Watch this today
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Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 3,163
Watch this today
I have something to highly recommend. I happened on this Ted Talk yesterday, and I think it is amazing.
Feelings: Handle them before they handle you | Mandy Saligari | TEDxGuildford - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD4O7ama3o8
She is an addictions therapist and does a lot of work on both addressing and preventing addiction. She sees the source of addition to most often be related to problems with self esteem and how we address vulnerabillty.
She defines self esteem as how we feel about ourselves and therefore how we treat ourselves, which I thought was a good definition.
Addiction is turning to something outside of ourselves to fix how we feel about ourselves to the determent of ourselves. Its outsourcing or delegating our emotional process on to something else that backfires.
For many addicts, we have a problem with being vulnerable and turn to our DOC to address that vulnerability. Our experience of our vulnerability is what makes us need to control how the world sees us, perceives us, and we try to control that though our addiction.
For example, over the last week I have had a total emotional block about doing some things I need to do. In the old days, I would certainly have drunk over that. Today, I just gotta figure it out, but it always comes down to not wanting to be vulnerable. Why I find vulnerabilty so difficult will probably take a life time to address, but just seeing that was the issue made a huge difference to me in being able to cope in a healthy way.
For other people, the emotions or emotions they are delegating to the DOC may be others, but I see systematically that this is part of the addiction cycle for everyone I know. This is why I fear that addictive behaviour will be one of big fall outs of COVID because people will turn to their DOC to deal with fear, job loss, grief, etc.
To be clear, as she says you gotta stop first, but I truly believe that understanding this process would have made stopping easier for me five years ago and will help keep me from relapsing.
I cannot highly enough recommend all of us taking 20 minutes of our day today and listening to her no matter how long we have been sober or if we are still partaking.
Feelings: Handle them before they handle you | Mandy Saligari | TEDxGuildford - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD4O7ama3o8
She is an addictions therapist and does a lot of work on both addressing and preventing addiction. She sees the source of addition to most often be related to problems with self esteem and how we address vulnerabillty.
She defines self esteem as how we feel about ourselves and therefore how we treat ourselves, which I thought was a good definition.
Addiction is turning to something outside of ourselves to fix how we feel about ourselves to the determent of ourselves. Its outsourcing or delegating our emotional process on to something else that backfires.
For many addicts, we have a problem with being vulnerable and turn to our DOC to address that vulnerability. Our experience of our vulnerability is what makes us need to control how the world sees us, perceives us, and we try to control that though our addiction.
For example, over the last week I have had a total emotional block about doing some things I need to do. In the old days, I would certainly have drunk over that. Today, I just gotta figure it out, but it always comes down to not wanting to be vulnerable. Why I find vulnerabilty so difficult will probably take a life time to address, but just seeing that was the issue made a huge difference to me in being able to cope in a healthy way.
For other people, the emotions or emotions they are delegating to the DOC may be others, but I see systematically that this is part of the addiction cycle for everyone I know. This is why I fear that addictive behaviour will be one of big fall outs of COVID because people will turn to their DOC to deal with fear, job loss, grief, etc.
To be clear, as she says you gotta stop first, but I truly believe that understanding this process would have made stopping easier for me five years ago and will help keep me from relapsing.
I cannot highly enough recommend all of us taking 20 minutes of our day today and listening to her no matter how long we have been sober or if we are still partaking.
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Join Date: Apr 2017
Posts: 983
Thank you for sharing this dropsie, I haven't watched the video yet but I will when I have some time to watch.
