while everything feels okay even if it isn't.

Comfort.
Comforters.
A warm blanket.

And then it fades.

Rinse and repeat.

And then you wake up one day to realize you have a real live monkey on your back...or maybe it is a gorilla. Maybe one day you realize you have become a slave to your addiction that seemed pretty benign at first.

"Feed me, Seymour!"

So you feed your little monkey monster over and over and over again and it gets bigger and hungrier until you either self destruct and die or your life as you know it completely falls apart to the lowest point and you are forced to rebuild.

You may laugh about coffee being listed as my addiction, but I had become a slave to coffee. I was drinking so much coffee that if I went without a timed fix, I would get a severe migraine...the kind that leaves you throwing up and unable to function. So any activities away from the house would lead me to wonder, "Are there any coffee places nearby so I can get my fix and not suffer?" I have given it up a number of times only to resume it later. It would start with treating myself when I was out with a latté and it would eventually lead to me just saying, "fuck it" and buying a bag of beans because it costs less.

I had a dream that showed me accidentally knocking over a coffee table that was precisely balanced. The side that didn't have legs had been propped up with a crutch that was cut down and I was struggling to get the table back up where it had been.

Why a table? Because tables are where we serve people. I serve people through sharing my journey openly and publicly.

Do you see what it was showing me? I am staying balanced by a partial crutch. It was a full crutch before and now it was only a partial crutch. All of which is true because I am trying to only drink coffee in the morning now. Maybe I will trade my now smaller monkey in for a cool breeze and lemon water eventually.

So now what?

How do we end our relationship with our monkeys for good?

One small step at a time, right?

But what steps do we take?

I think I will have to create a new blog post for my own ideas of the steps required to release our monkeys on our backs back into the wild where they belong.

For now I will leave you with this...

My new friend, Michael, said, "I think I'll stay with my higher power."

This was my response to him:

You ARE your own higher power. We all are.

God is within.

If you believe that you have all the power of your God within to heal your PTSD, why would you ever hand that power to someone else and say, "Here do it for me"? 

But you believe someone else holds your power and that, somehow, gives you comfort. When we take responsibility for our lives and everything we are creating in it, we no longer want to passively hand that power over our lives to someone else.

We no longer blame and say, "You did this to me." We say, "How did I manifest this situation and what am I supposed to learn from it?" 

Healer, heal thy self!

We are all healers capable of amazing healing on ourselves while simultaneously being inspiration to those who witness our transformation.

To be continued...