There's so much here, thank you for this. Those awful obligations and shoulds, they've plagued me my entire life! And feeling guility about not meeting expectations I evade and hide, which makes me feel deceptively dishonest, which is so destructive to integrity. In avoidance and fear of having to deal with it (the shoulds, the drugs, and reality), definitions 1 and 3 directly apply.
About definition 2, "Face Everything and Recover". I believe that's VERY true what you write Anna, that most people are secretive about their lives and their thoughts. Which is normal and probably largely good. But I'm thinking maybe I take it to too far an extreme and am not facing anything, instead avoiding. Not to sound like a drug-obsessed individual here, but for so many years running my primary investment of time, mind, and energy placed drug use at the forefront, everything else went to support and accomodate for that use...always in solitude. I have to wonder if I'm keeping that option to return to that open because I'm so unwilling to allow anyone in. Fear of exposure is avoidance. I've only attended a few meetings, I have no sponsor, am not working the steps. I am reading a lot and trying alternatives in place of time spent with drugs, but, again, alone. Seems like returning to the familiar is only one step away at all times. Yet to attempt to force engagement/ exposure (obligations) would only throw me over the edge into complete retreat.
So...just going with the EASY way today, no pressure to do anything other than just roll this all over in mind, and enjoy the day. In the time since I started this thread I went to tend the animals and found a mama hen emerged from the woods with 9 one-day old chicks. I need to bring them food and water now, to help her and her brood along.