Empowerment

Self Sabotage: The Common Undoing of Every Addict

July 2, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“You know, it’s not the world that was my oppressor, because what the world does to you, if the world does it to you long enough and effectively enough, you begin to do to yourself.”
— James Baldwin

Through the years of working with addiction, self-sabotage offers the most common cause of why recovering addicts relapse. First-step stories are replete with examples of addicts committing blatant behaviors that clearly describe someone desperately wanting to be found out. Self-sabotage comes from what we learn to believe about ourselves. It comes from the thousands of hours of thought introjects that our parents have told us during the young impressionable years of life. These are the beliefs that are formed by our family, our religious beliefs, and the culture that we grew up in. Baldwin is correct that if you are treated by a certain behavior long enough and embrace a lifestyle effective enough, you will begin to do the same things to yourself and others because your worldview and personal beliefs will make it so. What you think about will expand. It’s the very property of thought.

The concept of “stinking thinking” that so characterizes an addict’s thought process around his addiction is developed very early in life. Many addiction specialists contend that the environmental influence experienced by the mother during the period of gestation has a formative influence on “stinking thinking” that later appears in the life of addiction. This pattern of thought is often traced from the deprivation of developmental needs in early childhood to an impending mentality of entitlement in adulthood. While this dynamic is not the only contribution to the development of addiction, its prevalence can be clearly seen with a rationale that fuels addictive behavior.

In recovery, an addict is challenged to confront the “stinking thinking” that sabotages sobriety.

Immediately, changing the way you think, how you see the world, and experience relationships with community transforms your behavior and you begin to accomplish what was thought impossible—-the capacity to live one hour, one day, etc, without addiction dominating as the organizing principle of your life. The euphoria of that moment, experiencing the release and relief from the grips of addiction is remarkable. In recovery, we call it “pink clouding”. The crash on the other side can be devastating when overconfidence produces slippery unchecked behavior that leads to relapse. At this point, I no longer need my parents or the world around me to oppress me. My own addictive thinking becomes my oppressor. I am stuck in my own self-sabotage.

A way out: Self-sabotage behavior is so profound and powerful that addicts need help to get out of their own way. Twelve-step communities have been so liberating for millions over the years, helping so many get out of their way of self-sabotage thinking and behavior. Yet, many more have attended and left unaffected, continuing their self-sabotage and destructive behavior.

Here are some suggestions to help release the grip of sabotage.

1. Be coachable: Though bruising to the ego, surrender control of your recovery to someone who knows the way out. Do whatever that someone tells you to do. Often, that someone is identified as a sponsor. I won’t forget the early days of my recovery when I questioned every step of the way. My sponsor cleared his throat and spoke “Ken, you should shut up and do what you are told”. Though this advice was blunt, once I got over my hurt feelings, I used it to save my life from self-sabotage.

2. Rely upon collective wisdom: While I don’t believe that a 12-step group takes the place of therapy when needed, I have experienced the depth of wisdom that comes from the collection of community wisdom. The way out of self-sabotage requires that you have a consultation community who will tell you straight and confront all forms of self-sabotage thought and behavior. Many maxims express this view but the one I like is “If 8 people tell you that you’ve got a tail, then check your ass in the mirror!” Honest, frank feedback is the deepest form of love to guide an addict out of self-sabotage.

3. Unearth mistaken beliefs that fuel self-sabotage: This is where therapy can be so helpful. Unpacking mistaken beliefs developed in early childhood from neglect, abandonment and all other forms of abuse will help trace the trail of shame that must be exposed if self-sabotage behavior is to be re-wired. You will need to work through tendencies to minimize, defend, and dismiss the impact of parental influence. There is a difference between understanding where self-sabotaging beliefs originate and placing blame. Understanding the origination of mistaken beliefs will create the possibility of letting go of shame and reversing self-sabotage.

4. Cultivate a lifestyle of self-affirmation: Belief is an Anglo-Saxon word that means to “live in accordance with”. Self-sabotage behavior is overcome when an addict carefully composes a vision of living life that is not dominated by an addictive response. Rather, when an addict chooses to live a life that is aligned with the call and vision of inner destiny, self-sabotage thoughts and behavior release their grip. They fall away like in the movie of Forrest Gump when the braces fall away from young Forest as he runs from the bullies whose intention was to dominate and pick on him. Thoreau put it this way, “If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; he will live with the license of a higher order of beings.”

This becomes a reality when I bathe myself every day with positive affirmative thoughts that condition toward positive fulfillment and weed out the “stinking thinking” so prevalent in self-sabotage behavior. There is quiet empowerment bestowed on the addict who learns to practice the skill of affirmation. Baldwin is correct. If you create a world in recovery in which you tell yourself what you want to believe and act on long enough and effectively enough, you will begin to make that part of your world free from oppression.

Yes You Can

June 21, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“The great thing about the horizon of infinity is that there is no limit to how amazing you can become.”

You can live sober. You can create whatever you want to be or however, you want to live. Just because something is not handed to you out of the blue does not mean it cannot be yours. Like the phoenix who rose from the ashes to live again, you can rise from the ashes of addict failure and thrive again.

