End this and all addictions end

The addiction guru(s) that I follow teach that it's not possible to be an addict without first being codependent.

The Common Denominator to all Addictions:

Drug
Alcohol
Food
Sugar
whatever...

The one thing that has to be present... and without this there CAN BE NO ADDICTION IS:

Self Pity

unconscious self pity that is.

Not your garden variety, run of the mill, "surface" self pity.

But a specific type of built in self pity.

What do I mean?

The PRESUPPOSITION of self pity, it's built into your world view, more than likely your world view, the lens through which you view the world...

the fish bowl to the fish (technically this is your paradigm)

you cant not have a paradigm, you must have what Tony Robbins calls a
Global World view, all incoming data is sorted against this, it's your parameters,

(for example a computer's hard drive is at it's core, simply intervals, however for those differences, those intervals to make sense, you have to have a starting point...
a reference point)

That world view presupposes that life dealt you shitty cards and you're somehow entitled to a special deal...

World views, Global ones, the way Tony Robbins describes them are characterized by the following type of statements:

-Life is...

-People are...

-...screw them before they screw you

-...give em an inch and they'll take a mile

these presuppositions are inherited, you didn't choose them, you just heard your parents say this crap and you just took it for granted...


REMOVE The self pity and addiction just vanishes

effortlessly
instantaneously

Fire cannot exist without two things:

Fuel
Oxygen

remove the oxygen and the fire is immediately snuffed out

remove the unconscious self pity and you've no reason to want to get high

there is no longer any will power to deal with... there is simply no more interest in getting high

==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

Sex Addiction, Crack and ED

For male crack smokers from the 70's generation, crack has more to do with the shame of not being able to get hard (or hard enough) to succesfully have sex...

Erectile Dysfunction, or E.D.

I wrote an article on another of my blogs: RepairManual4SelfDestructiveBehavior.blogspot.com about this...


There are two kinds of ED, you can't get hard at all OR
you can only get hard enough to piss yourself off


So what do you do when the sinking sensation... the devastating concept that all of the sex you're ever gonna have is past tense?

You wallow in self pity.

What happens when you take the very first blast?

All you can think about is getting laid... and you dare not humiliate yourself with a date with a 'functional woman', so what do you think of (the use of the word 'think' is really more like stinkin thinking)???


You think of finding yourself a crack ho.

http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com/2008/05/erectile-dysfunction-and-crack-smoking.html

more coming soon on this topic, I've lots to say about it and not much free time to post...




==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

Why some men smoke crack? ED

From an article I wrote on RepairManual4SelfDestructiveBehavior.blogspot.com


Many men who smoke crack, well the ones that are from the 70's generation, the ones that are 50 something, smoke crack because they're sex addicted... Roughly 66% of all men over 45 have some form of Erectile Dysfunction, they either can't get hard or they don't get hard enough... or have a short fuse.

For many men, the first sensation they get when they take the first blast from crack is that all they can think of is SEX, for me, it's an overwhelming obsession that takes over completely when I exhale the very first blast.

I'm a recovering incest survivor, I'm dissociated, which means:

I'm not the first little boy that my Grandfather was caught with AND I don't remember anything from age 5 until age 10.

My sex abuse started when my parents separated, my Dad (who was an orphan) was drinking heavily, my Mom took us and my brothers to live with her parents. My Grandmother was killed on my 10th birthday... my perpetrator (GrandDad) moved away soon afterwards and it was like I came out of a coma, I was weird... my body was chronologically 10 but emotionally I was still 5.


I don't have any recollection of sex abuse from those 5 years but it appears that I associated sex, sexuality, love, being sexually desirable with my entire self worth.

ie:

If a women desired me sexually, I was worthwile, if she cheated on my I wasn't "worth the paper I was printed on"

This is irrational, but the tremendous power associated with those emotions overpowered me.

in short, once you go years with out being able to have sex succesfully, and you get your hydraulics back... it's like you have a second chance to be a man, your virility comes back...

for years you thought ALL your sex life was PAST TENSE, and now you get another chance!

crack whores (a terribly insensitive, sexist, degrading way to look at women who are as addicted as you are... if, as a man, if you could trade sex for crack you might just do the same) crack ho's are easy.

