In my Magic membership group, we have something called the Magic Book Club.
Recently, we dove deep into chapter 15 of Gabor Mate's book, The Myth of Normal. Just not to be you: Debunking the Myths of Addiction.
TO BE CLEAR, I'M GRATEFUL TO RECOGNIZE THE IMPORTANT HEALTH, BEHAVIORAL, AND EMOTIONAL REASONS I ENDEAVOR TO RELEASE THESE SUBSTANCES FROM MY WORLD. SEEING HOW AMAZINGLY SUPPORTIVE THEY HAVE BEEN COULD POSSIBLY RELEASE SOME, IF NOT ALL, OF THE PAINFUL REASONS WE HAVE LIVED IN MISERY AROUND THESE SUBSTANCES. PERHAPS WE CAN RELEASE THEIR HOLD BY THANKING THEM FOR THEIR SERVICE?
Below are my notes. It's a doozy of a chapter and worthy of your time and contemplation as it relates to you and your addiction. Some of the notes are my added comments. Enjoy!
When it comes to food, how many of us think we make bad choices?
How many have friends and family members who question you if you vacillate between healthy or not-so-healthy choices?
Is it true that you are making bad choices?
The "Bad Choice" model ignores the question of what would drive a person toward addiction in the first place.
And choosing to call our addiction, any addiction, a disease, separates what is happening in our mind from the physical manifestations of our body.
Substances of dependence do change the brain so that essential functions such as impulse regulation become compromised.
Our brains are technically impaired. We can circumvent or shift our brain's learned responses due to early childhood addictive solutions – the analogy of the football player training himself to catch a ball in the air and fall while still holding the ball. That takes practice, which we are doing.
My disease wants me dead.
My disease made me hurt people I love – what if it wasn’t treated so poorly, negatively?
Can we view addiction as a dynamic process to be engaged with rather than a demonic force to be feared or battled – ultimately expanding the possibilities for healing?
Think of the process of going to food as rooted in coping mechanisms.
To call them diseases is to miss both the point and the opportunity to deal with them intelligently.
Let's look at not what is WRONG with an addiction but what is RIGHT about it.
What benefit is the person gaining from their habit?
What does it do for them?
What are they getting that they otherwise can’t access?
Below is a VERY PARTIAL list of how addictions support us:
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People’s addictions lubricate the gears of social connection.
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Access to friends - social events are more easily maneuvered in general
- Our addictive substances provide consistent, unconditional support from numbing, providing much needed space
Do any of these apply to you? Our addictions help us feel:
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Bulletproof
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Social
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More relaxed
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Easier to communicate
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Opened up creativity
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Warmth – really warm bath
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Relief
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Feels like: a 3-year-old shivering with fever and mother puts you on her lap, wraps you in a warm blanket and gives you warm chicken soup –
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Warmth in the pit of my gut, which had always been really cold
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Love and acceptance
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Sacred, spiritual, warm and maternal
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I felt like nothing mattered and felt safe
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Spaces of peace
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Precious
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Temporary illusion of normalcy
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Magical promise of making you function normally, or better than normally
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I found the cure to not being able to function in the way that I think people should be able to function in the world
Who has ever heard of a “disease” that makes you “feel normal” or when’s the last time getting sick made you “function better than normally.”
“just say no to pain relief.”
To calmness, empowerment, a sense of self-worth, to community and friendship, to unfettered self-expression, to an elusive sense of comfortable normality, and to love
I got a sense of what a human being is supposed to feel like
A persistent sense of being abnormal, unworthy, and deficient
Addiction calls when we’re trapped in inner turmoil, doubt, loss of meaning, isolation, unworthiness, feeling cold in our belly, devoid of hope, lacking of faith in the possibility of liberation, missing succor, unable to endure external challenges or the inner chaos or emptiness, incapable of regulating
Ask not why the addiction, but rather, Why the pain?
NOTE: FIGURE OUT WHAT IS MISSING OR WHAT PAIN IS THERE – LACK OF NURTURING, SUPPORT, EMPOWERMENT, CONFIDENCE, WORTHINESS, VALUE. IN ESSENCE, ALARMED ALONENESS
AND ASK THE QUESTIONS:
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IS THIS TRUE?
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IS IT REALLY TRUE?
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IS THIS UNCONSCIOUS CONTRACT SERVING ME STILL?
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HOW DID THIS ADDICTION HELP ME?
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AM I READY TO LET GO OF IT?
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CAN I BLESS THE RELEASE AND SHIFT TO SOMETHING THAT SUPPORTS YOU?
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