How? You will need to act upon the vision of destiny that you see yourself becoming. If you brush away the dust and dirt of disappointment that comes from groveling in addictive behavior, you will see the dream of living calm, collected, and empowered. You will see yourself capable of managing the anxiety and stress of life without depending upon your addictive behavior or substance to get you through. There is always a wish or a vision of something better. When you are struggling with failure to live sober, it feels impossible to embrace anything but feelings of doom, devastation, and resignation. You feel dominated by failure. You tell yourself that sobriety is for someone else. However, it is possible to act your way into different thinking and eventually create different feelings about yourself and the world around you.

When you feel so crappy about where you are in life, you believe you need something to fix the way you think about yourself. Your destiny hangs on the way you feel. People consider geographic moves, a new relationship, a new job or therapist, or medication. These moves are based on the spectacular. Out of the blue someplace, someone or something will save you from yourself. These wishes are not reality. The answer to healing from addiction is to take the first step toward acting and living the way your heart tells you. You do this one step at a time regardless of how you feel about yourself. This is true for addicts and non-addicts alike. The first step for an addict may be one of surrender to inpatient treatment, again. It could be to make an apology once again for hurting someone. It always means to ignore the voices that scream negative messages that you cannot be different.

You will need help. You will only seek this help by acting on the vision that your destiny calls you to be. Even when it seems so far away. The old adage “fake it till you make it” has value. Eventually, if you refuse to hang on to the old behavior you will act your way to a better feeling.

Support yourself with positive affirmation. This one exercise is often neglected, yet is magic for recovery. For me, after 34 years in recovery, there is no skill more powerful in becoming my destiny than the employment of affirmative thought. It will transform your life when you are dominated by failed behaviors, mediocrity, and a lack of confidence. There is no limit to how amazing you can become when you choose to act in ways that your destiny beckons regardless of how you feel. It is possible. Will you take the first step?

Wounds That Boomerang and How to Stop the Re-Enactment

June 14, 2024 by Ken Wells

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“If you bring out what is inside you,

what is inside you will save you.

If you fail to bring out what is inside you,

what is inside you will destroy you.”

The Gnostic Gospels

I have experienced this truth over and again as a therapist treating sex offender behavior. The question has always been why would anyone sexually abuse another, whether adult or child? The answer is always found in a desperate need for control, and re-enactment of being wounded, dominated, and helpless at a vulnerable time in life toward someone else.

A common scenario is that one guy marries a woman who has a young female child. The intimacy-disabledness in his previous relationship was never addressed and worked out. So he brings that forward into this new relationship where he has become a step-parent. He repeats the same intimacy disability in that he feels one down to his partner, cannot connect at a deeper level, can’t please his partner sexually or be pleased himself, avoids conflict and only knows to dominate or be dominated by his partner.

Things don’t work out. But, he does feel a special kinship to the stepdaughter. With her, he feels empowered, helps her with homework, becomes her confidante, and engages her in physical horseplay. To his spouse, this is everything that her previous partner would not do.

So she is devastated when she finds out that her new partner has been molesting her daughter, watching her undress, etc. In shock, she wonders where did this come from?

He is also fearful, wishing he had never gone down this path. Now forced to do therapy he uncovers unresolved neglect/abandonment and no one to meet his needs as a child. He traces the lack of control he experienced as a child to his inability to be empowered in an adult relationship. He acts out his insecurity through attempts to meet his needs with a child through domination and control.

Does everybody compensate for childhood needs in their adult life in this destructive way? Of course not! However, none of us got through our childhood unscathed. If we do not face and address our own childhood pain of being broken we will relive the break in some form of re-enactment later in life!

The various ways of re-enacting are numerous. Whether pain and suffering have a proper place in our lives or whether we become cornered and trapped in the pain and suffering depends on an individual’s efforts to integrate the painful experience into life experience which later becomes a source of wisdom. It has been my experience in treating trauma that what is not integrated is repeated. It is repeated through compulsions (addictions of all types) and all kinds of controlling behaviors that create intimacy disability. Not every person who has been sexually or physically abused sexually offends another. Yet for sure, everyone who has been abused in childhood will re-enact that abuse in some way as they go through the stages of life, if not addressed. There are many ways to act out the hurt and pain in hidden ways that are subconscious to the individual and acceptable to the culture. Behaviors such as workaholism, male machismo, being a social “player” and perfectionism are all examples of facades that hide many types of abuse manifested in early childhood.

Consider the following:

1. Face, feel, and accept: Stopping the cycle of re-enacting painful experiences requires that you access the courage to face what is. Most of us won’t do this until the pain of not facing reality is greater than the pain of embracing truth. You will need to declare a personal jihad face to your own demons. To do so means that you must experience the feelings that have been creating discomfort. Leaning into the feelings is the only way to get through them and accept the reality of what is. Short of that you will tend to seek revenge to avoid facing your own shortcomings. Rather than distract yourself with schemes to get back at others who have hurt you, face your demons and find the acceptance that will create a sense of connection with others.

2. Integrate or disintegrate: When you are not willing to look at your part of a problem in relationship, you re-enact ways that you have been controlled as a child into a use of power to control others in your adult life. You may bully with intimidation, act like a victim, or shut down and sulk. All of these and many other strategies represent ways that you disintegrate trust and connection in adult relationships.