If you party with women who smoke crack... it's probably the only chance you have of getting laid.

more on the article on my other blog:

http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com/2008/05/erectile-dysfunction-and-crack-smoking.html





==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

We already F*cked up...

I'm often amazed at the simple reason many people spend their whole paycheck on crack... to the point that they get evicted.

Why would we do that?

Most of the time it's because, internally... we've come to the erroneous conclusion that we've already fucked up.

The rationalization , with slight variations, goes like this:

We've committed some gigantic error, lost our drivers licence, we've got a felony on our arrest record, we've contracted some kind of STD...

we've gotten fired from a job, we live in a small town that every one knows about our messed up reputation...

The self destructive behavior comes from an internal decision.

This internal decision usually is like an iceberg:

the part that is conscious is the 10% of the iceberg that's above the water
the part that is unconscious is the 90& below the water.

Our unconscious is a LOT bigger than we are.

it includes beliefs that are 'woven into' the lens that we view the world through.
Tony Robbins calls these beliefs: Pre-Suppositions, Global Beliefs, the Paradigm we live in (or inherited from our family of origin)

They are characterized by the following (internal) statements:

"Life is..."
"People are..."
"Screw them before they screw you"
"...the rich get richer and the poor get poorer"

let's take that last one:
That statement is based on the media, and the circles you travel in.
The media is DEMANDING a recession, and they won't let up on the news stories that claim our economy is going down the tubes.

The circles you travel in?
face it, Hockey players don't hang around chess players.

Take your 6 closest friends and average their incomes...
yours will fall within that median.

WE Smoke till all our money is gone because internally we've just given up.
We already fucked up, so why bother.


Future posts coming on this whole presupposition concept, it's based on the science of N.L.P.
Neuro Linguistic Programming

in NLP, the idea is that all we can hold in consciousness is 7 plus or minus 'bits' of information, 7 'chunks'

we do not consciously think to breath or command our heart to beat, or balance while we walk...


==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

Frederick County Health Department Project 103

I post to my blogs as someone who knows a bit about the subjects concerning addiction/ recovery/ codependency/ love (sex) addiction.

I know a bit about this because it takes one to know one...

I'm a:

-sex addict.
-love addict
-have had major problems w/ ED (that happily are correctable!)*
-am a dissociated sex abuse survivor
- have been struggling with crack usage for 4 years now
- have been substituting addictions for decades now, food, sugar, overtime (100 hrs a week), sex, masterbating, and so on)


I've extensive success with:

building functional boundaries (no small feat for a codependent, this took years... no a decade to get a working handle on)

Boundaries are:

The single most important task to accomplish for a lasting recovery that doesn't equal what 12 steppers call- 'Dry Drunk'

which is to say ending the substance abuse but NOT ending the underlying cause of addiction.

I'm a published author on the subject, people all over the world bought my pamphlets (downloadable ebook form), they've emailed me with thanks... even referred to me as "Doctor Dave" (I'm NOT a doctor, do NOT have any sheepskin, I'm just a shumck who had lot's of good help from my Mom (LCSW and retired administrator for one to the State of Louisiana's substance abuse centers), some really great author's, lecturers, and philosophers, and I believe God's help, the 'spirit's help when I asked for it.

Overwhelmingly the purchasers of my work were drug councilors and LCSW's (Licenced Clinical Social Workers), and even been told my work was being used as the curriculum to teach drug counselors! (that one swelled my Ego quite a bit, and spawned much irony as I was still using the whole time I was writing/ editing and publishing)

Having said all of the above... I concede this:

I still can not do this by myself.

