Recovering addicts often experience a big, empty hole in their lives when they first quit an addiction. Addictions usually grow larger over time. In the later stages of addiction, we may reach the point where our entire life and everything in it revolves around the drink, the drug, or the behavior.
People sometimes grow bored in recovery and wonder what they can possibly do to fill that void. Recovering alcoholics and addicts sit and stare at the wall instead of returning to the hobbies and activities they used to enjoy. Boredom can lead to relapse when we don’t give ourselves enough time to adjust to our new, healthier lifestyle.
There are many fun, exciting things we can do in recovery that do not involve drinking, using, food, or sex. We need to rediscover these hobbies and activities.
Some of us fall into nostalgic thinking. We fantasize about the “good old days,” and begin to glorify or romanticize the past. We remember the good times we had but forget about the problems our addictions caused.
We need to grieve the loss of our addiction just as we would grieve the loss of a loved one. Yes, we depended on it. We turned to it, and it was always there for us. But our relationship with our addiction was dysfunctional. In the end, the addiction took more than it gave. It deceived us and hurt us. It damaged our health, and may have robbed us of our freedom.
At first, sobriety can feel like a loss. The loss of our ability to control the way we feel. Yet with time, sobriety becomes an opportunity. An opportunity to regain everything our addiction took from us. An opportunity to create new relationships and new goals for our future. To dream in ways that we could never have dreamed while we were drinking, using, or acting out our addictive behaviors.
Recovery is the struggle between a part of us that wants to use and a part of us that wants to remain sober. We will never be cured. There will always be a part of us that wants to drink, use, or act out. So the key is to constantly strengthen the part of us that wants to stay sober, and constantly weaken the part of us that wants to return to those old behaviors.
Strengthening our sober side is a matter of going to treatment, AA/NA meetings, exercising regularly, getting enough sleep, writing about our feelings in a journal, asking for help from other recovering addicts, and engaging in our spiritual practices. In fact, anything we do that makes us physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually stronger will help us to remain sober.
Weakening our addicted side is a matter of avoiding the drink, the drug, or the behavior and the places where that behavior took place. We need to avoid the bar, the drug-dealer, old friends who continue to drink or use, businesses that sell pornography, strip clubs or brothels, fast food restaurants, or casinos where we spent money compulsively. We need to change the way we think about our lives. We need to refocus on the positive and give less power to the negative. We need to become more grateful for our many blessings.
It’s important to recognize when our addictive thinking is telling us its okay to drink, use, or act out “just one more time.” When our addictive mind tells us, “You don’t have a problem,” or that, “Your problems are everyone else’s fault.” Over time, we realize that everything our addictive mind tells us is a lie.
Relapse is more likely when we are stressed out or feeling weak. When the part of us that wants to use and the part of us that wants to remain sober are almost equal in strength. At times like this, we may feel like using one day and staying sober the next.
During these times of struggle, we need to do everything we can to strengthen the sober part of us. It might be time to go to an AA/NA meeting or talk with our sponsor, supportive family members, or friends. We may need to engage in healthy activities to refocus ourselves on the positive aspects of life. The more we encourage our inner self, the more effectively we can work our recovery process.
Process Questions
Have I relapsed on a chemical or behavioral addiction in the past?
How did it feel when I relapsed on a chemical or behavioral addiction?
Have I ever used a relapse as an excuse to give up? Have I ever used it as a justification to return to active addiction?
What good things will happen to me if I keep working to overcome my addictions?
How will my self-esteem improve if I stay sober?
Stepping Stones to Health
Relapse
-Try to identify where you are in the stepping-stones to health, and the next step or steps
you need to take.
_____ 1. I have relapsed on a chemical or behavioral addiction in the past, and I
quit trying to stay sober.
_____ 2. I have failed at recovery before, and I feel very discouraged.
_____ 3. I have had some success with my attempts to quit a chemical or behavioral addiction, but I keep relapsing and I’m not sure that I can ever stay clean.
_____ 4. I get angry with myself when I relapse, and I feel very ashamed or guilty.
_____ 5. I am beginning to realize that I can’t control myself. I am addicted to a particular substance or behavior.
_____ 6. I no longer criticize myself for relapsing. I learn from the experience, avoid the triggers that made me want to use, avoid the situations that led to my relapse, and press ahead with my recovery program.
Chapter 9 – Self-Sabotage
“People get comfortable with their lifestyle, no matter how negative
or painful it may be.”
-Jason Goodwin
Sabotaging ourselves means taking something in our life that is working or moving in a positive direction and intentionally messing it up. It is a habit that keeps us sick, keeps us miserable, but ensures that we don’t have to change or experience anything new.
People get comfortable with their lifestyle, no matter how negative or painful it may be. As a general rule, we don’t like change. Even when we discover that our addictions or behaviors are prolonging our pain. Chaos can become a way of life. Pain can begin to feel normal over time. If misery is all we have ever known, than happiness or success can seem frightening or dangerous.