Integration incorporates past experience with present encounters and helps to create a different future. Integration involves recognizing how past abuse impacts present response. It includes redirecting shame carried to the caregiver who gave it to you in the first place and to the hurtful behavior you engaged in the here and now. Once you have stalked the shame to its source and redirected it to behavior, instead of self, you will be better able to integrate the wounding experience with a grounding of self-empowerment. Every time you face your own pain and brokenness you interrupt the need to re-enact old destructive behaviors in the here and now. When you don’t, you repeat the suffering and pass it on to others.

Facing and cleaning the wounds from the past will integrate your life experience with others and strengthen the bonds between you and the world around you. Ultimately, what you refuse to face inwardly will get acted outwardly into the world around you. It will require courage for you to address your historic pain.

Black and White choices in the Gray Zone of Recovery Living

April 12, 2024 by Ken Wells

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I have practiced recovery from addiction through the 12-steps for 34 years. I have worked through each step 10 different times. I utilize the steps every day of my life. That said, I know that recovery is not uniform. Some people I know who began recovery about the same time I did, no longer struggle with the cravings I do. I have listened to many who have testified about transforming their life in other ways than following the 12-steps. Some who met with me 30 years ago in 12-step groups disappeared and returned to acting out. I have had conversations with others who attended 12-step groups for a while and then stopped. They tell me that they got to a place where they no longer needed the steps to remain sober. They say they have not acted out in years.

At times I wish that I was one of them. Yet, I am grateful for the serenity I have experienced through the diligent work I have done through the 12-steps. To be sure, recovery is a challenge for all, regardless of the path chosen. It is helpful to recognize that people choose different pathways to experience recovery.

Through the years of my recovery, I have noticed that there is a certain gray zone about recovery. Every addict does the steps in different ways. Also, there are specific things that I can do and remain sober but you cannot. For example, some alcoholics could never have lunch in a bar without the overwhelming temptation to drink. Others report not experiencing overwhelming temptation while friends drink alcohol in their presence while they sip on a soft drink. Some porn addicts report they can watch a racy sex scene with their partner without acting out sexually while others advise that watching would constitute relapse. There would be no way the scene would be compatible with their sobriety.

Many alcoholics in recovery remain dependent upon nicotine and smoke like a chimney. Nicotine kills more people in America than alcohol each year. Some sex addicts put the use of pornography in high-risk middle circle behavior, but not designated acting out. Some sex addicts in a committed relationship think of flirting with another person as high risk but not acting out. Sometimes addicts honestly have made these conclusions while at other times addicts are humoring addictive rationale. Often, seasoned therapists and veteran addicts in recovery can detect compromise and flirting with disaster that is presented by another addict. In 12-step meeting rooms there is a saying “If everywhere you go smells like shit, maybe it’s time to check your shoes”. There’s a lot of wisdom in phrases like this to guide addict behavior.

However, there is also gray zone behavior that addicts must take personal responsibility to sift and sort to determine what makes sense in individual recovery. It’s true one size does not fit all. There is a myriad of questions that addicts must embrace with responsibility. Your answer may not be the same response as someone else. What constitutes acting out must be your own definition, not your sponsor’s, your wife’s, or anyone else. That said, how you define bottom-line behaviors is not the only behavioral list you will need to be accountable to. Your partner will have expectations that you will need to consider in order to preserve integrity in the relationship. The two lists will need to be considered as separate stand-alone lists.

You will need to determine what you are willing to disclose to your partner and other accountability people about your history of acting out in your addiction. I am an advocate for full disclosure to partners. That said, where the rubber meets the road, it is seldom that a complete exhaustive disclosure is ever given. This sounds contradictory. Yet, many addicts don’t remember the thousands of behaviors they have committed, even though each is egregious and heartbreaking.

How much you share or what your partner wants to hear lies in a gray zone. This means that disclosure is a dynamic and not a static share. Details that are important in disclosure for one partner may vary from what is important to be shared to another. Some addicts are incapable of telling the whole complete truth because they have damaged their brains with chemical abuse or other hurtful behavior. Sometimes addicts don’t share the whole truth because they are not ready to take recovery seriously. The same can be true for a partner. However, what must be considered in partner assessment is the overwhelming trauma triggered by addict behavior. Partner behavior is often a reaction to the trauma inflicted by addict behavior. These concerns lie in a gray zone and must be individually evaluated before making assumptions about what must be done for healing.

Here are a few considerations that can be helpful in determining your black-and-white response to gray zone recovery living.

1. When you are early in recovery, decide to do whatever your sponsor suggests. Your best thinking got you stuck where you are at in addiction. It’s time to practice humility and surrender your ego to recovery. In time, all of your decision-making will be handed back to you. But first, practice listening and doing what your sponsor and others who have more sobriety that you suggest.

2. Live in consultation. Addicts are self-absorbed and take up too much space. A first step toward long-term recovery is humbly admitting that you need help in all aspects of living. Develop the habit of consulting with other addicts in recovery. There is a saying in 12-step work that “If 8 people tell you that you have a tail, the least check your ass in the mirror!” The emphasis is don’t make important recovery or life decisions on your own without checking in with those who have been through what you are experiencing. The interchange will help you make black-and-white choices and establish your own limits in recovery.

3. Be accountable. People struggle with accountability. It’s one thing to ask for help and quite another to be accountable for the decision you made about the consult you sought. Manage uncertain gray zone recovery experience with accountability for your behavior. Your decision about recovery may be different than what I would do, but accountability brings black and whiteness to what you say is an important value to you.

