Addictive Thinking

The mind is strange and powerful thing. Mine is a beautiful whirlpool ever flowing ever cascading against the rocks of the world. Filled with creativity, wonder, love hope, compassion sadness, sorrow and despair. It who I am, its how initially process life and try to make sense of the world around me.

Sometimes my mind lies to me, it convinces me that's certain things are absolutes. That my every whim and desire is just and true.That I deserve, that I'm entitled to abandon the responsibilities of life, and dam the repercussions, I want it , I need it.

I'm talking of course about unhealthy coping mechanisms, call it dependency, call it addiction, call it a character flaw or acting out! Call it whatever you want. For me it's things aren't going my way, so a deep dark part of me wants to run and hide, to escape, to be numb. Narcotics, gambling, TV, fantasy, food, and other people. These are just some of the ways I've ran from who I am and what I feel in life.

Today is different, today I don't consciously run anymore and if catch myself running I do my best to stop. Facing my true self is the most difficult journey I've ever been on. Its exhausting, draining, completely terrifying. Its also enlightening and the most worthwhile thing I've ever done.

My god is this process difficult though. Change is incredibly hard for me, I fight it everytime to the bitter end. Each new behaviour or unhealthy coping mechanism has its own, and at the time seemingly bulletproof set of justifications. All wrapped of in a lovely cloak of denial. When I break through these, I look back and wonder how I ever belived these lies. Denial is terrifying thing. Truly I have lost sleep worry about it. Its also a excruciatingly sad and frustrating to watch denial at work in a loved one. It's like a disease running rampant in their mind, and your powerless to stop it, you may point the path of truth to them, but they need to be the ones who take it.

Why is it so difficult to be on this path of truth? And furthermore once on it why is it that I and others fall off it sometimes. The AA literature suggests that there is strange and sick comfort in staying in a familiar place, either physically or mentally. Even though I hate everything about this place and how it's affecting my life. Fear of change, of the unknown keeps me stuck.

For me certainly fear is the unconscious drive behind all of this. "Unconscious drive" not choice! I didn't wake up one day and decide to "oh I have some free time this evening, what unhealthy self-destructive activity can I squeeze in" No hard as it may be to believe looking in from the outside I wasn't fully aware of what I was doing. I had faint glimmers of clarity of course, but the power of denial and the fear of the unknown squashed them quickly.

I needed help, I needed some thing outside me to show the way. To point the path. I had that and still do. Say what you will about people, but they love to put in their 2 cents. For me a second very important component was needed. Pain. Without pain I do not learn, I will not change, I will not self reflect. It is my greatest teacher. Pain forces me to look at myself, my thinking and my actions. If gives me the opportunity to change, and gives me the gift of choice.

Above I spoke of "Unconscious fear driven self destruction" and how I had no choice in the matter. With outside help and pain I become self aware of what is happening. Its no longer Unconscious and finally I get to choose to love myself or destroy myself. It's an easy choice on paper right? I wish it was so easy in practise, it takes alot of hard work and very small progress. It's feels like an impossible battle against myself. Sometimes I want to give up and choose the familiar sick comfort of self destruction, sometimes I still do. However two steps forward and 1 step back is still progress. Today is a gift I choose it