It is easier to repeat our patterns than to change them. What is comfortable and normal according to the standards of how we were raised may actually be abusive or harmful to our bodies and our self-esteem. If we grew up in families of alcoholism or addiction, we may have learned that heavy drinking or drug use was the normal or even expected behavior. We may have grown up believing that we couldn’t possibly be alcoholics, because “everyone drinks to get drunk.”
Some of us learned to sabotage ourselves on a regular basis in order to keep ourselves down. This pattern seems to be more common in people who grew up in families of addiction and abuse. Over time, we began to believe that chaos was normal. We came to believe that everyone’s life was filled with abusive relationships, drugs, and alcohol. We learned to feel most comfortable when our lives were out of control.
Any attempt to become healthy is uncomfortable at first. There will always be a part of us that wants to return to our old lives and our old behavior. Our new routine can feel so strange or foreign that we may want to drink, use drugs, or sleep around again so we can revisit what we’re familiar with. We need to resist this urge.
Many of us who were abused as children or grew up in a chaotic home environment started drinking, smoking pot, or sleeping around in an effort to numb our pain. It’s important to remember that even our addictive behaviors felt uncomfortable at first. Most smokers will tell you they coughed, hacked, and felt sick after their first cigarette. But over time, they became addicted. The down-sides of smoking became less important than the high.
It can take years to get comfortable with the pain of addiction and abuse. For those destructive patterns to eventually feel normal to us, we had to adapt and adjust to them, just as we have to adapt and adjust to our newer, healthier lifestyle.
When we give ourselves the time to heal, our new, healthier patterns eventually feel more comfortable than the self-destruction of our past. I am currently ten
years sober from nicotine. My lungs are strong again and I no longer suffer from bronchitis. I feel so much better about myself and the direction of my life.
Recovery takes time. Real change always does. If you find yourself relapsing or sabotaging your new, healthier lifestyle, take heart. You can learn to recognize and reverse those self-destructive patterns.
What helped me the most was having a label for what I was doing. Calling it “self-sabotage” helped me to see this issue more clearly.
Over time, we begin to identify our own, sick beliefs about why we don’t deserve to be happy. Patterns of self-sabotage are often perpetuated by feelings of low self-esteem and a belief that we deserve to be punished.
As our self-esteem improves, we start to challenge those unhealthy beliefs and behaviors. We start to challenge our crazy thinking. We deserve to be happy. We do not need to sabotage ourselves and our lives.
Sabotaging ourselves can take the form of returning to the active phase of addiction. It can include isolating ourselves or neglecting our physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual needs. Sometimes we get into unhealthy relationships or stay in relationships that don’t work. We focus on the negative side of life, knowing it will make us depressed. We feel ashamed of our past and certain that our future will be the same.
Sometimes, we don’t allow ourselves to have fun. We feel that we have to be constantly working. Self-sabotage can take the form of neglecting our spiritual life or our connection with our higher power.
The opposite of self-sabotage is self-care. It’s not enough to stop hurting ourselves. We need to give ourselves the love, nurturing, and support that we deserve.
Personal Journal Entries
Entry #1: Ending Self-Sabotage
-I can heal or I can sabotage myself. What has made me want to sabotage myself in the past?
1. Anger that I had no control over being abused. I need to allow myself to feel angry about the abuse without hurting myself or others. I need to sit with my anger and allow myself to feel it. I must learn to release my anger in healthy ways, like exercising or hitting a punching bag. If I feel hurt, I need to cry and be aware of the pain I am feeling. I need to allow that hurt to pass through me and out of me. If I feel afraid, I need to allow myself to physically shake. If I feel sad, I need to let myself cry. These feelings are not going to kill me.
2. Over time, I began to feel comfortable with the pain of sexual abuse. When I sabotage myself, a part of me is trying to return to the way I used to feel. I need to allow myself to be uncomfortable with the changes I am making.
-What are some of the ways I tend to sabotage myself?
1. Isolation: I keep myself alone and lonely. This has been a sick means of recreating the feelings of abandonment I experienced as a child. By isolating myself, I punish myself for having been abused and perpetuate my belief that I don’t deserve to be loved.
2. Not taking care of myself: I stop taking care of my needs for food, sleep, exercise, or social activity. I neglect those needs out of self-hatred, and claim that I don’t care about myself.
3. Choosing or staying with partners who don’t love me: I choose partners that are emotionally unavailable, disrespectful, or even abusive. This reinforces my belief that I don’t deserve to be loved. It reinforces my low self-esteem. Even when I recognize that a partner has become abusive, I still cannot bring myself to leave them.
4. Focusing on the negative aspects of life, knowing it will make me depressed: I have often focused on the negative side of life. This has been an effort to make myself feel depressed, and has turned into another sick form of self-punishment.
5. Living in the past or projecting negative outcomes into the future: Instead of living in the present, I ruminate about all the horrible things that happened in my past. I imagine all the ways that I will be miserable and unhappy in the future. This keeps me feeling hopeless and depressed.