People have black-and-white convictions about diet, exercise, and many other aspects of living. Life is complicated and the pathways to recovery are many. The gray zones in recovery require personalized black-and-white decisions. To live an empowered life in recovery you will need to make black and white decisions that express your values and remain true to your heart in the presence of gray zone experiences. This journey always depends upon consultation from others and accountability for the behaviors that you commit to in your heart.

When The Load Seems too Much

April 2, 2024 by Ken Wells

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Someone remarked that Atlas was not forced to hold up the world, he was convinced that if he did not, the world would fall. This kind of magical thinking is a trademark for children between the ages of 3 and 11. If dad were to wake up and announce to his five-year-old that the sun was going to come up from the west and be bright blue, it is likely that son would say “OK, if you say so, Dad!” He would believe it because at that age he is highly impressionable and vulnerable to illogical conclusions.

During this time it is so important that parents recognize the vulnerability of their children during early susceptible years of childhood development. Often, children make up that they are responsible for adults in ways that are distorted.

Children listen to the interaction between parents. When parents fight unfairly, the kids conclude it is their fault. Parents almost literally are God to young impressionable children. So when they fight, kids conclude that it is one thing for a child to have a problem but if God (mom and dad) have a problem it is untenable. So, they make up that the reason mom or dad are fighting is their fault. Or, they believe that it is their responsibility to fix the problem. Often, one or both parents seek out emotional support from the inadequate child. When parents lament about the other or use the child to be a receiver of everything that is wrong in the world, the child concludes that it is their responsibility to fix their parent. It could be that the parent complains about the other partner in the relationship. It might be that the parent pours out fear and anxiety about finances, health, world economy, politics, religion, dismal results about their favorite sports teams, or whatever. Like a vacuum, young impressionable kids suck it all in and magically conclude that it is their responsibility to fix the problem that mom and dad complain about.

Subtlety, the parent-to-child role begins to shift whether intended by the adult parent or not. Children take on a role that they cannot fulfill. Even though they cannot fix the adult by their behavior, they still try.

When adults get stuck in immature childlike behavior, they are vulnerable to allow the child to fix the problem. They allow the child to attempt to fix the problem by letting them listen to them lament and/or depending upon the child to offer emotional support and love. This dysfunctional behavior cements into the brain of the child that it is their responsibility to be the parent to their adult parent. Children take on this impossible task and adopt a family role to be the fixer or hero in ways that never work. They lose themselves in their role and maintain the role in their adult relationships after they physically grow up.

This patterned behavior contributes to intimacy-disabling behaviors in their adulthood. The lack of early child development of healthy boundaries created by unhealthy parents fuels dysfunctional adult behavior. The child grows up believing that the only way to be OK is that they have to fix everyone around them. They are set up to absorb everyone else’s hurt, disappointment, and difficulties, and that it is their responsibility to fix. They need to be the hero in order to be validated. So children who needed to fix their parents are prone to seek out heroic type jobs as adults. They become medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and CEO’S of companies with an emphasis to prove their worth by fixing problems. Their tendency is to find their identity in how well they can move mountains, fix problems, and conquer conflict because that is what was required of them when they were children. Dysfunctional childhood expectations are usually very subtle and unnoticeably powerful. It is a set up for desperate outside validation. The only way you know that you are worthwhile is that you are able to fix, conquer, or create solutions for problems that other people have. No matter how much money they pay you, if you do not fulfill this role of fixing others you will not be satisfied. Even though you know as an adult that intellectually you cannot solve other people’s problems, you have wired yourself that this is the fixated role you must play. Unnoticed, you become Atlas convinced that if you do not hold up your world it will indeed fall apart.

Here are a few considerations to ponder if you feel stuck being Atlas.

1. There is a distinct difference between sharing someone’s pain and bearing it. Children from dysfunctional families learn to practice carrying mom/dad’s and other’s pain. In doing so, they succumb to overwhelm. They may grow up to be successful in their professional pursuits, but in their relationships they continue to believe it is their job to carry another person’s problems with the accompanying pain. They never learned to walk alongside and witness another person’s struggle without carrying their pain and compulsively needing to fix the problem. It is necessary to allow others to feel and have their own struggle without your interference.

2. It is necessary to look backward and undo your dependency to your parents or caregivers around the dysfunctional roles you learned to play as a child. You will not be able to detach from your unhealthy role through simple recognition of what is happening dysfunctionally with your partner, friend, or professional endeavor. Recognition is a necessary beginning. Yet, to transform your behavior you will need to address the past parental/caregiver enmeshment. Grieving is necessary regarding the role reversal in relationship that mom or dad unintentionally did with you. Shame is the dynamic that keeps the old role in place. Empty chair work often is helpful. Sitting your parent down in an empty chair without them being actually present, and describing the impact of their past behavior is always helpful toward creating resolve. With this exercise, you can practice saying it straight without edit and move the energy of all your feelings from the parent/caregiver to the issue of injustice (you being their for them in an adult responsibility rather than they being their for you) and then further to your own personal empowerment to initiate healthy boundaries and self-actualized care. It is powerful to do this with your parents/caregivers in person as long as you are not expecting anything from them in their response or lack of response.

