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Jekyll and Hyde

Old 03-18-2015, 11:29 AM
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Jekyll and Hyde

The biggest problem with the whole Jekyll and Hyde dichotomy is that Jekyll is the one who suffers for all of Hyde's shenanigans! It just came to me yesterday that all the issues I am facing now were committed by the person I become when I drink. That person is not me, but I am facing far more pain and agony as the real me than I did as the careless, reckless, selfish, insensitive person I became when drinking. All the people I hurt or whose trust I betrayed are hurting and distrusting because of what that "other guy" did. This isn't my way of trying to wriggle out of any culpability - I became that other person knowing full well what the outcome would be and that it wouldn't be good for me or anyone else - but it is interesting that it's when I'm back in control of my faculties that I really have hell to pay! And it's when I'm the real me that I feel all the associated guilt, shame, and remorse, with no escape hatch.
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Old 03-18-2015, 11:34 AM
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Hi there.

I tend to like this whole Jekyll and Hyde story as a metaphor, although I personally see potential dangers in it when applied to recovery. What you just described:
That person is not me, but I am facing far more pain and agony as the real me than I did as the careless, reckless, selfish, insensitive person
I think this is important to keep in mind:
I became when drinking
Perceiving it as "another person" has the dangers, in my opinion at least, that if you keep cultivating that, you might just throw a lot of other things "on him" as well in the future and not deal with them as a whole. What I am trying to say is that it might lead to further disintegration instead of becoming a more complete person who can be responsible for his acts anytime.

Just some food for thought.
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Old 03-18-2015, 11:44 AM
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All the people I hurt or whose trust I betrayed are hurting and distrusting because of what that "other guy" did. This isn't my way of trying to wriggle out of any culpability - I became that other person knowing full well what the outcome would be and that it wouldn't be good for me or anyone else - but it is interesting that it's when I'm back in control of my faculties that I really have hell to pay! And it's when I'm the real me that I feel all the associated guilt, shame, and remorse, with no escape hatch.
its insanity really. It makes absolutly no sense why someone would drink something like booze have it make them feel the way it does have it cause them to do the things they will do. Then to get up and do it all over again?

its irrational and makes little sense. So its hard to try and make any sense out of it.

Humans are bad about stuff like this and its not just limited to booze. Our short term memory is like just not there. I did this it made me feel that way and i did it again.

I for eample ate a very salty meal last night. I new better I new it would make me feel crummy today. But I did it anyhow I basicly lost control and did it anyhow Knowing full well the outcome would stink!

But its ok I'm only human.

it really is like a jekyl and hyde kinda thing. You cant blame yourself for everything though. if your not of your sound right mind and you do some stupid stuff not much you can do about that. Just try not to consume booze again while your of your right mind.
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Old 03-18-2015, 11:47 AM
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I'd love to know the first idiot who found some rotten nasty grape juice was dump enough to lay eyes on that and go gee i wonder what this tastes like. Then upon tasting it as foul as it must have tasted decided GEE let me drink some more. Then after gettng drunk and feeling sick woke up another day and decided to do that all over again?

one wou;ld have thought he first nasty taste woulda been enough to not drink more? Or how about when they got drunk or sick maybe they might think gee i wonder if that was poison?

Nope the developed an addiction insead. INSANITY i think. we at least can blame society for making it seem ok and socially acceptable to consume something that tasttes terrible and makes you sick of mind and body.

But that first guy what was his excuse?
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Old 03-18-2015, 11:59 AM
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The word FORGIVENESS comes to mind.

