Will, you are an asset to this site. Thank-you for your work and your contribution to the recovery efforts of others. I think that addiction recovery is a mental health concern that is in it’s infancy. More people need to take the initiative to discover and share recovery treatments that work. My hope is that this will provide a context which is more effective than the current, often dogmatic approach.
I researched Charlotte Kasl’s 16 step model.
http://www.charlottekasl.com
The original eighth step is :
Make a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
Charlotte Kasl’s 16 step model lists step 8 as this:
We make a list of people we have harmed and
people who have harmed us, and take steps to
clear out negative energy by making amends and sharing our grievances in a respectful way.
There was some discussion on this website regarding a member who was contemplating her childhood.
Since I have sobered up this time, I have tried to find out if there are any triggers which lead me to drink. Obviously, emotional upsets of any kind stand out as huge dangers. I get angry, I want to drink, I get depressed, I want to drink, I feel lonely, I want to drink….
When I was a kid, I got teased a lot. I know that we all did, but I really was the school outcast. I think most people probably know what I mean.
When I was about 14, I moved. I developed a plan to be a deliberate misfit. I would dress strangely to identify people who were bigoted, then I would avoid or attack them (not physically.) I believed that I had found the perfect solution. I would simply stop caring what anyone else thought about me.
It didn’t quite work, completely. I have had situations recently at work where people underestimate me or question whether I am worthy to rise to more complex work.
This infuriates me. It sends me into a heat of anger that is nearly inconsolable, and I think this a serious trigger. Who are these people to judge me? What ground do they have? It stays with me. I can’t leave it at work.
Don’t ask me why I think all of this is related. I know it seems pretty loose, but I’ve thought about it an awful lot, it just seems like a discovery which makes sense of patterns which have confused me for quite some time.
I never gave much credence to the “explore your childhood” tactic of therapy; maybe there’s something to it.
Sorry if this seems like a hijack, it just seems like that’s the way my line of reasoning wandered.