3. Check to see whose baggage you are carrying. When you are traveling and check in bags at the airport you are given identification tags so that you are sure to pick up the right luggage at the end of your destination. More than once someone has mistakenly left with the wrong luggage. In relationships, you need to be sure that you are not carrying other people’s baggage. Sorting out what is truly yours and what is not is never-ending work. Some people don’t feel at peace until the emotions of everyone around them are managed and tended. If this is you, then you are walking out of the airport with someone else’s luggage. Bring it back to them. They cannot go home without it. Though confusing, you cannot be responsible for other people’s emotional response. Until you realize this you will continue to go home with someone else’s baggage, wondering how do you fit into their life expectations, solve their problems or essentially live their life. It is like opening the luggage once home and trying to fit into someone else’s clothing. It just doesn’t work!

Rather than continuing to mimic Atlas in your life, discover the amazing freedom of letting down, letting go, and allowing the world to carry you.

Self Empowerment — Making Things Enough

March 12, 2024 by Ken Wells

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Addicts in recovery often struggle with knowing how to meet their needs in healthy ways. As a child, many developmental needs were left unmet because parents who never had their needs met when they were young and vulnerable failed to meet their children’s needs. They pass along the same dysfunctional patterns they learned from their parents. This is one way dysfunctional patterns of behavior are intergenerationally transferred.

As a child, they learn to compensate in order to survive. They become very good at improvising—doing what pleases their parents and gets their attention. They learn to do and perform because the value of being is de-emphasized. Children learn to do anything to avoid neglect and abandonment which are terrifying experiences. This is when a child loses a sense of identity. Children mistakenly believe that whatever they do to get noticed is who they are. So they lose themselves in family roles (hero, scapegoat, lost child, etc) or in taking care of others. Sometimes they act out with negative behavior or through personal accomplishments to get attention. They hope to be noticed by caregivers. The result is that they are never able to do enough outside behavior to fill the empty space inside. That is when they create a cocktail of life experience to avoid the feelings of neglect and abandonment.

The mistaken beliefs that come with abandonment are, I am not worthy, not enough, or don’t measure up to matter to those you most want to be noticed by. So they learn to numb out and avoid the extreme emotional pain and fear associated with neglect and abandonment. Addiction doesn’t take away the pain but it does give what it promises. It is like a warm blanket on a cold night that offers temporary relief and escape from the harsh reality of a world full of winter experiences.

Every addict must stop the run-away train going down the track in order to get at the root cause of their destructive behavior. They learn to identify and express their feelings, which they were disconnected from in addiction. They have to be taught how to recognize needs represented in personal affect. They must learn how to assert meeting the needs housed within the emotions expressed. This journey requires education and a lot of practice. Ultimately, they must face their fears of neglect and abandonment. Most people are afraid to express what they feel or need because they fear they will be abandoned. As children, they have been abandoned emotionally, physically, or both. They learn to avoid this fear by the thoughts they embrace and the things they do. They compartmentalize what happened or did not happen as children. They protect those who have abandoned them with staunch family loyalty. They forgive prematurely, minimize results, and deny the impact of abandonment. They do everything possible to avoid facing the fear of abandonment. They learn to regulate themselves emotionally by trying to regulate everyone around them.

In my book, Dare to Be Average—Finding Your Brilliance in the Commonplace, I told the story about a little boy who loved PBJ (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches). He would go to the pantry, take the jar of peanut butter, and spread it on his bread. Then he would slap the jelly and peanut butter together and enjoy his PBJ. When there was daylight at the bottom of the jar of peanut butter, he would pitch it in the trash and reach for a new jar. All was good until one day there was no backup jar in the pantry. So with disappointment, he resigned to do without. As he walked away, his father noticed and asked him to come back to the kitchen. He took the jar of peanut butter that was thrown in the trash, made sure there was no gunk on it, and then scraped the sides of the jar which provided for 1/2” thick of peanut butter rather than the normal 1” thickness. He then noted to his son that he was willing to go without when he could take what was and spread it around and make it enough.

This story points to a skill set that many addicts fail to incorporate in their recovery program. When faced with the fear of abandonment in a relationship, they panic. Some insist that their partner fix the fear. They focus on their partner’s shortcomings. This is a subtle way to make the partner the identified problem.

Others run from the relationship through an approved replacement addiction like work etc. Many refuse to face their fear of abandonment and resolve the pain. They look outside themselves to medicate their fear. If not through acting out with their drug of choice, they utilize schemes of manipulation and overcontrol impression management or a myriad of caretaking strategies to avoid facing their fear of abandonment. They perceive their relationships through the view of a terrorized disempowered child. Consequently, they look for others to fix what they can only fix from within themselves. It renders them ineffective to take what is in a relationship and do their part to make it enough. Paralyzed in neediness, addicts look to others outside to fix their fear of abandonment.

Managing the fear of abandonment requires empowering an adult perspective in the following areas:

1. Recognizing your fear. In reactivity, we can cover our fear of abandonment by focusing on the injustice behavior of a partner. Since we cannot fix our partner when he or she complains or is unhappy, we become defensive and become embroiled in a circular argument trying to fix the blame. What gets lost in the skirmish around who is at fault is the reality that you fear abandonment from your partner at some level.

2. Address the childhood fear of abandonment. This requires taking time to identify ways that you were abandoned in childhood. You will need to dismantle family loyalty by taking your parents off the pedestal in order to perceive the ways you were abandoned. You will know you have your parents on a pedestal by the feelings of guilt you experience when you speak to the times they abandoned you physically, emotionally, or both. You will need to grieve for the young impressionable part of you that was abandoned. In your grief work, you will need to move the energy of what you feared from your parents to the issue of abandonment. You will then need to transfer this energy to the empowered adult self to provide the safety you need in the here and now. This is not a one-and-done life experience. Rather, it is an adult skill set that must be honed and practiced throughout life.