Learn how to forgive yourself as you
remain sober and become responsible
in recovery to not repeat many of those
actions when under the influence of a
controlled sunstance, alcohol, poison,
or drugs.
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Old 03-18-2015, 12:12 PM
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Originally Posted by haennie View Post
Perceiving it as "another person" has the dangers, in my opinion at least, that if you keep cultivating that, you might just throw a lot of other things "on him" as well in the future and not deal with them as a whole. What I am trying to say is that it might lead to further disintegration instead of becoming a more complete person who can be responsible for his acts anytime.
That's why I was saying it's not my way of trying to wriggle out of any culpability. It's just an analogy, of course. I know that Jekyll and Hyde come from the same source: me, myself, and I. My point is that the crazy sh*t I did when I was out of my mind drunk are the things I am paying for now and I wasn't even aware I was doing them! Lucky for me, I was able to get back to sanity when I stopped drinking, instead of ending up with "wet brain" and being permanently drunk. There have been times since this last bender that I was afraid that had happened to me to some extent. I've heard it can happen suddenly, with no warning.
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Old 03-18-2015, 12:15 PM
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It does suck knowing that I have screwed a lot of my life up but i find it a blessing that now I am capable of seeing that I've screwed up my life and take steps to fix it.
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Old 03-18-2015, 12:17 PM
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@zjw, yeah, I've often wondered who were the first people to drink alcohol. It dates back thousands of years. Of course, the story behind wine is that the water wasn't fit to drink and, since there was no refrigeration, grape juice just naturally fermented. I've heard the same thing about beer: the water would make people sicker, so alcohol was kinda like "curing" and/or sanitizing what they drink. Getting drunk from, and sometimes addicted to, it was just an unfortunate (or I'm sure many would say "fortunate") consequence. And now, when we do have refrigeration, people still choose to drink garbage! Go figure...
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Old 03-18-2015, 05:19 PM
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i understand the need to maintain a certain awareness of where one might be attempting to divert responsibility as oppose to face up to the idea that we are culpable for every choice and every action that we enact, and i think that it's important that regardless of excuse, we own that responsibility as something we have done, whether coerced or under the influence of a substance. even if there are extenuating circumstances, if we are directly involved in an event that has consequences, if for no one else but ourselves, owning our part has an important impact on developing beyond the incidence. this doesn't necessarily mean blaming ourselves. i don't think blame and responsibility are always mutually inclusive, which is a major confusion.

however what makes me mildly uncomfortable here is the identified feelings of separate persona which for me is a massive indicator of dissociation which is often hugely involved in addiction and under-diagnosed. I am diagnosed personally with dissociative identity disorder which means that my addiction problems are very intensely tied up in traumas that have been segmented into parts of my mind that i've been disconnected from, particularly from childhood, and the distortion that comes from the idea of 'multiple personalities' from common media has made it very difficult for those experiencing ptsd and related identity splitting to seek the appropriate support. I am not suggesting that this is what you experience but the dissection from yourself and the individual who takes over while drunk is so, so commonly reported by those with dissociative issues that it lights up alarm bells in me and i felt like i should bring that to your attention, in case it's an option you haven't explored. This doesn't imply like some worry that one has an excuse to avoid responsibility for events and actions that occur during dissociated states- i have endeavoured throughout my experience to own everything done, as one might while entirely inebriated and blacked out (dissociated states can be shockingly similar to alcohol blackouts)... but for me it's about identifying where these traumas lie and where they have caused mental splits and identity fractures that echo this sentiment so much i simply couldn't not offer this as something to consider.

I have several identity states who regularly take control and have done so for a long time, differing in speech and cadence and ways of relating to the world as conscious beings. They are all me, while separate, but only due to trauma barriers (some with DID argue they are individual entities, i disagree) ... often addiction emerges as a form of one split mental persona attempting to take control of an uncontrollable situation.
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Old 03-18-2015, 05:28 PM
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sometimes there is the best one could do and then there is the best a specific person can do.

I once complained to somene about my abusive stepfather and they explained that like it or not he was doing his best. He stated it may not be what I consider to be the best or be the best but it was /his best/. and he was right its true.

while sometimes we may fall short of some standard best we can be or best somene thinks we can be so long as we are doing the best that we can thats all that matters.

I know in my drunken days I was doing the best that i could. It may not have been all that great since i was under the influence etc.. But i was the best that I had at the time given the circumstances.
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Old 03-18-2015, 08:41 PM
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This is some thread.

I'm personally fond of the Jekyll and Hyde analogy, and have written about it here on several occasions.

Turns out Dr. Jekyll's experiment was based on a resentment. He felt slighted, believing that he did not get sufficient recognition for all his good work, and he envied those who enjoyed a higher station in life, many of whom he believed did so without merit. He was also sexually and aggressively repressed, given the strict morality of his time.

By the end of the process, there was very little left of Dr. Jekyll except for an empty shell of the man. (Sound familiar?) I also agree with haennie, that it's a cautionary tail to wrongly attribute blame and/or responsibility to an "other" self that's disconnected from one's personality. When I acted like a dick when I was drinking, that's who I was when I was drinking. Virtually all of us experience guilt, shame and remorse for a reason. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.

In my experience, the road to long-term sobriety includes treating and caring for the whole person, no matter what the circumstances that contributed to occasions of bad behavior.

Note: Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, was experimenting with cocaine prior to writing his novella.
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