MrPL

This may get a little long and philosophical, but I had another insight recently which I’d like to share with you guys. It came through a combination of experiences and readings, so a lot of you may have heard it before. Either way, it goes somewhat like this:


At any given point, there are all sorts of things in our minds, wether we notice them or not.

There are our main “central thoughts”, which are the thoughts at the forefront, the ones driving most of our actions and feelings.

Then there are “peripheral thoughts”, that we are aware of, but not always, or even rarely, turn into action.

And to complete, there’s the subconscious stuff, but let’s leave this one out to simplify things a bit.

By default, most of us will keep going to the central thoughts, because our brains are “lazy”, and therefore will try to use the same pattern they already know. In other words, the tendency is for us to keep doing what we are doing.



Now, what a lot of philosophers, preachers, gurus, life coaches and quotes written on coffee mugs and Instagram posts will tell us, is that we can control what our central thoughts are (in much more appealing words than these).


The way I now see this is that we can take one of our peripheral thoughts and make it become our central thought. This is entirely a perception thing. Entirely.


The normal central thought for us addicts is the addiction. Recovery is somewhere in the peripheral thoughts.

So, when in recovery, we have managed to, at least temporarily, change our focus and make recovery the central thought. This can be a full on recovery plan, with strategies, tools, etc, or an awareness of our higher power, or just an “I don’t drink” thought, or many other things - “whatever works”.


Now, the addiction doesn’t magically disappear, it just becomes a peripheral thought, trying to reclaim its place as the central thought - I think this the AV.

The longer we stay sober, the more it becomes our default state - it gets easier over time, the AV becomes quieter.

Also, If there are more peripheral thoughts in our minds, the AV will also be quieter and quieter. This is where changing our lives come in. Addressing issues, picking up new hobbies, new adventures, meeting new people. This gives our heads more to work with, opposed to just a recovery vs addiction debate.



So, what does this mean practically:

• Recovery has to be the central thought - “I just don’t drink”.
• Addiction won’t disappear, it will remain a peripheral thought and, if allowed to, it will become the central thought again.
• Exploring life will give ours minds other things to think about, instead of letting the AV be the only peripheral voice - “I love my sober life”.

Anyway, this perspective is helping me, hopefully it can help others too (if I didn’t bore you to death by this point )



My best wishes to everyone.

Mr P

fishkiller

Yep
Focus on recovery not the addiction.
Adding new and positive things definitely helps maintain that focus.

Great Post!

Radix

Wise words, thanks for sharing. I'll add that addiction fills your mind with lies. Your brain wants so much to continue being intoxicated that it feeds you all kinds of lies and distortions about the world, all in the service of making it easier to keep drinking.

"I can't have fun sober."
"I'll never feel 'normal' unless I drink."
"Cravings will kill me if I don't indulge them."
"I don't have a problem with alcohol, because I only got one DUI whereas most alcoholics have two or more."
"My friends will ostracize me if I tell them I'm not drinking."

And so on... the quantity and variation is endless.With all those lies swirling around in your psyche, it's no wonder that the addiction stays in the forefront. You're basically telling yourself that any alternative to the addictive behavior is senseless, stupid, and futile.

Moving the thoughts that perpetuate addiction into the periphery (or, changing the "central thought" from addiction into non-addiction) became possible for me once I confronted, and tested, those lies and found them to be false.

DriGuy

That's a good summary of MrPL's insight, and it is vital to our freedom.

It's natural to focus on our addiction, because addiction played a central part of our lives. Maybe a better word than natural would be habitual. As we transition into recovery it's easy to hang on to that preoccupation with addiction. For some, it's because they don't really want to give it up. For others, it's been so destructive that all we can think about is how horrible it was. But in either case, it can still be there as large as life and consuming a major part of our thoughts.

When I see newcomers struggling over and over, I feel like I want to tell them not to focus on their addiction, but focus on their recovery, but it's a difficult thing to explain why. Partly, I recall how deathly afraid I was of relapse to the extent that I dreamed about it, but still, I used it to keep myself on the straight an narrow. So I'm also reluctant to tell newcomers to stop that. But there came a time when I let it go, no so much that I directed my conscious mind to do that. It just happened, which forced me to adopt a strategy of simple choice. That was a lot easier than carrying around that nightmarish fear, but that change was also a leap forward. I became focused on recovery with that occupying the major part of my thoughts.

I believe that focusing on recovery is a better strategy.

Alpine

Thanks Fishkiller and Dryguy, this makes a lot of sense to me and for me to focus on the positive which is recovery vs the negative which is the addiction ( this is my take on it) which sends me into the right direction.
Mr.PL thanks for starting this.

MrPL

Thanks for the replies everyone.

You all raised an interesting point, this split between recovery and addiction. One doesn’t mean the other doesn’t exist, so it’s a choice we make every day.

Evoo

Great post! I don't think I craved intoxication so much as I craved relief. The lie was that alcohol could ever provide that.

I can't imagine going to back to former mindsets at this point. Alcohol is a depressant and anesthetic. Your brain/body are smart - they sense the foreign substance and release adrenaline to counteract the effects of the poison. The numbing effects wear off, leaving you filled with adrenaline and craving a drink to relieve the negative effects of the alcohol you just drank. Rinse, wash, repeat.

No thank you. I'm over it.

Hodd

Great stuff, Mr P!

This is so true. It’s so important that people realise this and get to long-term sobriety by whatever means. Any slip ups will undo any good work, and that’s why relapses should be given the seriousness they deserve.

These last two years have been grim for everyone, and by a fluke I quit a year or so prior to all this madness, or I wouldn’t have fancied my chances at staying quit. As you say, MrP, the AV doesn’t really speak much after a while, but it has to be a good few months at least.