3. Make amends when you fail to empower the adult. Insight does not create perfection. You will backslide into giving the reins to the child within to negotiate decisions that require an adult mindset with your partner. When you recognize this to be true, take a deep breath, step back, gather yourself, and make amends. Then request a do-over. Practice will not make perfect. Yet, the combination of practice and a willingness to make amends will provide the incremental progress necessary to grow intimacy and reduce the fear of abandonment.

Don’t forget the peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Always remember that as the adult in charge, you will have the power to take what is in a relationship spread it around, and make it enough. You do not have to be dominated by the fear of abandonment.

The Fox and the Tiger

February 13, 2024 by Ken Wells

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There is a well-known Sufi story about a man who was walking through the forest and saw a fox that had lost its legs, and he wondered how it lived. Then he saw a tiger come up with game in its mouth. The tiger ate its fill and left the rest of the meat for the fox.

The next day God fed the fox by means of the same tiger. The man began to wonder at God’s greatness and said to himself, “I too shall just rest in a corner with full trust in the Lord and he will provide me with all that I need.”

He did this for many days but nothing happened, and he was almost at death’s door from starvation when he heard a voice say, “O you who are in the path of error, open your eyes to the truth! Stop imitating the disabled fox and follow the example of the tiger.”

No one gets through life without experiencing trauma. The unexpected happens. Feeling numb from tragedy and loss is a common thread for all humanity. No one will escape it. The Sufi story is universally applicable to all. When faced with misfortune we can respond like a helpless, legless fox or we can address misfortune by following the example of the tiger. Metaphorically, sorting and sifting whether you are responding to adversity as a disabled fox or empowered tiger often determines the impact of trauma in your life.

Betrayal in committed partnerships is an insidious experience for everyone. The betrayer lives a life of deceit and a double life toward someone to whom they promised protection and propriety. The betrayed partner often experiences the edge of uncertainty without knowing the reality of ongoing devastation. Family members are torn with confusion and anxiety watching a horror story unfold in front of their eyes. No one is ever better off when betrayal occurs.

The trauma of betrayal often triggers codependency that exists to varying levels. It would be a mistake to suggest that betrayed partners all suffer the same degree of codependent response or codependency at all. The pervasiveness of codependency is experienced far and wide throughout relationships in our society.

Historically, the essential experience of trauma with betrayal has been under-emphasized while promoting the codependency that is often present with betrayal. Rightfully, many today identify as hurtful the diagnosis of codependency without raising consciousness to the raw trauma that must be treated for those who have been betrayed. There has been an over-emphasis upon codependency and co-addiction when trying to be helpful to those who have been betrayed. The emphasis upon the impact of trauma has been helpful and necessary.

The importance of prioritizing and distinguishing the difference of trauma response from codependent response has been helpful for healing from betrayal. Yet, it is critical that the concern for trauma around betrayal not be blind to the possibility of co-addiction, the idea that a partner can be addicted to a partner, or the existence of codependency during the assessment of what needs to be treated. Each can appear in varying degrees from mild to intense.

So, to be sure, trauma is a universal pathology for all engaged with betrayal. It is hurtful to minimize codependent or co-addictive behavior which may or may not have originated from betrayal behavior. New terminology about these behaviors can be helpful. Melody Beattie was helpful in popularizing the dynamics of codependency in human relationships. It is helpful to build on the foundation of understanding that her writings established. Assessing impact of betrayal trauma will require identifying the consequences of the trauma and then triaging needed interventions depending upon what is presented. This requires much needed process and awareness from an experienced therapist to examine the presence and intensity of trauma and related behaviors.

Helping those victimized by the trauma of betrayal requires recognition of trauma indicators and application of helpful interventions. Those who are impacted by betrayal need careful appraisement and sensibility applied in the treatment of their response to betrayal. Only then can we help the patient move through their trauma of betrayal and help them shift from the paralysis of being a helpless fox to the reality of the empowered tiger.

Perfect is Never Part of the Plan

December 19, 2023 by Ken Wells

READ IT TO ME: Click play to listen to this post.

“She’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be. But if she can make you laugh at least once, cause you to think twice, and admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She isn’t going to quote poetry or think about you every moment, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you could break. Don’t hurt her, don’t change her, and don’t expect more than she can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when she makes you happy, yell when she makes you mad, and miss her when she’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect people don’t exist, but there’s always one person that is perfect for you.” ― Bob Marley

When addicts come to recovery, there is always a desire to do it perfectly. On the one hand, their ego tells them they can. “Twelve steps, twelve days, knock it down, what’s next!” I’ve heard it more than once. On the other hand, “failure, missing the mark is so painful I don’t want to get up and try one more time” is a common lament from many. More than one addict can testify that they have a drawer full of chips reminding them of commitments made and broken. Why try if I can never reach the mark, never measure up? Recovery becomes like the life they have always lived. Somehow I should be able to do this perfectly and I cannot because I am woefully imperfect.