Boundaries are NOT enough (that's probably going to be my next book/ pamphlet)

Self destructive behavior is:

-bigger than we are
-unconscious to us

because of that, it's kinda hard... in a way

the fix is easy enough

The fix entails NO struggle at all
it's instantaneous
it's even effortless

it's a gift of grace (insert link to my short article on Grace here)_

really, no shit

what's elusive about it is that it IS unconscious

The no struggle, effortless, instantaneous part is most definitely the opposite of virtually every accepted recovery concept by the way.. I DO have a sound argument to support my case, but that's gonna have to wait for a different post

in any case... I just signed up for Frederick counties out patient rehab: Project 103


I can't do this by myself... even though I know all this shit
even though I've accomplished almost what Buddha accomplished all by his self
(OK, I relied on hundreds of hours of Tony Robbins and John Bradshaw audio tapes, scratch that, it's probably thousands of hours, lets see, dozens of philosophers, and much credit given to the local Frederick County library's Great Courses books on CD about Philosophy and the Philosophy of Science


I just surrendered, will keep you posted

Love, David
==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

Surrender and Obeying God

For the vast majority of addicts seeking recovery the most dispointing realization of AA and 12 step methodolgies have as thier centerpoint: God, specifically, God has the power to 'fix' you and you as an individual, are powerless.

This immeadiatly turns off most people.

The issue is surrender.

I subscribe more closely to John Bradshaw's/ Unity Christ church/ Wayne Dyer/ Depak Choppra/ Course in Miracles theology.

Most main stream christian theology tends to concentrate on Obeying God, the presupposistion being that we "just ain't no dang good on our own"

I've not posted on this topic for over a year, and have a lot more to say soon, but for now I'll leave you with this:

The same agnostics (fence sitters, people who basically believe in God, but leave the issue alone because it's just unfathomable/ overwhelming/ conflicting and confusing) the same atheists and agnostics that object to Obeying God Obey the law of Gravity every second of every day (even while thier sleeping) and that doesn't seem to piss them off.


Surrender only looks like surrender when we view our lives and reality through the 'lens ' of our perspective

Time is an optical DE-lusion
Eienstien

There is no mass, only energy

more coming soon... I've got to find a public defender

(would you really listen to a drug counselor/ someone prosteltizing that never smoked crack??? it takes one to know one)
==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

We need structure

As addicts we tend to revolt from authority, most of us do anyway...

Structure is something we hate.

Well, it's also something we need.

Good Fences make Good Neighbors
-Robert Frost.

Normal (not addicted people) are comfortable with structure,
our distaste for it is understandable, but misguided.

We all have boundaries, our skin is where our bodies end
and everything and everone else begins.

Our emotional boundaries are where what's appropriate for
us and what's appropriate for everyone else begins & ends.

Pia Melody speaks of Intellectual boundaries (emotional
ones are bundled together with the intellectual boundary)
and physical boundaries.

It's easier to find your physical boundary, just have
someone walk up to until you get uncomfortable.
Once that person gets close enough for you to feel
"crowded", they're in your 'space'...

You'll tend to back up a bit, at least you'll put
more of your wieght on the heels of your feet.

Boundaries are the epidermis of your sense of self.
They are the container for your sense of self.

You cannot wiegh self esteem, it has no specific
gravity, neither does a daydream or any other
thought that pops into your mind.

You can't keep self esteem without a box to keep
it in, boundaries are that box.

When you don't have *good* boundaries, you can't
even tell what the hell we're talking about...

*who is to say what a good boundary is? for our
purposes just say functional boundary)

If you guilt or are guiltable, you have a *hole*
in your boundary.

Bad or less than functional boundaries are not
always cut and dried, you can be selfish on
some areas and not in others. You can be
manipulative with some people (say co workers),
but that doesn't automatically correlate to
you being manipulative with everyone.

Structure is useful, if you're only comfortable
with less than functional boundaries cause that's
all you've ever known, cause your parents only
taught you that.... structure is gonna seem like
cod liver oil, it's gonna taste bad.


