I knowingly sought relief from my pain of lacking self-worth, wanting to belong; and so much so, that I was willfully blind to sacrificing myself for the relief…. Most likely, akin to all the things we as humans try to escape early on until we become aware of how much control we have to naturally resolve that which is causing us the pain through positive mental and physical methods – exercise, contrast therapies, mediation, etc. You know, all the things we say to ourselves and others that we know we should be doing instead of the self-sabotaging we are currently doing to ourselves; obviously before finding Sobriety… or Sobriety finding us.
At the moment we are aware of the pain, we have two roles we can embody. The Villain or The Hero. The very act of Addiction does clarify the role we select as much as the “what” we choose to become addicted to that defines the connotation of good or bad. We have a choice when we become aware of the pain – do we choose a good addiction like walking daily, breathwork, strengthening our mental fortitude and scale that. Or do we choose a bad addiction like drinking, which can eventually scale as well. A bad addiction is a slippery slope, simple and easy to fall into innocently as we may have the intent to simply “try” a sip of alcohol or “try” a drug due to peer pressure, family pressure, social pressure, etc. A good addiction is simple as well but not as easy to “fall into” because our mind seems to work against us when it comes to physical and mental effort where energy will be consumed and our minds are always running an energy budget, among other factors. There so much we can unpack here, and will in our ongoing blog journey, but our pain can blur the mental clarity needed causing us to see the Villain and the Hero as silhouettes of similarity, representing a mental helping hand within our mind, yet whose hand are we about to grab and embody – the Villain or the Hero? For why would our own mind want to hurt us? It doesn’t, it’s simply trying to get us relief as quick as possible, usually opting for escape – a short-term solution, for it to is addicted as well, to Dopamine – not the delivery route.
Many of us, like myself, choose a shortcut in the form of alcohol, cocaine, etc. And let’s be clear here, these chosen selections for escape, still not relief, from pain is short-term and comes with more pain but they are not the Villain. We know the use of these substances are wrong, we “think” we can control them from controlling us, we “think” we can stop at anytime, we rarely can…we are the Villain, the self saboteur, for choosing this shortcut to escape pain – escape in this context is a short-cut with a short-term outcome and must be repeated to elongate the faux relief and if we continue this behavior, as most of us do, we embody the Villain.
Relief, unlike Escape, in this context is long-term, requires effort, work, discipline, a strong stance against our mood when we do not feel like putting in the daily actions to cultivate relief, resolution of our pain. Like the Bison, we must go into the storm to get through it quicker.
In our dysfunctional relationship (let’s get back to Addiction being neutral) with the substance(s) of choice, we often get glimpses of the hero within us… in that small window where we are nursing a hangover (before we grab that next drink, that next line, to put us back into the short-term escape) we are somewhere where access to these substances is non-existence, we hear this inner voice say “you need to stop doing this shit to yourself…” and we respond “I know..” and we mean it, even if by a small percent… and in those moments, that’s where we find the Hero for us to embody, that’s where the first signs of how to access the Hero exists, like a lighter sparking in a pitch black room, several times, before the flame rises……we, the Hero, awakens.