Baseball great Mickey Mantle once reflected on the average experience of his Hall of Fame baseball career. He said, “During my 18 years of major league baseball I came to bat almost 10,000 times. I struck out about 1,700 times and walked another 1,800 times. You figure a ball player will have about 500 at-bats a season. That means I played seven years without ever hitting the ball.”

The average experience of a baseball player is making an out, not getting a hit. In the presence of striving for success, even for someone as great as Mickey Mantle, there is a compelling story of difficulty and strife to share. Mantle’s authentic willingness to connect with his intimate battle with failure forced him to practice the fundamental basics of self-care. As a result, these common-place experiences of struggle enabled him to look back at his Hall of Fame career and understand how to put imperfection in its proper perspective. No matter who you are, transforming meaningfulness from mundane moments of struggle and failure requires accepting imperfection. It is necessary to embrace the benefits of average commonplace struggles.

When you don’t measure up to what you expect, you then scale down your expectations of achievement which can be helpful or disastrous. Moving acting out behavior from your inner circle to your middle circle and denying that it is any longer acting out but just high-risk behavior is disastrous for sobriety. You just practice old destructive behaviors you did before recovery with a different label. In your attempt to be perfect, you end up accelerating more shame. No one ever beats themselves up to a better place.

However, when you fail to measure up to what you intended, it is important to adjust the way you treat yourself. Rather than criticize and judge your failed behavior, it is transformative to recognize the mistake and then focus on the next right behavior which always anchors being centered. Centered living involves grounding yourself in your values. When you blow it, either by relapsing into addictive behavior or falling short of treating yourself and others with respect and dignity, you will need to practice ignoring the inner critical voice, bring yourself back to the center, and anchor yourself to your values. You will feel hypocritical, discouraged, and dejected because of your failed behavior. You will need to embrace your imperfect behavior by positively affirming who you are. This takes practice and everyday conditioning. You will need to create healing affirmations that you engage in as frequently as you brush your teeth before they consistently transform your imperfect behavior into empowerment. Slowly your new relationship with imperfection will emerge. Being able to bring yourself back to center is more important than never having left center in the first place.

Imperfection contains the secret message the universe would like you to have to live life in harmony. Striving to be perfect deafens your inner ear to the message of the universe. When you persist toward perfection, you will hide inevitable shortcomings and run from the message they have for you. Managing imperfection requires that you listen to the pain of failure and shortcomings. For example, as an addict when you crave a fix from your drug of choice, after you take yourself out of harm’s way, listen to the legitimate need that must be met with healthy self-parenting. Your imperfect craving will contain a message from the universe to take care of yourself in this extremely needy moment. Perfection will try to deny the craving and thus miss the message from the universe. By embracing your imperfection you will transform the curse of craving into a blessing of personal care and intimacy. Imperfection teaches you to listen to your feelings and become present in the present moment.

Managing imperfection means that you will need to recognize when you have handed the reins of control over to the small child within. As a child, you become emotionally stuck around the needs that did not get met and are fueled by neglect and abandonment. When that perception is triggered as an adult, the inner child seizes the moment and flees or freezes with fear. At that moment, you give power to the little boy or little girl to address an adult decision and you render your powerful wise-mind adult inoperative. The results of this interaction are dismal. Perfection denies or becomes overwhelmed with the failure. Managing imperfect moments means that you take the reins respectfully from the child and assert your adult-wise mind to address the need or situation. This, too, will require training and practice. Again, perfect is never part of the plan.

Managing imperfection requires that you cultivate the concept of Velvet Steel. This recovery skill is an art form. Most addicts are hard or harsh (steel) where they need to be gentle, and soft (velvet) where they need to be steel. The misapplication fuels addictive behavior. In striving for perfection you will miss cultivating velvet steel. Likely, you will become stoic and stern in your endeavor to live a sober life.

Managing imperfection requires learning when to apply the strict letter of the law about your behavior and when to be gentle. Parents must learn this as they guide children through the stages of life. Rigidity around failure and imperfection is a breeding ground for shame.

You will develop the art of living when you learn to make imperfection your teacher. Allow your difficulties to become your learning and source for growth. Set recovery goals that challenge rather than defeat you before you begin. Be realistic. Accept imperfection and stretch yourself from there. Your imperfect feelings will help you grow in self-care and understanding toward others.

Your choice in recovery is not whether to use affirmations. We’ve been affirming thoughts and beliefs since we were old enough to speak. The choice in recovery is what we want to affirm. Whatever thoughts you give energy to, empower you. Are you willing to release, or let go of, negative thought patterns and replace them with positive ones? Will you choose to affirm imperfection and make it good? Remember, perfect is never part of the plan.

