Threshold

The running story is that people who have an NDE are always changed, and usually it is said that they NEVER question whether or not there is life after death, because they KNOW there is. My life was changed. But I still don't believe in life after death.

My life was changed in just the way you put it above, even when it's "not OK"...to me...it's OK. That is what I KNOW. That is what led me to saying "enough" to addiction, and getting on with things. Because I knew that there IS OKness, that is is the way of things and that I could connect to it again, even after my awareness of it had gone south.

In Pantheism we understand ourselves as functions of the Universe.

Other faith traditions use terms like...living dangerously in the hands of God, or how nothing can seperate them from God, or that they are exactly where they are supposed to be, or that they are a ripple on a pond, or a wave on an ocean, not separate.

In Pantheism (at least the tradition of it I follow) the Universe is not a thing. It is an event. Ongoing. I am part of the event. Creation isn't something that happened once and is over, the entire thing is an event.No separation, nothing occurs that should not occur, nothing can happen that is not part of the event that is the Universe.

Threshold

At the possibility of being labeled terminally unique...I am going to tell my experience of my addiction.

It appears to be inside out of what others experience.

My lizard brain isn't responsible for my addiction. My cerebral cortex is. My lizard brain has NO interest in putting poison into my body. I did it because my monkey brain wouldn't STFU, and it was driving me crazy and I wanted to quiet it.

Now, I do understand the brain chemistry and endorphins, and not knowing when to switch from enough to too much and and all that. But I really feel like my lizard brain is what saved me.

Lizards (fish and snakes too) are pretty much in the awareness of the now. And if something hurts, they don't keep doing it. If they eat a red and black striped bug, and it takes bitter/poisoness, they spit it out and they don't keep eating those red and black striped bugs.

However, all the hangovers, nights on the bathroom floor, etcetc...and I kept eating the red and black striped bug...in fact, I CHOSE to do it because I wanted to die. Having studied and kept lizards, snakes and fish for many decades, they don't do that.

Learning to quiet the monkey brain, or tune it out, or focus more on the awareness of now, and the lizard brain intelligence of eating when I am hungry, crapping when i feel the urge, going to bed when I am tired, and not eating and drinking things that make me sick...is my ticket to a life free of addiction.

It is my mania to try to control things that get me in trouble. lizards have no idea of trying to control anything.

I am only sharing my experience, not arguing that it is like this for others.

Joe Nerv

The statement I just made and am now deleting may have been taken the wrong way. We should have a delete function here for those of us who sometimes rethink things.

DylanS

I like this description, it resonates. A gal from a meeting told me that the steps are an attempt to make us "usefully whole". I like that. The utility of it, the satisfaction that comes from being part of the wheel that continues to turn. No matter how small the bolt or screw, it has its place. Like a friend of mine said (after attempting to get into the DVD player repair business), "You'd be amazed, but every single part needs to be put back in there or it doesn't work right."

DylanS

So you had to make yourself override your natural aversion to alcohol/drugs and use them anyway? Am I understanding correctly?

I have done this with some things in my life, at least, I think I have - if I'm understanding your experience, but want to clarify.

Threshold

Yeah, sorta kinda...

I choose to use so it would zone me out. I HATED the way I felt after more than one drink and a pill or two. Hated feeling out of control, groggy, head achey, and hung over. HATED it. But I loved the first warm slide into not giving a crap...and I loved the eventuality of semi coma after several drinks and a hellish hour or two of reeling sickness.

Now, I do like the taste of certain wines, and I am a connessier of good bourbon. So there is that...but after one glass I hated how I felt and pushed on through to the other side because I wanted to be either comatose or dead.

So I did have to push past my lizard brain saying "Danger Will Robinson", after the first drink...but push I did because I'm just that F'd up in the head.

Now, some of my other addictions?...carbs...or conversly anorexia...there are few highs like anorexia. Or certain crazy thrill seeking behavior...I am not sure where my lizard brain fits in to those. I mean...I KNEW they were dangerous, but...mania does funny things to an otherwise intelligent person.

What I DO know is this. Working the steps and applying the principles in my life has help me get stability and peace back where chaos and terror reigned before.

And they do that by quieting my cerebral cortex so I don't feel compelled to do ANYTHING just to get it to shut up. I was using drugs and booze to regular scary dangerous excess...miserable as I was doing it desperate to shut my mind off.

Pete55

I always thought on similar "deletes" we say that remain permanent in this age of technology, that what one say's online may stay for as long as the memory chips sustain the electronoc data. And that could be centuries after one leaves this phase of life.

