The sickness of the addict
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Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: new moon road
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The sickness of the addict
Recently I have been reading a book by a Jungian therapist/substance abuse counselor--David Schoen--titled "The War of the Gods in Addiction." Its impact on my thinking has been profound, as he is very direct about what he describes as the "psychological possession" of addiction. Schoen writes that a psychological addiction is not an addiction unless it is a "death sentence." A death sentence of the mind, the emotions, the body, the spirit. A death sentence to career, marriage, family. Schoen writes that it is not an addiction unless it is the most "powerful, controlling, possessing, dictating, and determining agenda in the psyche."
The book is a bit complex, since it uses terms related to Jungian therapy, but the core descriptions really hit me. For example, he writes of addicts who were supposedly recovering:
"I could in many cases sense intuitively, from the moment they walked into my office, whether they were still clean and sober or whether they had begun, or were just about to begin, using again. . . .Their very physical presence was palpably different from when they were committed to sobriety and not using. Psychologically they were more self-absorbed, aggressive, cocksure, grandiose, and defensive, and overall much less humble, open, and receptive."
Schoen writes that "the rationalizations, excuses, and self-justifications" of the active addict, the "grandiosity and inflation" are all "revolving around a basic core of narcissistic entitlement." He explains how the Fourth Step of AA--personal inventory--works against the self-righteousness of the addict. He refers to Bill W.'s assertion that as alcoholics (and addicts) "either we ... tried to play God and dominate those about us or we ... insisted on being over-dependent on them."
Schoen writes that Step 8--the listing of persons the addict has harmed--must be very specific about the exact nature of the offenses and that generic apologies are not enough. Step 9--making direct amends--is not about the addict's comfort but only about the well-being of those he has injured. Schoen says that real conscience and real guilt are deadly to the addiction.
He writes that when the addict stops using, "the insanity does not leave overnight," and that initially--for the first two years--the addict's judgment cannot be trusted. And he cites an article from the Harvard Medical School that one long-term study found that those who had been abstinent for less than three years had most of the same psychological problems as active alcoholics.
Reading this book--one of many I have read on the subject--cemented my feelings of powerlessness. Particularly Schoen's description of a mental health assessment test at a treatment facility which was given to patients newly admitted. Those tests showed many of the newly admitted addicts absolutely "off the charts" in scoring for diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Hysteria, Sociopath, Borderline, Paranoia, Mania, and other disorders. But after detox and two weeks abstinence, the results changed, and the "off the chart" scores returned to normal. His conclusion is that the effect of alcohol and drugs created "a level of psychological disturbance and insanity that was almost unimaginable, and so greatly distorted the true nature of their personalities that they were almost unrecognizable as individuals."
My acceptance of powerlessness over drugs and alcohol is cemented. Those of us here who have lived with addicts, tried desperately to remain married to and raise children with addicts, and have been shaken to the core by the cold-hearted abuses by addicts, are powerless. We are powerless to make a difference. Addiction is too big.
And those of us who have held on for sobriety and recovery only to find that when it finally happened, we were still hurting and confused and lonely with our newly recovering partner (three years or less sober) . . . we still find we are powerless. Our only hope is to focus on our own motivations, expectations, behaviors, rationalizations, and magical thinking, and to do our best to take personal responsibility for the life we live, every day.
Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
The book is a bit complex, since it uses terms related to Jungian therapy, but the core descriptions really hit me. For example, he writes of addicts who were supposedly recovering:
"I could in many cases sense intuitively, from the moment they walked into my office, whether they were still clean and sober or whether they had begun, or were just about to begin, using again. . . .Their very physical presence was palpably different from when they were committed to sobriety and not using. Psychologically they were more self-absorbed, aggressive, cocksure, grandiose, and defensive, and overall much less humble, open, and receptive."
Schoen writes that "the rationalizations, excuses, and self-justifications" of the active addict, the "grandiosity and inflation" are all "revolving around a basic core of narcissistic entitlement." He explains how the Fourth Step of AA--personal inventory--works against the self-righteousness of the addict. He refers to Bill W.'s assertion that as alcoholics (and addicts) "either we ... tried to play God and dominate those about us or we ... insisted on being over-dependent on them."
