Actually I have no doubt about this, Most things I do to extremes and those extremes can be total obsession or total avoidance. I can swing between them on all things I pick up with - alcohol, drugs, relationships, sex, food, Internet, studying, and so on. I can be totally involved in the behaviour or substance or completely avoiding which is different from abstinence but at times can look very like abstinence.
And the avoidance I think can manifest differently with each of these modes. For example when I was using alcohol excessively it invariably was amidst lots of partying and being with people and wanting to act wildly and presumably using alcohol to give me the courage. Often I did things in the name of being drunk, as if that was an excuse to act badly and against my principles. I wanted to experiment. The thing is of course the experiments got wilder and wilder. Usually this involved men too. Sober I could not act anything but decently but drunk I could be very brazen. The drugs..... I was nearly going to say that the rugs started much later in life. That's true of cocaine. It was whilst I was in the psychiatric hospital I met someone who introduced me to cocaine. I loved it instantly and I wanted it all the time. This took me on a rapid spiral downwards. I spent a lot of money. Money actually that had been building up as I was being paid even though I was on long term sick leave. And being in a psychiatric hospital the money was just sitting in my account. Then suddenly it was all gone. My mum asked if I was using drugs. I denied it vehemently of course. But actually the drug taking had started earlier and was really on and off. I smoked dope when I was with MP and that gang. It was every night but I never really got much from it. I didn't want to be monged out I wanted always always always to be up and high and doing stuff. Having adventures was my addiction I think. But I needed a booster to give me the courage - always.
As for food well excess of course is over eating and starving is the complete avoidance. The thing is I always though of the starvation as the control. The problem is always that I cannot sustain the control and that is where the bulimia came in, in the form of laxatives. I can recall finding a pack in my mums cupboard. I think I was 17, no it must have been younger. My mum was away travelling and had given tickets to my dad and I to go to a cabaret show at Lakeside. I think I took a couple and it worked fantastically. I realised I could eat and get rid of the food instantly. Of course there were times when I got scared over the years of what I was doing to my body and in more recent years I have felt some strange internal effects. A lot of pain these days too. I realise I can no longer use them and so the over eating gets control. It' so difficult to lose that sense of satisfaction with gaining total control. But I no longer have it and need to resort to recovery suggestions. My way is no longer working.
With relationships and sex this is more complex. I have always wanted and felt I needed to be in a relationship to be anybody. Gosh there are so many different drives that I recognise I think it may be too complex to really get in writing. I feel as if I am an OK person when I have a boyfriend or partner. Without especially when I was younger I thought I was an oddball and unlikeable. I felt like the freak. Where this comes from I have little knowledge but some ideas. I do remember the taunting of other people who were friendless. And I also remember feeling left out because I was left out when my friends L and S had boyfriends. I can recall deciding to snog anyone even if I didn't like them so that I wasn't sitting there feeling like the gooseberry. Kids even used that word to describe the person left out - so there was a label for freaks like me. All of this was being absorbed by me. I can go into the theories of why it was so absorbable etc and why I should sit around whilst they were up to antics - blah blah blah. That is something else all together. Here I am just writing about the way I view my addictive behaviours. With relationships with female friends I wanted to be the one, the only friend and I would feel jealous through my insecurity if there were other friends. Then I was completely a loner. At home there would be me. I felt so lonely at times and yet didn't let anyone in. My mum would even say there were just us three, referring to her, my dad and me. Really there was just me. I was left on my own by my parents, they were at work when I got home from school and this was the case from a very young age. It wouldn't be allowed these days. Neglect I think it would be viewed as . But it was. There was no one to encourage me. I didn't learn to talk about things that were upsetting me or that I needed help with. I was independent, that's how I was brought up to be. So I was very headstrong with that too. Yet I was totally insecure. That makes sense with Bowlby's theory of attachment and Ainsworth The Strange Experiment.