6. Not allowing myself to have fun: I avoid fun activities and do not allow myself to appreciate hobbies, games, social activities, work, and life. I try to punish myself for being a bad person.
7. Turning to cigarettes, alcohol, or other addictions: I use addictions to numb my feelings and sabotage my healing process. I hurt my body or abuse myself because I don’t like who I am. I don’t believe that I deserve to be healthy. When I shut off my painful feelings with addictions, I am preventing the changes I’m afraid of.
-What happens when I self-sabotage?
1. My self-esteem drops like a rock, because every form of self-sabotage is a form of self-abuse.
2. I start to feel hopeless and depressed.
I need to let go of my addiction to misery. I have used self-sabotaging behaviors to avoid feelings of anger and fear.
When I was abused, I survived by never allowing myself to feel angry or afraid. I could not show anger towards my abusers or they would have punished me by abusing me more viciously. I could not show fear because I never wanted them to know how deeply their abuse was affecting me.
I do not need to suppress my feelings of anger or fear anymore. If I’m afraid, I can sit and shake. If I’m angry, I can yell when I’m alone or punch a punching bag. I will not allow these feelings to destroy me from within. They are toxic, and they need to be released.
Process Questions
In what ways have I sabotaged myself in the past?
How does it feel when I sabotage myself? What feelings am I trying to cover up or avoid? What is the payoff for my self-destructive behavior?
How might my life improve if I were to stop sabotaging myself?
When I feel a lot of anger or fear, what could I do instead of sabotaging myself? (Go to a 12-step meeting, do some exercise, punch a punching bag, cry, spend time with my pet, sit with my feelings, spend time with friends, do some journaling, talk about it, etc…)
How has self-sabotage kept me from getting what I want out of life?
Stepping Stones to Health
Self-Sabotage
-Try to identify where you are in the stepping-stones to health, and the next step or steps you need to take.
_____ 1. Whenever I start doing well in life, I sabotage myself.
_____ 2. If I feel upset or am reminded of the bad things that happened in my past, I sabotage myself.
_____ 3. I realize that I tend to sabotage myself, but I don’t know how to change these self-defeating behaviors.
_____ 4. I don’t like it when I sabotage myself.
_____ 5. I want to stop hurting myself and making myself miserable.
_____ 6. I have identified some of the ways I tend to sabotage myself.
_____ 7. I have identified some of the feelings I experience when I sabotage myself.
_____ 8. I am exploring my feelings by journaling, talking about them in 12-step meetings, with others in recovery, or with my counselor.
_____ 9. I am learning that I need to feel my feelings instead of sabotaging myself.
_____ 10. I don’t sabotage myself as much as I used to, and I am learning better ways to express my feelings.
_____ 11. I can now identify when I’m sabotaging myself and stop these self-defeating behaviors.
Chapter 10 – Body Image
“Outside show is a poor substitute for inner worth.”
-Aesop
Survivors of sexual abuse often develop a distorted body image. This pattern appears to be more common in women than in men. Our western culture places a great deal of emphasis on feminine beauty. Most of the men I have spoken with do not feel this same pressure to look good.
Survivors of sexual abuse often experience a lot of pain. We are upset about what happened to us and we want to know what or who is to blame for the abuse. Some of us blame the abuser, which is the most rational and healthy approach.
Unfortunately, there are those of us who blame ourselves. This is both detrimental to our self-esteem and often leads to feelings of shame and guilt. In psychology, we call this an attribution error. As survivors, we blame our
own characteristics for what happened to us instead of the characteristics of an abuser.
Sometimes we imagine, “If only I hadn’t looked at him that way, he wouldn’t have come on to me,” or, “If only I had been a better son, she wouldn’t have molested me.” But in truth, we never had that much control.
We are good people. We do not deserve to be abused. What happened to us was not our fault.
Sometimes we blame our bodies for the abuse. If we were abused as children, we may come to believe that sexual predators are only attracted to pretty little girls or handsome little boys. We try to blame our appearance for the abuse.
Some adult, female survivors of childhood sexual abuse believe they have to look like little girls to be attractive to a man. They lose weight or try to reduce the size of their breasts and hips. They act and dress in ways that make them look younger. But healthy, adult men are attracted to full-figured, adult women.
Blaming our body for the abuse is illogical. It isn’t only pretty little girls or handsome little boys that are victimized by sexual predators. Handicapped people and the elderly are often taken advantage of sexually.
How is this possible? Why would a sexual predator want to abuse someone who wasn’t young and attractive? Because sexual abuse isn’t just about sex. It is also about power. The sexual abuse we experienced may have had very little to do with our bodies or our appearance.
Some of us blame our bodies because we are too afraid to blame the abuser. If our abuser was a family member, it may have felt easier or more comfortable to blame ourselves. Sexual abuse can destroy a family. When it is discovered that one member of the family is molesting another, that family is often ripped apart. For this reason, children often feel a great deal of pressure to keep quiet and keep the secret.
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