Nostalgic Blues

June 27, 2023 by Ken Wells

Snowfields blanket the landscape for miles and miles
Quiet Solitude tugs at memories burned deep within
Spring seeds planted
fruit ripens in the blink of an eye
Heads shake with disbelief how things used to be
Protests spontaneous-
Unrest and violence with no relief
A rich man’s war drew rebellion
Returned soldiers chided and booed
The Establishment triggered revolution
We gave it the finger
Took over buildings
Smoked dope and got high
Dylan crooned “times are a changin’-
They did until they didn’t
greed came back like an old familiar friend
We took back the finger
Stuff became God again
Blues and rock
Jazz and Motown
Country and disco, too
Soothed the pain of reality
History made, booked, and shelved
Did it matter?
Kennedy, Malcom, and Martin
Heroes wasted?
Religion tried to steal reality
With end times prophecy
And a promise of prosperity
But greed took over the dance floor
halves had more and have-nots less
Hell, not heaven became actuality
Promised “could’a-beens” thumbed through the Rolodex of time-
So close, yet so far away!
Where was I? Where were you?
So it goes with nostalgic blues.
-KW-

As you can tell I grew up in the ’60’s. Many of you read about what some of us lived. Long hair, commune living, a lot of pot and acid, Volkswagen buses tattooed with bumper stickers, and hitchhiking to nowhere highlighted an era of time that triggers nostalgia for those who lived through this epic era time. Oh yeah, don’t forget Steppenwolf, the Who, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, the Stones, and Judas Priest. Reminiscing the 60’s would be incomplete without including these hard rock bands.

Most living Americans have not experienced the cultural 60’s. The majority of those who have are now dead. Those among the living who have are often triggered by nostalgic memories. How could you not? It was such an intense time in America.

That said, every other era in American history has been equally intense, too. The speed of change in today’s era is unprecedented. There were far fewer genres of music in the 60’s than there are now in 2020’s. Television has dramatically changed. The list of change is endless. It’s easy to get caught in a time capsule.
People say kids today are not what they used to be. Of course, they are not because today’s kids were not born back then. Some say they would hate to have to raise kids in today’s world. They said that about kids back when I was growing up!

Nostalgia triggers reflection and yearning for what used to be but no longer is. It can be fun! Throwback experiences bring back yesterday once more.
Nostalgia is a universal experience. Some people get stuck in yesterday, seeking an illusive security that really never existed. Others attempt to seal tight the past and never explore its meaningfulness out of a fear of further pain. Kierkegaard, the existentialist wrote that “life is meant to be lived forward but can only be understood backwards”. He, no doubt, was nostalgic. The question is how to look back, gain necessary insight and move forward without getting stuck in yesterday. Here are a few considerations:

1. Shape your identity with inside values separate from outside influence. Everyone is influenced by outside social behaviors. Entrepreneurs are experts with understanding modernity and social trends that impact what we buy, where we go, and why we behave in certain ways. That said, personal values require introspection about a compendium of life experience. Within this individual anthology, each person is responsible to create heartfelt beliefs fueled with conviction to guide and shape what matters to you in the world around you. It’s easy to connect to what charismatic friends think and do. Hashtag jingoes and witticisms are energetic and influence how you choose to engage the world. Motivated by emotional response, it is tempting to embrace and declare resolute truth without digging deep within your own brilliance to clarify symbol and substance to navigate through social pressure. Groupthink often blunts personal creativity and hampers individual responsibility. It has always been easier to go along to get along for addicts. Dysfunctional families subtly adopt the mentality of ignoring the dead dog in the middle of the room. Dysfunction in families emasculates and indirectly shapes family members to embrace the improbable and ignore the obvious. Individuation is necessary to the formation of identity. It is common to adopt other people’s dogma for living without going deep within in order to know what it means to be true to your own heart. We learn to do this through others role-modeling this process, thus the value of a mentor, sponsor, and parent. Nostalgia beckons that we go back to how things used to be. Sometimes this is good. Other times nostalgia proves shallow and ineffective to current times. Ultimately you are the leader you are looking for. There are no gurus. You are it for you!

2. Nostalgia signals a need for further grief work. Life is a constant flux. In the 70’s Karen Carpenter sang ‘Lookin’ back on how it was in years gone by and the good times that I had, makes today seem rather sad—so much has changed”. There is a certain elusive quality with nostalgic memories. It never really was what you make up yesterday used to be. There are fond memories of days when things were more simple. Electronic technology has eclipsed former times that relied upon manual operations. Do you really want to go back to those days when you balance the pros and cons with the here and now? Even if you do, you can’t! While you can sing about yesterday once more— it’s over, never to be repeated again. Nostalgia signals the need for grief work. Letting go of what used to be is unappealing. Nostalgia is a feeling experience that reminds us that we must let go of what we cannot control, the passing of yesterday. Grieving is a life-long experience that most dread and avoid. However, when you lean into nostalgia, embrace its purpose to grieve the loss of what used to be, it opens the door to wonders that exist in the here and now! It does not eliminate the pain that comes with the loss, but, it does ignite the hope of current possibility.

3. Make it a practice to give up the storyline. Nostalgic memories carry a storyline. Trauma fuels nostalgic memories that house mistaken beliefs about self and the world around you. I have listened to many people share nostalgic experiences that unfold hurtful messages. I hear talk about being on the outside of the bubble looking in! Some lament that they never measured up! Other nostalgic experiences trigger thoughts that if you know what I know about me, you would reject me too! They are all inaccurate speculations. When you believe you are on the outside of the bubble looking in, just create a new bubble with you in the center! If others get to know your heart as you do they would be drawn closer to you, not further away. Create your own measure stick that begins with you being enough! Addressing nostalgia means that you will need to let go of the storyline that emasculates and minimizes your sense of self. Enjoy past memories that trigger awareness of fun experiences with people you enjoyed. Allow sadness or painful awareness to be present about hard times experienced. Then let go of the experience, good or bad and create a new storyline that champions personal empowerment and belief that you are an unrepeatable miracle of the universe destined to transcend yesterday into something much more in the here and now.

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