So the complexities that I play out with relationships has escalated. I have felt in the past that with men, there has been a sort of pursuit and then having won the conquest, usually through sex, I enter into this relationship full on without knowing the person. Then gradually as I get to know them there is withdrawal emotionally and sexually. I get to a point where I cannot bear them to be with me. I think partially it has been to do with the inability to really communicate needs but also a gradual realisation that they are not the person I was hoping them to be. I can see this all in hindsight of course. The same can happen with female friends. Somehow it has been easier to run away from these female friendships as I have become so ensconced with the man, for example with men I have quickly started living with them either buying a property or renting together. And of course there have been lots of one nighters and short termers of a weird nature. And yuch I realise I was just a last resort fuck-buddy for A. Although we did meet a couple of times for a sort of date. Always drinking though! He was a committed bachelor as is often the description but there was what I would term extreme avoidance and probably something to do with sexuality but there I go again diagnosing and analysing someone else.
So the sex and relationships were very complex and intricate dances of addictive or avoidant behaviours and these are just a few. I think there is a more prominent or overriding pattern and little dances underneath that layer too.
All of these ways of being are merely ways of escaping reality, the natural emotional responses. I know it so clearly. And I have been peeling off each one and some minor ones along the way. Well a major one was smoking but there was never an avoidance of that, I was just full on from the day I started. Similar with cocaine. If I hadn't stopped by getting into recovery I don't think there would have been any avoiding it at all.
I have always said I oscillate between high and low, all or nothing. I am the little girl with the curl as my mum used to tell me, "when I am good I am very, very good and when I am bad I am horrid". I tried to be so so good for my dad but it was never good enough so then I would be "horrid". I would go completely against what I thought he would consider decent. I did it without him knowing and petrified that he should ever find out and of course over time it all became more and more apparent even though I tried to appear good. There were things I couldn't avoid him finding out even though I tried to veneer them as something good. And some things were uncovered despite my efforts to keep them away from him. And of course my mum was always in the middle trying to be acceptant - having to rescue me even when she too was horrified. I have a horrible feeling that she found the paperwork related to an abortion. I was very, very aware of her feelings about that. I wish I had had the courage to tell her I was pregnant. But I had abortions because I was too afraid of what they would say. I felt certain that I would be rejected completely. Instead of stopping the behaviours or becoming open and honest I ran and hid doing things even more destructive to me.
So having learnt somewhat about the addictive processes occurring in the brain and observing my behaviours, I really would like to make the changes. Whilst it may not be possible to completely alter the hard wiring, I am aware that the actions will have caused changes in the brain structures and chemistry it is possible to effect change back again but over a long period of time. Hence the addictions all need to go as one will keep the potential going as the brain is kept wired the same. It can takes years to really adapt the brain.
So it is a real desire for me to get some abstinence with food. Not avoidance and control (or rather the semblance of..) but certainly away from out of control with over eating. I want help though as I cannot do this by myself. However I have no time to get to OA. They say going to any lengths is what it takes and perhaps I can use the rooms of AA. But it also requires identification and somewhere to fully offload and find out how others have done it. There are techniques of course that are shared across the recovery methods. But its the identification and addiction specific as there are little quirks with each.
E has said that perhaps we can help each other. I like that idea but also not as she tends to be restrictive and I just feel gross beside her. Plus she is so beautiful. I am sure though we can help each other somehow. Tone is working FA and seems to be really in recovery with this. Looking great and seems to be feeling great.
M is on the Dukan diet and I find this extreme and severe control and so unhealthy and restricted. She is losing weight and feeling good about that. Extreme measures and controlling and not for me. It is working for her especially as she has stopped smoking as well and the increasing body size would have been a trigger to start smoking again. Good for her. I am truly pleased for her for getting through this.
Me - I need to eat three meals per day regardless. I find studying such a trigger to eating. I need to break the pattern I have adopted of snacking all day long. I take exercise when I am able and wish to maintain that. When I am menopausal that is not as easy but I continue anyway. I NEED HELP PLEASE!