Ought to have a "growth" function, where things are not deleted, but altered by the original poster in view of things may change in that individuals circumstances, age, perception etc.

I know I have said things,
where if they were said in the wind, it does not echo for eternity.

Boleo

I agree. I didn't drink because of my inferior thinking. I drank because of my superior thinking. I thought I knew how to use, abuse and control getting high BETTER than most people.

Looking back at all the times that I relapsed, it was the fallacy that I was still somehow superior to the average alcoholic that got me in trouble.

grtgrandpa

When God(if it was him) created the universe from nothing(big bang theory), his creation became something that is impossible to control without some serious side effects.

So God is doing the best he can with nuclear processes that we can't begin to understand. As a nuclear metallurgist I try to understand the universe with my scientific knowledge, and I am willing to cut God a lot of slack.

Some power keeps me sober, so I am going to keep doing what I've been doing and keep accepting the rewards of the program.

Thanks Boleo for a good thread.

grtgrandpa

That was me. Terminally unique. I must be in the right place hanging with the SR and AA people I am now together with.

MythOfSisyphus

I think that being in the now is the problem. If that red and black striped bug tasted super great and didn't make the lizard sick til the next day, it would eat the bug. Our problem is that booze is instantly gratifying. Pleasure is now, consequences are later.

The very first time I drank alcohol I was blown away by how awesome it was. It was a peach wine cooler, so I didn't even have to endure an unpleasant taste to get that mind blowing release from being who I was. I felt I'd found my true, real self that first time I drank. That kept me in the bottle for another 25 years.

soberhawk

I agree with the observation regarding the lizard brain, it is the lack of body awareness that gets me into troubles – and all the logic of th cerebral cortex is of no use at all, everything can be rationalized even the most stupid things.

I would not say that rational thinking brought me to addiction but it was not part of the solution either.

I think it is the old conflict between apollo and dionysus that is reflected in the lizard brain thought as if we could solve our problems with pure reason – but we can not.

awuh1

I could not agree more Soberhawk. There is a “greater understanding” that involves “a higher education of the mind beyond the confines of mere rationalism” as C.G. Jung put it.

It’s a bit like attempting to appreciate a great painting by analyzing individual brushstrokes, or to understand modern physics exclusively by insight into mechanical processes.

This is not to say that some cannot get sober without this sort of greater understanding, but for some of us tougher nuts I think it takes a lot more.

foolsgold66

Hmmm... We're in secular 12-step. My higher power can be almost anything. Choosing 'Alcohol' as a higher power wasn't particularly popular in rehab, I think they created new watch list especially for me after that one. Think I ended up with the sun or a lightpole, they let me get by with one those.

Today, when I bother to think about it, responsible rational decision processes that I choose to follow are my higher power.

Some will argue that is 'me', therefore invalid. OK. Let them. My only response would be, I did not create me, in many senses those processes have many origins.

ProgressNotPerfection

Yep!

Gratz! Enjoy the ride, remember where you came from and that we are never truly cured!

ProgressNotPerfection

For a long time I thought the opposite of powerless was power over. But, no. They are simply the opposite sides of the same problem. The opposite of powerless (and power over for that matter) I am now convinced is empowerment. I am empowered to make a choice today: to pick up or not pick up is one of them. And how this clicks into detachment is definitely a refocus of my lens. Great conversion. thanks.

ProgressNotPerfection

It's all about the dopamine, man! That monkey on our backs is a lizard addicted to dopamine... all the pills, thrills, spills and deals might come in different bottles and such, but they all have the same genie, no? I think "I got a lizard on my back." Is a better saying than the monkey one, no?

..

Threshold

Like I said, all I know is my own experience with my brain, my addiction and various cold blooded animals. I've had addict mice, rats, even birds, but NEVER saw any snakes, lizards, fish behave like addicts. Ever.

I'll have to look more into how dopamine plays into the behavior of lizards, they don't seem to have much of a capacity for pleasure, just getting needs met. Like many 12 steppers say "it was my best thinking that got me where I am...drinking"

Monkeys get into WAY more trouble than lizards. With the capacity to think, comes great responsibility.

soberhawk

I know we are in secular and I was not going the high power or the powerless way.

I have always understood the lizard brain as the basis body awareness, basic functions as breathing and balance etc. It is there at least I find there strength against addiction running, swimming and meditation on body awareness – if I start to debate with my self I do not get anywhere.

Boleo

That begs the question... Where do Spiders (and SpiderMan) fit on the Monkey-Lizard scale?