No alibi ...
 

In recovery it's suggested we clear away the wreckage of the past...

In recognition and acceptance of this I was struck by this from the Zen teacher Alan Watts,' Things are not explained by the past, they are explained by the now. That's the birth of responsibility. Otherwise you can always look back over your shoulder and say," I'm neurotic because my mother dropped me and she's eurotic because her mother dropped her ", and so on. All the way back to Adam and Eve. You have to face the fact that you are doing all this, There's no alibi.'

Reflecting on this and having regard to my own life before, during and after my 'drinking history' I saw the truth in all that's been said in dealing with my past ...

Very true. I am an alcoholic now. Why I am an alcoholic is irrelavent. It will do me no good having someone or something to blame. I must focus on the solution, now.

Great post Red.

"Explaining things by the past is really a refusal to explain them at all"

I like Alan Watts however that quote seems to directly contravene another by Jung...

"Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate"

Care to expand?
 

Care to expand?

Just for clarification ..
 

Just for clarification I take in the history and development of A A see susan Cheevers book,'My Name is Bill', this'll be the same Jung who before the inception of it treated Rowland Hazard. After a year, sure he had 'cured' Rowland of his alcoholism, he sent him home from his clinic in Vienna to New York.

Rowland got drunk and remained so on the boat home, eventually sobering up in the Oxford Movement, the forerunner of AA.

I presume it's also the same Jung, who in later correspondence with Bill W., on of the co-founders of A A , endorsed the need, in recovery, for a spiritual experience or education above anything he could offer...?

Personally I take Clancy's view that once you try to psychoanalyse in recovery, and he tried a lot of it! You will never get better ...

I don't really have anything to expand on. I'm familiar with Alan Watts work, not so much Jung's. The quote from him is a regular poster's 'sig', and just something I've been considering recently.

You do make an interesting point above. "No human power could restore us to sanity" - I would tend to agree. In fact, I am kinda sure of that. I'm not familiar with your sources, but I get the gist.

Have to disagree though that psychoanalysis does not beget any personal progress, but this is my experience. It depends on the person and their own personal history and set of circumstances?

I like Bill W's answer to a Congressman when asked how AA worked - "very well, thank you."

My mother used to tell me she found me under a skunk cabbage (A native Michigan plant with a musty Oder) so this explains all my problems. Alas I have been damaged for life and might as well give up:a043:

It's all in your way of thinking ...
 

' What happened to you may not be your fault but how you think about it is your responsibility' - William Knaus, one of the pioneers of Cognitive Behaviour.

' Remember this, it's easy to lead a happy life, it's all within you. In your way of thinking,' Marcus Aurelius, one of the three novas of Stoic philosophy along with Epictetus and Seneca. The basic tenets of which are strongly linked with the words of the Serenity Prayer.

How do we do this, I can do this to a certain extent but some past just doesn't go away?

In recovery it's suggested we clear away the wreckage of the past...

Doing our utmost to straighten out the past, along with all the preceeding steps, has the effect of turning all our liabilities into assetts. "No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience can help others". We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it"

These changes are part of the overal tansformation which occurs through spiritual experience/awakening.

I was just kidding. Being found under a skunk cabbage is one of my fondest memories of my mother. The was always a smile on her face and a glint in her eye

Well, my dad said he found me by the side of the road.:lmao

Odd, I too was also found in the cabbage patch! :lmao

It's bothersome to me when someone questions why they drink and begins to look at their past and what's happened to them only to see someone post "Who cares why you drink? You just can't".

I do understand in our brains sometimes we seek out answers because we think if we work on what's occurred in our past we're trying to kid ourselves that then we can drink. So ultimately we're trying to convey to the person that there may be a chance they're seeking answers for the wrong reasons. How can anyone assume that's why they are searching for answers though?

I was adopted at birth into a family only because my parents had connections. In doing a home study the doctor would say no because they knew my mother wouldn't live into the child's adult life. Didn't matter, since they knew someone with clout it was allowed. It came true, my mother died three months after I turned 16. I would only say I had a decent, normal life with my mother until I was about 8 or 9. After that I was farmed out to relatives every summer or aunts would come and stay with us because my mother was in the hospital all the time. Nothing to do with alcohol, she had ovarian cancer, When I was farmed out to relatives my uncles on my father's side sexually molested me. Never intercourse but the funny, weird uncle you touch this and I touch that. My parents went to their graves never knowing any of this. I married into a very physically and emotionally abusive relationship and stayed in it for 12 years. Time to stop, you've seen enough. Believe me, there's far more.

I have always called myself a survivor. I just let all of that past roll off my back and try to do good now. But, am I really a survivor? Although my alcoholism may or may not be tied to any of what happened in my childhood life for someone to assume that I am seeking counseling to find a reason to drink is ludicrous. I am seeking counseling realizing that I am an unhealthy human being both physically and mentally because of what happened in my past. I never dealt with it. I just be bopped my way through life turning my head up to the sky and proclaiming "I am a SURVIVOR". Evidently not.

So when I see someone talk about getting help for their past everyone assuming that they're only doing it just to clear the pathway to drinking that's hogwash.

I have never properly dealt with what happened to me. In turn, I believe where we all like to cry in our drinks and tell our sob stories doesn't finding a healthy way to deal with them make sense? Doesn't that then help us to work through those emotions so we can no longer use them as an excuse to drink?

It just sets me off when I see anything that alludes to "You don't need to look for a reason why, you just can't, so shut up and accept it". In fact, I think it stops those who truly need help from seeking what they need.

The past. As long as my past remains a horrific disaster in my mind i will continue to stare at it. Like a grotesque car wreck I can't look away from. I'm trying to make friends with my past. Seeing the past as a building block to making the person I am now. I'm also trying hard to see the person I am now in a positive light. At the same time I actually don't dwell on the past. It is gone and the present is here. Living back there takes away from the beautiful day I am living. It is over, I survived. Hello world, I'm still here.

Stoic philosophy
 

Personally speaking, having faced much adversity in my life above and beyond that incurred in my drinking history, an example of which being that I twice lost everything, and In do mean EVERYTHING! Other than my son and my ability, which has also played a substantial part in my recovery... due to the selfish and irresponsible actions and behaviour of others in my personal and professional life, by developing a keen interest in the principles and practices of Stoic philosophy...

A good starting point of which is the website Stoicism Today, there are now books of the same name containing selected writings.... together with Jules Evans book, 'Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations' helped me in dealing with my past and present life immensely ... perhaps not least because they both contain links to the Serenity Prayer...

ps.
 

In dealing with people in matter relating to my past and present serenity and the harm they caused my whether by wilful act or omission. I have found that forgiveness done on the basis of forgiving the person but not their actions or behaviour towards me tends to put a proper perspective on things and contributes greatly to my peace of mind...and you can't buy or fake that.