FreeOwl

So my daughter is coming up on 2 weeks old. She's a little miracle and I'm grateful to be sober and cherishing every minute.

One thing occurred to me in my observation of this incredible stage of life the other day. She sustained a fractured clavicle during birth. Very common, but we had a consult with an infant Physical Therapist as a result. She gave us this tip about calming baby down using just a little breast milk when she's upset.

Breast milk, it turns out, floods the baby with serotonin and dopamine, gives here a soothing, relaxing, blissed-out 'high'.

Breast milk - THE ORIGINAL GATEWAY DRUG!?!?!?

But then that humorous thought gave way to some further introspection in the coming days. As babies, we have no higher reasoning capacity. We are base creatures acting on reptilian-brain impulses. When we're upset, the only thing that we have to do is scream and cry and make it known that something's not right. The only thing that will sooth us is some physical action (being held, being rocked, being changed, being fed) or external thing.

And that's fine. To be expected. We're just babies.

But as we grow, as we develop, as we become familiar with emotions and logic and higher reasoning and gain some independence to care for ourselves - we learn to self-care. We get old enough to pour our own cereal. We learn to make toast. We learn to express our feelings by telling people about them. We learn to relate to others and understand the world and our feelings in more complex ways.

For those of us who are caught up in addictions, though, we're still not there yet. We still want that dopamine, serotonin, external 'fix' for our discomfort. We haven't learned to use the tools of our mind, body and spirit to bring self care solutions to our feelings. We haven't grown to provide for our own whole needs in caring, compassionate, self-sustainable ways.

We are just like.... babies.

There's an innate programming at work here, it would seem; "I feel badly, give me something to 'fix' it so I feel better". It makes perfect sense that what worked for us as infants might linger still in the core of our brains. A simple, neural equation that was programmed even before birth.

But.... we're not babies anymore. We're grown ups. We're adult human beings with capacity to feel, to reason, to talk and to share and to introspect and to take actions to express our needs and our emotions and to address our discomfort in a whole host of healthy and appropriate ways.

So we all carry around this baby inside. This newborn, this child, this youngster, this teenager, this twenty-thirty-forty-year-old.... Each of them with what they learned along the way. Maybe that baby is the most powerful of them all. For he / she learned the very first things we learned in this life!

But we don't need to remain babies.

We can instead recognize the opportunity to care for that baby within when he / she needs attention - in ways that don't involve a false 'fix'. Because whereas breastmilk not only made us feel good, it also provided us essential nourishment; the same cannot be said for drugs and alcohol.

Feed your baby on the rich milk of life and show him / her that you're on her / his side.