Addiction, Defined 1

So you've been doing XYZ for a while now.
It's safe to call it a compulsive behavior pattern.
Whatever it is.

You COULD call it an addiction, if you wanted to.
But I wouldn't, and don't.

Whatever XYZ is, it lives inside you.
It's a personality or a subpersonality.
An energy field or an uncontrollable genetic situation.

Whatever it is, sometimes it takes you over
completely, sometimes arguing, sometimes skipping over
the rational, questioning phase of things.

Just try stopping a second or three when you want
XYZ.

Our main tactic for eliminating bad, onerous XYZ --
is a replacement with good, positive, life-affirming
ABC...D...E...F...as long as needed.

And A is meditation or awareness.
If you can't stop XYZ today, don't.
If it's not easy, don't.

An elderly woman who fashioned herself a
teacher of men once told me
"think of the cigarette as a turd."

that didn't work for me.
but thinking about her statement
was an equivalent evocation of the Prefrontal.

But you've had a bad day.
Okay, you could go there.
The compulsion knows how to deal with a bad day.

But that's not the only way to go.
And furthermore, there are nuances w/r/t
how one approaches one's compulsions.

In the light, thinking about your addiction,
while indulging, partaking, gorging in and on XYZ --
totally different from hiding it from you and everyone else.

So if quitting's not for you,
your idea of quitting is too stentorian.

Back off, in the sense --
thinking about quitting, really thinking about it,
like JRR Tolkien with his imaginary worlds.

Think about the Silmarillion.*
Make your thinking about XYZ honestly
while indulging XYZ,
as elaborate and involved as Tolkien's obsession with his worlds.

Do you even know half of what there is to know
about XYZ?

Maybe you avoid this question because you know
there is nothing positive to find.

However, it's difficult for me to think of an
instantiation of XYZ that doesn't have some positive element.

Even nicotine is good for memory.

*JRR Tolkien's books The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings series, are popular, long, involved, sometimes boring, but most decidedly epic, and the handiwork of an obsessive-compulsive writer -- a writer who went so far as to invent entire languages, plural, for the entirely invented species, plural many times over, in his book.

Silly Ego

Eckhart Tolle writes:

Is it wrong then to be proud of one's possessions or to feel resentful toward people who have more than you? Not at all. That sense of pride, of needing to stand out, the apparent enhancement of one's self through "more than" and diminishment through "less than" is neither right nor wrong -- it is the ego.

The ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious.

When you observe the ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don't take the ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile.

At times you may even laugh.*

How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the ego isn't personal. It isn't who you are. If you consider the ego to be your personal problem, that's just more ego.

***


*It's not working for me right now, but nearly every time when I set my mind on arriving at presence in the Now, it arrives with a tiny chuckle. It's more of a release than anything. That, I get every time, without fail, to the point that the two are the same thing to me now. 

Presence equals release, borderline hilarity.

What else could it feel like, to unburden yourself of the weight of the past and the future?

The Undertow

In Rewire, O'Connor writes:

The Undertow is my term for the mysterious force that sabotages our best efforts when we're just on  the edge of victory. The awful truth is that most of our efforts at self-reform, even those that meet with great initial success, will fail within two years, and send us back where we started. 

Something keeps sucking us back in.

You stay on your diet and lose 40 pounds, but then you have a bad week and you're doomed. Within just a few months you put back on all the weight you struggled so hard to lose, and you've added evidence to your belief that you're hopeless.

We can't overcome this undertow by doing only what we already know how to do; we have to change some basic assumptions about ourselves and modify some habits that we don't yet understand are part of the problem.

***
[The Good News:] -- Neuroscientists have now shown that if we simply practice good habits, our brains will grow and change in response, with the result that these good habits become easier and easier. 

When we do anything repeatedly, with focused attention, our nerve cells will physically grow new connections between, say, nerve center A (go to the gym) and nerve center B (stay at the gym until your workout is done). Nerves A and B develop a stronger connection with more transmitting and receiving points, and going to do our workout becomes a habit with a physical embodiment in the brain.

Neurons that fire together, wire together. 

We forget our aches and pains and distractions, and do it. And every time we do it, we make it easier to do tomorrow.

List of Self-Destructive Behaviors (56-85)

56. Won't ask for help.

57. Suffering in silence.

58. Too much Crystal Meth.

59. Fashion addiction.

60. Sexual promiscuity.

61. Casual sex without a relationship.

62. Picking hopeless fights with authority.

63. Too much TV.

64. Too much Crack Cocaine.

65. Too much normal Cocaine.

66. Unassertive behavior.

67. Overly Assertive Behavior.

68. Too much worrying over Assertive/Unassertive binary.

69. Excessive risk taking.

70. Depressed shopping.

71. Wallowing in Depression.

72. Computer game addiction.

73. Being needy, clingy.

74. Obsessive worrying.

74. Too much heroin.

75. Sex addiction.

76. Playing the martyr.

77. Acting on dares.

78. Dangerous driving.

79. Road rage.

80. Shoplifting.

81. Sexual degradation, self.

82. Sexual degradation, others.

83. Spoiling things just when they're going well.

84. Stubbornly persisting beyond common sense.

85. Hoarding.

List of Self-Destructive Behaviors (1-55)

Am I leaving any self-destructive behaviors out? Or, is there any behavior included that shouldn't on the list? Are there any behaviors listed which you feel are a part of the pattern of your life, but that you don't consider to be negative habits?

***

Self-Destructive Behavior Patterns

***

1. Internet Addiction

2. Overeating

3. Social Isolation

4. Gambling

5. Overworking

6. Not Exercising

7. Anorexia

8. Bulimia

9. Video Game Addiction

10. Sports-related Addiction

11. Passive-Aggressive Behavior

12. Not managing money (generally)

- - accruing debt

- - not saving

- - profligate spending

16. Substance abuse

17. Self-dosing your medications

18. Being cruel, thoughtless 

19. Being selfish, thoughtless

20. Narcissism, generally

21. Suicidal gestures

22. Antisocial behavior

23. Self-mutilation

24. Chronic Disorganization

25. Foolish pride 

26. Avoiding the spotlight

27. Perfectionism

28. Can't get started job hunting

29. Sycophancy

30. Manipulating to gain affection

31. Manipulating to gain power

32. Excessively high standards, for self

33. Excessively high standards, for others

34. Cheating

35. Embezzlement

36. Money addiction

37. Procrastination

38. Neglecting your health

39. Always late

40. Inconsiderate

41. Poor sleep habits

42. Inability to express yourself

43. Self-sacrificing gift giving

44. Obvious lying

45. Stealing and kleptomania

46. Inability to prioritize, generally

   -- spreading oneself too thin

   -- too many balls in the air

   -- paralysis by analysis dilettante

50. Attraction to the wrong people

51. Avoiding the chance to express your talents

52. Staying in bad job

53. Staying in a bad relationship

54. Staying in a bad situation other than the two just named

55. Smoking

Willpower Harnessing Hostility

Or does the hostility muscle the will power into play?

I reviewed my willpower plan like a school lesson; 

I became aware of my hostility & 

directed it against everything; 

I had to combat everything; 

my deliverance depended on myself alone.

              Writes Andre Gide.

Deliverance being anything but the word we would use.

Remind me to check the original French.

A lot of us might say Coping,

Or Coping Mechanism,

Against everything, as in Louis C.K.

Saying life is shit wall to wall,

Against everything,

But everything in here,

Not out there.

What does out there have to do with anything?