For an addict, it can be a useful strategy,
temporarily, until you can get comfortable with
boundaries and structure... to have someone else
hold your money when you get paid.

This is NOT a fix.

This is NOT being responsible.

this IS training wheels on your tricylce.

I knew a guy, a real asshole, a wife beater,
a hard core crack addict, the brother of a
friend of mine... he did this and it did
impress me:

Once you get paid, before you even get
tempted to fuck up, get a money order for
your rent or car payment or whatever,
then mail it off to your self.

Binge on what's left.
You're a addict.
You were gonna do that anyway...

but this way at least you're not gonna
smoke your rent and get kicked out on
the street again.

This way you wont have to be embarrased and
ask your children (again)to loan you enough
money to keep a roof over your head.

We're gonna have to LEARN how to treat
ourselves with respect.

This is a LEARNED behavior.

As addicts we have little or no expirience
with treating ourselves with respect.

It's gonna take practice...

How long did it take you to learn how to walk?

get my drift?

More coming, I don't have a cocaine hangover
anymore...

Oh yeah, take vitamins, the crack sucks em out
of your system.... and remember to drink lots
of water, just because you're still using
doesn't mean you can't take baby steps to
getting better.

note to self, find that post on Grace on which
ever of my other blogs has it... it's probably
on more than one of my blogs.

David Bruce Jr.
Frederick MD
http://victimbehavior.blogspot.com

http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com

http://endselfdestructivebehavior.com
==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

detox first... for free

When you're trying to quit... most of the time we just try to cut down.

The rationalization is, "I don't gotta QUIT, but I am doing too much".

What is the definition of addition?
For example... lets take food addiction or sex addiction...

What are you gonna do? be celibate?

NOT

stop eating?

you'd die of course.

The pure definition of an addiction is:

When you're doing stuff that has negative consequences... and you do em anyway.

OK, we're talking about Crack here.

Any is too much.
But you're not really gonna do that. are you?
For most of us, not the first time.

Cigarettes are like this too.

People seldom quit the first time.
They try to cut down.

I could preach the same shit to you as every one else does...
but that's not really gonna do you much good.

OK, lets detox first.

In AA or NA, the 12 step model says this:

Just for this 24 hours

OR 24 minutes.

break it down to something you're likely to handle.

And what can you do while you're doing this to help?

Water, Walk, Sweat, Sleep.

Water?
yep, it's the elixer of life, it cleans out your liver, flush all that toxic shit out of your system.

Drink an uncomfortable amount of water.

And if you drink coffee or soda... drink at least that much water to replace the coffee/soda, they are diuretics...

Tap water often tastes bad. I used to live in Washington DC, ten years ago, DC had a bacteria alert or warning... the aqueduct that runs under MacArthur blvd is about 100 years old. Baltimore water is hard, and tastes like chlorine. Here in Frederick, I live about 500 feet from the Monocacy Water treatment plant...

So what do I do?
Walmart has cheap water filters, you can get a Brita (brand name) OR a generic DuPont water filter for under $10

Walking and Lymph Glands.
HUH?

We all know that we have a liver and 2 kidneys and that their job is to filter out waste... did you know that your Lymph Glands are your bodies "Bilge Pump"?

They're activated ONLY by MOVEMENT, moving the largest limbs in our bodies (our legs) will pump out shit from our system... we're supposed to walk 10,000 steps a day. That's 10k paces, roughly 2.5 feet or (I think) 3 miles a day to get both aerobic benefit and pump out your "bilge pump".

Sweat.

Did you know that your skin is an organ?
On average it weighs 20 pounds... and it does more than just hold your muscles and veins and shit.

It's job is waste removal... Alcoholics smell like liquor even when they don't drink.
It's fall here in the eastern US, so it's gonna get cold, take a sauna or something...
sweat is your friend when you're detoxing.

Sleep

don't need to say much about that, get lots of rest, you need it.

I wrote this so you can get 50 or 60 days clean before you fuck up again.

you can do this a couple times before you actually get to a place where recovery work can begin.