Schoen writes that Step 8--the listing of persons the addict has harmed--must be very specific about the exact nature of the offenses and that generic apologies are not enough. Step 9--making direct amends--is not about the addict's comfort but only about the well-being of those he has injured. Schoen says that real conscience and real guilt are deadly to the addiction.
He writes that when the addict stops using, "the insanity does not leave overnight," and that initially--for the first two years--the addict's judgment cannot be trusted. And he cites an article from the Harvard Medical School that one long-term study found that those who had been abstinent for less than three years had most of the same psychological problems as active alcoholics.
Reading this book--one of many I have read on the subject--cemented my feelings of powerlessness. Particularly Schoen's description of a mental health assessment test at a treatment facility which was given to patients newly admitted. Those tests showed many of the newly admitted addicts absolutely "off the charts" in scoring for diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Hysteria, Sociopath, Borderline, Paranoia, Mania, and other disorders. But after detox and two weeks abstinence, the results changed, and the "off the chart" scores returned to normal. His conclusion is that the effect of alcohol and drugs created "a level of psychological disturbance and insanity that was almost unimaginable, and so greatly distorted the true nature of their personalities that they were almost unrecognizable as individuals."
My acceptance of powerlessness over drugs and alcohol is cemented. Those of us here who have lived with addicts, tried desperately to remain married to and raise children with addicts, and have been shaken to the core by the cold-hearted abuses by addicts, are powerless. We are powerless to make a difference. Addiction is too big.
And those of us who have held on for sobriety and recovery only to find that when it finally happened, we were still hurting and confused and lonely with our newly recovering partner (three years or less sober) . . . we still find we are powerless. Our only hope is to focus on our own motivations, expectations, behaviors, rationalizations, and magical thinking, and to do our best to take personal responsibility for the life we live, every day.
Step One: We admitted we were powerless over alcohol--that our lives had become unmanageable.
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Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 793
Thank you so much, EG. Your reading always inspires me, and since I have a lot of other material to read unrelated to SR, I appreciate these posts even more. It is so generous of you to share and distill such knowledge with us. This one is very helpful for me today, too.
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Join Date: Nov 2007
Posts: 1,384
Wow! That was amazing, and makes so much sense. My RABF is two years in recovery, but struggling. This explains a lot of what I see. It is a good reminder that we are powerless, and all the attempts that we make to "help" the addict do nothing. The drug is too powerful. It is also a reminder of how the drug takes away the person we know. The addict's personality changes. It also explains all the lying that the addict will do in the name of the drug. Since it becomes their priority, they are unable to make safe decisions. It makes sense that explains why they must surrender.
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Join Date: Dec 2011
Location: Dallas TX
Posts: 2,282
VERY illuminating,EG...thank you.
A powerful re-illustration of the RAW POWER of this evil.Like messing around with an H-bomb....
thinking...."if the timer gets under 10 minutes,I'll just go hide behind something".
(it's not a grenade---it's an H-bomb!).Unless you can run 100mph or get behind a
mountain range in that 10 minutes....it's game over.
Placating,rationalizing,enabling......is like nailing some plywood and/or cardboard around it
(to protect yourself!).
Thanks to SR,I now make it a point to circumnavigate around black holes,short-
fuse H-bombs,and addicts.It SO adds to one's peace of mind.....not to mention the
substantial savings realized by not having to stock up on SPF 1000 sunscreen.
(Which I am not all that sure will make too much difference come detonation time.)
A powerful re-illustration of the RAW POWER of this evil.Like messing around with an H-bomb....
thinking...."if the timer gets under 10 minutes,I'll just go hide behind something".
(it's not a grenade---it's an H-bomb!).Unless you can run 100mph or get behind a
mountain range in that 10 minutes....it's game over.
Placating,rationalizing,enabling......is like nailing some plywood and/or cardboard around it
(to protect yourself!).
Thanks to SR,I now make it a point to circumnavigate around black holes,short-
fuse H-bombs,and addicts.It SO adds to one's peace of mind.....not to mention the
substantial savings realized by not having to stock up on SPF 1000 sunscreen.
(Which I am not all that sure will make too much difference come detonation time.)
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