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“Your greatest enemy is unguarded thought.”
Addicts suffer from monkey brain thinking. Operationally it helps to avoid the feared empty and quiet moments of life. It creates a distraction that helps to disregard the impact of destructive addictive behavior toward themselves and others.
Addicts live a life of self-sabotage. Inconsistency, incongruency, and hypocrisy pockmark everyday living. Addicts feel one thing, say another, and ultimately do behavior different than what they feel or say. Double-life living is the hallmark of an addict’s lifestyle.
Addicts struggle with blind spots. When there is a relapse, I frequently hear “I never saw it coming.” The truth was that relapse was as clear and obvious as the nose on their face. Everyone knew that acting out was inevitable, except the addict himself/herself. Recovery provides a space and place to corral monkey-brain thinking, blindspots, and self-sabotage. Here are some proven steps to take to manage the junkie worm blues.
1. Make mindful living a daily discipline. Rumination and racing thoughts dominate an addict’s brain. Medication is helpful and is often overprescribed. Addicts need to learn to sit and settle into themselves. But, present and past traumatic experiences haunt and taunt every addict. Ultimately, addicts need to practice mindful living. This involves learning to become solid with yourself.
Addicts are taught to live one day, even one hour, at a time. Yet two eternities, yesterday and tomorrow play tug of war with an addict’s brain. Remorse or bitterness for something, that happened yesterday, or the dread of what tomorrow may bring, distracts an addict’s attention from the here and now.
Mindfulness confronts monkey brain activity with calm and presence. Nothing needs to change, only needs to be noticed and observed. For a period of time, the mind rebels and dismisses the idea of quietly embracing the challenge to simply sit with whatever is present in the mind.
In the beginning, it is work that shifts, in time, to acceptance, followed by peace and calm.
Mindfulness cultivates faith in yourself and belief and confidence in your insights. It’s the place where you can grow the seed of compassion for self and others. It points to that which is solid—the sun, the ocean, the mountain. It leads you to those who are solid in their recovery. Those you know are solid like the mountain, the ocean and the sun. Those who through mindful living have calmed their monkey brain. Make mindfulness a daily practice.
2. Manage the closed-heart dynamic by practicing open-hearted living. Addicts learned to close their heart. They operate with a zero sum mentality. There are losers and winners. They desperately want to win but inwardly believe they are losers. Losing inevitably wins out because addict’s live life with a closed heart.
In recovery, addicts learn to open their hearts to other possibilities. Thoughts like “to win you gotta lose” and; to be more you gotta be less” are paradigm shifts in thinking that blow the mind of an addict.
Opening your heart is scary. Being emotionally naked to someone is overwhelming. Then, to live life this way as a constant is off the planet! Yet, open-hearted living is the only place where sobriety and serenity can thrive. It cultivates humility, spirituality, and is the place you can go down and explore your own brilliance.
Do you know who you, are or what ideas you, are closed to? Do you know why you are closed to that thought, idea, or person? Do you know what scares the shit out of you and triggers your monkey brain? Recovery requires that you be open to that thought, person, and unwanted feeling. Lean into it. It doesn’t mean that you have to do anything. Just simply be emotionally naked to the thought and be open. In time, it will spawn joy and happiness. It is the very property of open-hearted living.
3. Focus on quality and depth rather than quantity and breadth. More isn’t always better. The culture in America is consumption-driven. The mentality is to make your stock value at least $1 more this year than last and next year even more yet into perpetuity. Cancer grows that way. Do you ever tell yourself enough is enough?
Addicts in recovery must learn their limits or else they lose themselves in the consumerism of their drug of choice. A consumer mentality fuels monkey-brain thinking. It becomes an unguarded thought that invades and dominates and destroys life balance.
Addicts are forever seeking ways they can stretch their limits to live like “normies,” Why can’t I drink socially and control my drinking? Pot is not addictive, so why not an occasional doobie? What’s the problem with a 14-hour day? The world applauds achievement, don’t they? Questions like these rattle through the brains of recovering addicts every day.
What becomes elusive is the quality of depth. What every addict must learn is that their addiction is a clarion call that more of what others do is not better. What is better is the call to go deep within oneself, to explore the depth of one’s own brilliance in the context of one’s limitations. Personal brilliance is deeper than any of us know. Even Jesus said, “he who believes will do the works that I do and even greater things than these.” Belief is cultivated by going deep into oneself and connecting to your own personal brilliance. Trust the journey of quality and depth. It always exceeds quantity and breadth.
Addicts manage the junkie worm blues and monkey brain thinking that sabotages recovery by cultivating their own brilliance through mindful practice and open-hearted living.