It makes alot of sense to how I've been feeling recently, my self esteem has taken a hit and I actually left a sober group chat that I love but my insecurities in myself are too high and I needed a break, constantly worrying I'm not liked or saying the wrong things. Now I know Im stuggling with soberity because I'm super insecure right now. Like you say all comes back to not wanting to feel vulnerable. Thank you
It makes alot of sense to how I've been feeling recently, my self esteem has taken a hit and I actually left a sober group chat that I love but my insecurities in myself are too high and I needed a break, constantly worrying I'm not liked or saying the wrong things. Now I know Im stuggling with soberity because I'm super insecure right now. Like you say all comes back to not wanting to feel vulnerable. Thank you
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Join Date: Sep 2015
Posts: 3,163
I hope you will watch it LPG, we all love you here and hate to see you struggling.
It all fits into my view that addiction is a coping mechanism. It often did not start as such, it started as fun, part of growing up, a way to relax, but then at some stage the switch is made and it becomes our go to when we can't deal with something, and then the addiction itself takes on a life if its own. And IMO this is why that once one has become addicted moderation is not possible. Because we will both physically and mentally reset to that place of outsourcing -- it has become part of our physical and mental DNA.
But the original choice to use our DOC instead of addressing those emotions that are too much for us because they make us feel vulnerable was as a means to cope not as a means to destruct. And after we stop we need to figure out how to cope when we stop outsourcing that function.
That is what the steps are intended to do IMO, but there are many other ways to do too through 1-2-1 therapy or ACT or cognitive therapy or whatever. But IMO its all about figuring out how to process our emotions in a healthy way. And when the going gets tough, this all gets tougher.
And for those of us like me that used our DOC to avoid processing our emotions from a really young age, we lack the skill set so we need to learn it. Other have the fundamental tools but need to start using them. And we also need to build our self esteem so that we love ourselves enough to make the effort to have our actions match our moral compass and the willingness to stick to our core values come what may, which means being willing to let people see us, not see what we think they would like to see.
XX
It all fits into my view that addiction is a coping mechanism. It often did not start as such, it started as fun, part of growing up, a way to relax, but then at some stage the switch is made and it becomes our go to when we can't deal with something, and then the addiction itself takes on a life if its own. And IMO this is why that once one has become addicted moderation is not possible. Because we will both physically and mentally reset to that place of outsourcing -- it has become part of our physical and mental DNA.
But the original choice to use our DOC instead of addressing those emotions that are too much for us because they make us feel vulnerable was as a means to cope not as a means to destruct. And after we stop we need to figure out how to cope when we stop outsourcing that function.
That is what the steps are intended to do IMO, but there are many other ways to do too through 1-2-1 therapy or ACT or cognitive therapy or whatever. But IMO its all about figuring out how to process our emotions in a healthy way. And when the going gets tough, this all gets tougher.
And for those of us like me that used our DOC to avoid processing our emotions from a really young age, we lack the skill set so we need to learn it. Other have the fundamental tools but need to start using them. And we also need to build our self esteem so that we love ourselves enough to make the effort to have our actions match our moral compass and the willingness to stick to our core values come what may, which means being willing to let people see us, not see what we think they would like to see.
XX
Life Goes On
Join Date: Jul 2012
Location: Baltimore, Maryland
Posts: 6,069
Thanks so much for posting this, Dropsie. Her description of that nagging, whining, raging child really hit home for me. It fits what youngest experienced (from my retrospective viewpoint, anyway) from an extremely tender age. I'm so glad she grew into a self-confident woman who sets appropriate boundaries, even so.
It also speaks to my experience; lacking the skills to identify what I'm feeling when I want to run. Even to the extreme of not recognizing when I am in flight. Each time I've relapsed, I think it's because those feelings of helplessness made me feel trapped - I had to do something.
I am a big fan of TED Talks. There are plenty of good additional suggestions linked to the one you shared.
Thanks again.
O
It also speaks to my experience; lacking the skills to identify what I'm feeling when I want to run. Even to the extreme of not recognizing when I am in flight. Each time I've relapsed, I think it's because those feelings of helplessness made me feel trapped - I had to do something.
I am a big fan of TED Talks. There are plenty of good additional suggestions linked to the one you shared.
Thanks again.
O
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