Addiction, Part 3

Sorry for the hiatus the last few days. Life got in the way of finishing up this series, and to be honest, that last post left me emotionally drained-I wasn’t expecting that! I left off on Thursday discussing some personal counts that left some emotional pain and scarring. The second half of this book discusses a couple ways of breaking the addiction cycle that I discussed in the first part. This is the part of the book that gets a little religious/faith based. Chapter 6 discusses purging emotional pain. Recall that during the addiction cycle emotional pain leads to the addictive agent. So, one must learn how process their emotions. That is the first tool. The first step is to explore the pain. Don’t hide how you feel about something. The author discusses learning how to grieve the negative situation that you’re facing, and discusses the seven stages of grief: shock/denial, anger, bargaining, true grief, acceptance, forgiveness,  and resolution. In the sample situations that I mentioned, I don’t believe I got past the anger part of the situations I discussed when I was a pre-teen/teen. The second step in purging the emotional pain is to process your pain. She discusses the difference between extroverts and introverts. I am an introvert through and through. She states that most extroverts are more comfortable talking to someone, while some introverts may do better getting their feelings out on paper. I have to agree with that. I can convey my feelings better through words on paper/blog versus having to talk with someone about it. Remember how no one ever know the pain I went through during high school. This is why. When I called of my wedding last year, I wrote my ex a letter about how I really felt about how he treated me and about how those texts that I found made me feel. Who knows if he ever read it, but it felt good to get my words out.

The second escape from the cycle is after the guilt stage. This is where you forgive yourself for abusing yourself and others for what they have done to you. This is where the author really ties in religion-forgiveness and repentance. Next she discusses filling your heart instead of your stomach–having true friends, surrounding yourself with supportive family members. or becoming more involved with your faith/spirituality (if that’s your thing). She goes on to discuss ways to detect a relapse, and the importance of battling the negative self-talk that comes along with an addiction.

Overall, I got a lot out of this book. It forced me to recall some negative situations and bring them to the surface. I didn’t   share all of them (I’d probably still be writing), but the ones I shared where very personal and hard to share (especially sharing some of the feelings I had at those particular times). Speaking of sharing those, I really appreciate the messages I’ve received from you guys. Sharing was definitely hard, but I really think I needed to unhide some of the feelings I was still holding inside, even 15 years later for the first situation I mentioned. I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that thinks they have an addiction or has trouble processing emotions.

Any questions about the book, or my experiences, feel free to contact me!