Anyway the question to myself was "am I an addict"? I can answer that whole heartedly that I am! Without any doubt this is me. Whether that means I am an alcoholic or drug addict or whatever addict, I am an addict. Internet soon crept in - grrrr. And then this label thing creeps in. There is a sort of kick against being labelled. I spoke with Dr G very briefly about this as I got the impression that when I used the term addict recently about a client I thought I saw hims shudder or cringe or something. I asked him and he said that diagnosis is necessary and not a label. He went on to say that often people use diagnosis as a label and therefore assume that they know that person as a result. Diagnosis in from Latin with nosis meaning knowing and dia referring to through and from this he says that a diagnosis is a moving hypothesis and that's all it is. He says that he can work form months before he feels there is a diagnosis he can make and he never ever thinks he knows as there can be a changing to this diagnosis for example the affect of someone can change as with depression or bipolar. The diagnosis is not set and therefore not everything is as a result of the diagnosis. Actually I am adding my interpretation and ideas to this so he didn't say all of this. This is what I have taken and developed.
So not everything I do is addictive or because of addiction. I need to be cautious of addictive behaviours because they can strengthen and colour the way I think about people, places and things, i.e. life. There is a distortion though that can be a multiple of other influences, environmental or societal, my own history, as well as biological. I am wholesome in my addictive behaviours or attitude and outside of them too. All of this makes up the person I am. But removing the behaviours enables me to look at life and start working out better ways of managing my thoughts and emotions as I go through my day.
It's all so different without them as a blanket to hide behind and avoid more important things - well more important to me these days.
So here we are my thoughts on musings on addiction.
What I do think is that all these things can be normalised. I choose not to use drink and drugs because actually they are addictive substances and could lead me easily back to addictive ways. Food however and relationships are not addictive in themselves and so there is a way of finding a healthy balance and way to be in them. The variety of foods does not help with obesity as I have learnt and boundaries in relationships so that I remain me create healthiness regardless of whether there is THE ONE or many. I have a number of friends that are all valid in my life. I realise that there are probably female biological elements that lead to the desire for the man to be loyal and practice fidelity. The evolutionist theory makes sense to me. And yet it also makes sense that men would naturally want many partners to spread their genes. Is the concept of staying with one partner a concept from piety or religion. The Ten Commandments are supposed to be from God. How I interpret that story is that these commandments come from the inner moral standings of being human. Philosophers philosophise about where morals come from. So here we are with commandment number 7 - Do not commit adultery. And yet people do time and time again. Is it neediness within them of variety? Does boredom set in? Is it an inability to be able to communicate? Or is this just unnecessary restraint of something natural? The Coolidge Effect which made me chuckle.
President Coolidge and his wife were visiting a farm. Taken on separate tours Mrs Coolidge remarked upon the cockerel enquiring if he had sex every day.The answer of course was yes and she asked that this was pointed out to the President. As he was watching the cockerel he asked if it was always with the same hen. The answer of course was no!!
I know this point of view would be controversial amongst women. Indeed it is for me. I am a woman and of course wish to be secure with my man. If I were ever to find a man I would wish to commit to. I have wanted to commit but always as a way of ensuring the relationship not because I want to commit to that man. Then as I learn about them I have to undo the commitment which of course is not commitment at all.
I admire my clients husband. He did wrong early on in their relationship and through thick and thin i sticking with her now. He has paid a high price for his infidelity. Especially as she is is so vile in her addiction and vitriol. And currently seemingly has no desire whatsoever to make changes in attitude and behaviour. However she says she is determined to stop drinking so you never know. But a dry drunk is very unattractive. I feel for the daughter who was the innocent sufferer n this and she needs help. I feel sad for the husband as he is paying this price over and over and did not know that he was going to be dealing with an addict and all that brings to the relationship. However his commitment is commendable and I am not sure I understand if there is a line to be drawn where commitment can be broken. An issue for debate. No one has time for these debates. I wish there were readers of the Blog not just by-passers who would debate the ideas and questions I have. I welcome strong opinions as well as open discussions (I try to stay open-minded and have to practice this as I can be very opinionated in my fears).
Well good study avoidance when I need to have my head down with this very demanding assignment marked as an exam!!
Sure to be back
Bliss
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