CRRHCC

What does, "Thumb Sucking," have to do with alcoholism? Well, arguably, everything. Children don't suck their thumbs for no reason.
People don't abuse alcohol unless they have learned it does something for them!

My son sucked his thumb for his first 10 years of life. He had calluses on both his thumbs. He wanted to stop but he couldn't. He sucked his thumb compulsively. I asked him why he sucked his thumb and his answer was, "I don't know it just feels good." He wanted to stop but couldn't. The truth is he sucked his thumb to escape his feelings, the frustrations and anxiety of life. One day he came home from school crying because he was sucking his thumb in class and only noticed it himself when his friends laughed and berated him! We considered taking him to a Psychologist when my wife had an brilliant idea. She thought, what does he really value besides sucking his thumb? Well, for him it was money. We offered him $100 to stop sucking his thumb for a week. He agreed and never sucked his thumb again!

So what is my point? My point is this, when your values trump your addiction, there is no addiction. Addictions always serve an emotional purpose and that purpose is to escape the trap of feeling helpless, powerless and out of control. If you can find a high value behavior to replace your errant behavior you can change, you can empower yourself and regain control!

Addendum: My son is now a CPA who is financial controller for a multimillion dollar company.

Bethany57

I do think you can compare the two at all. Alcohol is a physical addiction - you go through withdrawal. I think that is why some abusers will steal from their own mother to get what they need. I do see some of your point though that a reward will help.

CRRHCC

What are values? They are what we consider more important than our feelings. For instance, just about everyone feels like eating junk food, but if you eat whatever you feel like eating you will end up obese and unhealthy. So then, what stops people from eating all the food they feel like eating? The answer is good values. Indeed a lack of good values is the root of virtually everything wrong with the world. We should act based on values rather than our feelings

Grymt

"a lack of good values is the root of virtually everything wrong with the world"

Jesus said : ...the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil

"In Buddhism, desire and ignorance lie at the root of suffering. By desire, Buddhists refer to craving pleasure, material goods, and immortality ... Ignorance, in comparison, relates to not seeing the world as it actually is."

In other words if you crave for something you perpetuate some evil. It's not a lack of something but rather something that already exists that is at the root. namely Craving, Desire. However it's a pretty good train of thought that leads to the conclusion : "We should act based on values rather than our feelings". In Buddhas teachings which boils down to the Noble Eightfold Path of Sila, Samadhi and Panna, that is living a moral life (resolve to abstain from killing, stealing, lying, sexual misconduct and intoxicants) concentrate the mind and Wisdom, Insight (to see things as they really are) . So, having good values is absolutely essential for the purification process but not having them is not the real root of evils.

Otherwise thanks for the posting. The story used for the argument is a bit confusing.

kinzoku

That is one philosophy, Grymt points out another.

The buddhist way would be the opposite. Instead of contributing to the karmic cycle, replacing good deeds with bad ...high value with low, you entrust things to your foundation and find the space to just be.

It can be dangerous, I think, for alcoholics to replace behaviours aggressively with new ones. Addiction begetting addiction.

But!

That doesn't make either approach wrong.