As a former US Navy Substance Abuse Counselor, I learned many valuable lessons from clients and group sessions. One of the most important lessons was how easy it is to trap ourselves into a driven lifestyle, addiction, and regret. One of my biggest challenges was to lead others to self-discover their own pain, and to try and release the pain and shame that was holding them back. Telling someone what their problems are only reenforces their reason for hiding and never truly talking about the root of what is allowing them to escape into addictions of various kinds, and there are all sorts of addictions that most of us would simply say is a normal part of life. I also learned something else that truly opened my eyes into myself, and why the only true way out of a driven lifestyle was through accepting the message of the Gospel. I’ll try to explain what I mean by all of this in as short of a post that I can write; this will be a bit longer than others and I hope it can be helpful for you and others.
I’m going to talk about the cycle of addiction and how this cycle can be broken. A book that I recommend is called “We Are Driven, The Compulsive Behaviors America Applauds by Hemfelt, Minirth, Meier.” Here is a photo of the cycle from the book. I need to use this illustration so what I’m talking about makes some sense.
We all are ejected into life with uncollaborated expectations: Some of those expectations belong to our parents that they want to see us achieve, some are from our siblings, friends, worship centers, coaches, and others. Then there are our own expectations that we set for ourselves to achieve that are what someone else has implanted into our brains that we accept as our own. We are constantly trying to meet expectations that are not actually ours, or genuinely trying to achieve our desires more than anything else. At this point my list is the cycle of compulsive behavior that leads us into a driven and addictive lifestyle or sociopathy; a lifestyle of want, recognition, desire, wealth, greed, power, hate, extremism, and in some cases, subservience followed by anxiety, depression, and eventually substance abuse.
I will not attempt to explain each of the ten points on this cycle because they are self-explanatory. What I want to point out is that we all travel along this cycle throughout life until we break free of it, while some of us become full-fledged addicts, driven to succeed, and these are the points I wish to address.
Addicts fall into the center of the cycle, and everyone outside of the cycle is the cause of the addict’s inability to cope with the life they created. On the other hand, most of us travel around this cycle and calm ourselves with various other forms of compulsive and addictive behaviors such as: workaholism, food addictions or love hunger, gambling, chasing wealth to prove worth, taking unnecessary risks just to fit in, or living a life on the edge such as being a daredevil. Some strive for recognition simply because they lacked the attention they needed growing up, and as adults they feel they deserve more regard. The list goes on and on and on, and what is important is that those of us who run around this cycle with no desire to break free of it eventually end up in the center, blaming everyone else for our shortcomings along with a host of other adjectives.
Even religion is used as a coping method to deal with life traumas. Going around the cycle many people often feel rejected, not accepted, a sense of failure in their relationship with God. Some go to extremes where they feel they must work harder to please God or get involved with everything at church to feel good about their attendance and service, and to let others see just how righteous they are. I have had some tell me they do things around the church as a service to the church, others, and God and that may be the case for some, but for many others it is nothing more than trying to get God to recognize them and give them a gold start for effort.
For me, the biggest problem revolves around the idea that no one genuinely cares for anyone but themselves. Empathy is missing with many of us as we try desperately to be more than God has designed for us to be. Most tell me that they have a free will to do as they please, and my response is no you do not. Oh, don’t misunderstand me here, we do have free will, it just isn’t what most think it is. You see, we have free will to believe and obey or disbelieve and disobey. Everything we do is encompassed on the path we take. If we choose freely to believe and obey, we have life, and a very abundant and wonderful life, a life where the cycle of addiction and compulsive behaviors is no longer in sight. However, if we choose to disbelieve and disobey our life turns out to be one of chaos, disorder, and at times can even appear to be one of bliss, prosperity, and full of fun and challenge; until alone and even though things are great, there is this deep loneliness and thinking that no one cares. As a result, life continues around the cycle with a particularly good chance that substance abuse becomes the norm, and the person ends up in the middle.
Fallout from addictions and compulsive behaviors are seen throughout our society: Divorce, constant arguments with family and friend causing family strife and weakening friendships; loss of trust; loss of employment; unable to have a good relationship with others; feeling that no one can understand you; loss of personal worth; riddled with shame, guilt and emotional pain that is passed on to all you meet. Life becomes a constant behavior that leads to substance abuse and self-abuse. Ultimate fallout is being trapped in the addiction cycle where you become nothing more than a person full of venom.
The only way to break free of the cycle is accepting your free will to believe and obey. Believe in Jesus Christ and be set free to accomplish all that God has designed for you. There is no other way to be saved, absolutely none.
Sorry for babbling with this post, I had trouble putting my thoughts together for this one. There is so much to say with each of the ten steps of the addiction cycle. I tried to say it as concisely as possible for me. I could write many pages about this topic, and I realize most of you would prefer something short and to the point. There are a few books that I recommend: “Toxic Faith,” “Broken Trust,” “Love Hunger,” and of course “We Are Driven.” Each of these books can be found on Amazon.
Something to listen to:
Thank you for reading.
Mike.
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