At this point anything I said is just gonna bounce off.

Subscribe to this blogs feed, there's buttons all over the place to sub to.
Sub to the feedblitz and get blog postings in your email and I'll walk you thru the rest...

Add this blog to your Google home page or something.

Stay tuned
peace

David Bruce
Our Ego & how it gets us in trouble
http://www.blogger.com/profile/1464382

Categories: rationalization, addiction, Crack, quit, lymph+glands, Detox

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==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licensed counselor if you're in crisis.

Withdrawal & Internal Self Talk

Every time I've quit smoking, the first couple days (if I've been smoking a lot) my muscles ache. This passes soon though.

In about 3 weeks or so, the cravings leave...
I begin to think I'm out of the woods...

Invariably, after a few months of 'being a choir boy', my thoughts of 'indulging because I've done so well' creep in to my thoughts.

The rationalization is that I've made some critical amends, fixed a lot of what I'd screwed up by being irresponsible with money/time/ you name it (when I was using)...


I begin to think that I've somehow *Earned* a guilt free indulgence.

AA would call this 'stinkin thinkin'

My crack using friends also report something similar to this 'I've been a good boy, I've earned it' syndrome.

I've found that my sobriety depends a lot on what I say to myself, internally.

Remember the movie - "Austin Powers, The Spy who Shagged Me" with Mike Myers?
There was a scene where Austin is unfrozen and says:
"I'll bet she shags like a minx!"
Then this discovery:
"I've got no inner monologue"

Well, we all have an inner monologue... This is what tells us *we've earned a guilt free indulgence*

Gotta watch your inner self talk, did you know we all have kinda split personalities inside your head?

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Categories: rationalization, indulgence, Stinkin-Thinkin, AA, split, personalities


==========
These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licensed counselor if you're in crisis.

Relapse or Slip- what you tell yourself makes a difference

Relapse or Slip?

How you define a relapse or a slip makes a huge difference.
As addicts we tend to denigrate ourselves, don't make it so easy to kick yourself, you're already too good at that.

Self Talk... Addiction Self Talk more precisely.

What you say to yourself determines what you do with yourself.

Have doubts about that?

Sit at a bus stop, you're the only one there... if no one is watching, you don't have to have your defenses up. Now let someone sit down next to you. All of a sudden, you wont scratch your ass, you wont pick your nose, you're now in 'political mode'.

What do I mean by political mode?
What kinds of things do you NOT want this stranger to see you do?

Now you're concerned with the 'politics' of what you want that person to see, what do you NOT want that person to know about you?

Now what kinds of self statements are going on in your head?


The article is called: Relapses and Slips, remembering and forgetting

Neuro Lingustic Programming is an offshoot of hypnosis, it's a revolutionary type of hypnosis... As addicts, we need to monitor our self-talk and make it positive.

See this article I wrote titled: Fasting for your mind

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Categories: NLP, hypnosis, relapse, slips, crackcocaine, addiction


These articles are for informational purposes only. Contact a licenced counselor if you're in crisis.

Crack Addiction sucks ass... it takes one to know one

It takes one to know one.
I used to snort cocaine, then I had my incest flashbacks...

Don't remember much from 1963 to 1968, they call this dissociation.
That time frame was my 5th birthday (the day Kennedy was shot) until King's assasination... It was such a fog that I wasn't even aware that I had a gap in my memory.
I truly didn't know that everybody else could remember that much of their childhood.

Didn't know who my teachers were

Don't remember what I got for Christmas

Don't remember where I went to school

My perpetrator moved away when I was ten.

I stayed sober for 6 years after I had my flashbacks... then my Dad died

that's all I got time for tonight...

for now, just visit my other blogs:

http://victimbehavior.blogspot.com

http://repairmanual4selfdestructivebehavior.blogspot.com

http://politicsandvictimbehavior.blogspot.com

My hobby... the fair tax

http://dumpsterdiving4instantcash.blogspot.com

http://quitsellingim.blogspot.com