Old 02-27-2019, 09:38 AM
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lessgravity
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Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: Big City
Posts: 3,893
When your values trump your addiction, there is no addiction

I don't know where I got this line, I even googled it to see and can't find its source. But it's something that I've been thinking about lately both as I spend time on SR and just generally in my life. And it's something that I came to understand in my path to sobriety, something that I focused on and something that I return to these days should there even be the slightest peep from my AV back in the dungeon where he is chained.

For anyone who hasn't read Viktor Frankl's book Man's Search for Meaning - I can't recommend it more. Frankl was an Austrian neurologist/psychologist/holocaust survivor and his book, in my opinion, should be required reading for all, especially those suffering from addictions. Anyhow, a quote of his that I return to relevant to this topic is: "Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom."

To me that's everything that sobriety is based on - at the end of the day, regardless of the means by which you find sobriety, it's your hand, your mouth, your mind, your body that either chooses to pick up a bottle of alcohol and pour it down your throat or not. The space between the hardcore cravings, the AV lies regarding relaxation/pleasure/escape - that space is where we can choose.

For me it was finally accepting that I was betraying the values I held by continuing to drink. The only way I could stop drinking was by elevating those values above my desire for the bottle. There is pain in this work - and it truly is work - you have to suffer physically, you have to change long term patterns and habits - but, regardless of what they might tell us, the best things, the things of true value in life, are not free. They are earned. They are protected. They are elevated in stature over the selfish desire for oblivion and intoxication.

I wish I came to this place earlier in life. But I am so grateful and thankful that I am here now.
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