Peeling Back The Layers Of The Onion

Jacque has chosen a mashup of articles that explore how we often replace our dependency on alcohol with another unhealthy dependency. These articles show us how we can work Step 1 and the rest of the steps on these additional unhealthy dependencies which may be revealed. In the Twelve and Twelve, Bill W outlines healthy dependence this way:

When we developed still more, we discovered the best possible source of emotional stability to be God Himself. We found that dependence upon His perfect justice, forgiveness, and love was healthy, and that it would work where nothing else would. If we really depended upon God, we couldn’t very well play God to our fellows nor would we feel the urge wholly to rely on human protection and care. These were the new attitudes that finally brought many of us an inner strength and peace that could not be deeply shaken by the shortcomings of others or by any calamity not of our own making. This new outlook was, we learned, something especially necessary to us alcoholics. For alcoholism had been a lonely business, even though we had been surrounded by people who loved us.(p.116) 

Jacque’s Observations

I am continually replacing one addiction (something/whatever it is) … with another behavior, anything to avoid the pain/feeling that is trying/or dying to come out.  I may not be picking up a drink – but I’m picking up something.  If I’m not in touch with myself, or asking my Higher Power to reveal these habits of physical/emotional picking up then I’m just acting out my disease in unhealthy ways. I’m not getting to the root – I’m not changing the patterns that bring me to inner turmoil. 

If not alcohol – what is it? 

From The Book Steps To Serenity (pages 14,15)

We embark on recovery as a means of seeking freedom from any one or more of a number of addictive agents.  Addictive agents are these persons or things on which we form an excessive unhealthy dependency.  The catalog of addictive agents includes:

1. Alcohol and/or drugs 
2. Work, achievement and success
3. Money addictions such as overspending, gambling, hoarding
4. Control addictions especially if they surface in personal, sexual, family and business relationships
5. Food addictions
6. Sexual addictions
7. Approval dependency – the need to please people
8. Rescuing patterns toward other people
9. Dependency on toxic relationships (relationships that are damaging or hurtful)
10. Physical illness (hypochondria)
11. Exercise and physical conditioning
12. Cosmetics, clothes, cosmetic surgery – trying to look good on the outside
13. Academic pursuits and excessive intellectualizing
14. Religiosity or religious legalism (preoccupation with the form and the rule and regulations of religion, rather than benefiting from the real spiritual message)
15. General Perfectionism 
16. Cleaning and avoiding contamination and other obsessive-compulsive symptoms
17. Organizing, structuring (the need always to have everything in its place)
18. Materialism 

Most of us can see ourselves somewhere in this list.  And all of us can benefit from the truths that emerge from Twelve Step recovery, because all of us are, to some degree, codependent.  What does that mean?  We define codependency as being an effort to control interior feelings by manipulating people, things, and events on the outside.  Much of the need to do this arises from our own childhoods – from the experiences we have in our own families of origin.  Perhaps our most basic need for love and nurturing were not met in those early family encounters.  Or we may have been smothered by overzealous caretakers who did not allow us to mature emotionally, spiritually, and mentally. Such dysfunctional families, whether they involved open or veiled abuse, may be the original source of our codependent pain.  This early codependent vacuum become the root of our later adult addictions.  

Our loss of closeness within our families may extend to a feeling of alienation from a second family – the spiritual family.  We may not feel comfortable with God as Father and may feel a lack of acceptance from those who should be our brothers and sisters in God’s family.  After all, we cannot experience healthy loving relationships within our own families , why should God or people outside love and care for us? 

Therefore, our healing must progress across several dimensions

1. We have to heal our human relationships and that means healing both the past painful memories from the dysfunctional family of origin and our contemporary relationships as well. 
2. We must choose a recovery family. This can be a support group, a Twelve Step group, or a church community, but we need a new healthy chosen family 
3. We need to rejoin and grow closer to God in the spiritual family.  Both church and recovery groups like AA can support us in this growth. 

It is critical that we heal our dependencies, not only for ourselves but also for the sake of our children.  Psychologies believe that codependency is a love hunger that can be transmitted from generation to generation.  Emotionally dysfunctional families beget codependent adult children, who then create their own dysfunctional families and beget more dysfunctional children.  

There are healing solutions to this love hunger.  The Twelve Steps speak to the human hunger and neediness that result from codependency.  A hunger that is emotional and spiritual in nature. 

From The Book Serenity – A Companion For Twelve Step Recovery (pages 22,23)

Admitting powerlessness runs contrary to many of our cultural messages that say “Be Strong.  Be the master of your own destiny.”  The admission of powerlessness also conflicts with the addictive message , because the addiction will tell us, “You have a high tolerance!  Use more of me!  You can handle it!” 

Nevertheless, the essential paradox of Step 1 is that the admission of complete defeat permits a life-transforming victory through recovery.  The admission of powerlessness over an addiction actually becomes the foundation for the strength to eventually overcome the dependency.  

Admitting powerlessness is absolutely essential to breaking the addiction cycle, which is made up of five points:

1. Pain
2. Reaching out to an addictive agent, such as alcohol, work, sex, food, or dependent relationships to solve our pain
3. Temporary anesthesia 
4. Negative consequences
5. Shame and guilt, which result in more pain or low self-esteem

For example, the workaholic who has low self-esteem(pain) begins to overwork (addictive agent) which results in praises, success, and achievement (relief).  However, as a rule, family relationships and his personal relationship with God suffer terribly because of preoccupation with work (negative consequences).  The result is an even greater sense of shame and guilt because of inadequacies, both real and imagined, which brings him back to point 1 in the addiction cycle.  Now the workaholic feels compelled to work even harder to overcome his guilt. 

Understanding the addiction cycle is important because it helps us explain why the admission of powerlessness is the first step in recovery.  Otherwise, we remain caught.  If we rely on willpower alone, then the only thing we know to do is to escalate our addiction to get out of the pain.  Step 1 calls us to do less – to yield, to surrender, to let go.  

Two factors that keep us spinning are:

1. Fear of withdrawal 
2. Denial 

In order to take Step 1, we have to move beyond the fear of steeping off the addiction cycle.  We may fear withdrawal and the pain that goes with it.  Although there are real physical aspects from withdrawal, addictionologists now believe that the emotional and spiritual components of withdrawal are of far greater significance than the physiological dimensions.  The workaholic, for example, goes through withdrawal when he tries to scale back work activities.  The real fear in this case is probably the emotional fear of losing control.  The paradox of Step 1 is that the act of surrendering addictive control will actually bring us back into a state of healthy control.  

Second, we have to break out of denial about our addictions.  Denial is a cloak of self-deception that blinds and shields us from an honest assessment of our own dependencies.  Some of the common denial messages with which we may delude ourselves are “I can stop any time I want to.”  “Things aren’t that bad.”  “I do this because I want to”.  “When things get better (or worse!) , I’ll stop”.  We may even project blame onto someone else, saying “You make me do what I do.:  All of these messages deny the force the addictions impose on our lives. 

Breaking our denial often requires a painful encounter with consequences of our addictions, called “hitting bottom.”  “Hitting bottom” forces us to admit our powerlessness over our addictive life-styles.  The three major “bottoms” we may hit are:

1. A physical bottom
2. An emotional bottom
3. A spiritual bottom

Common specific examples of “bottoms” that precipitate recovery include:

1. A marital crisis
2. A physical health crisis (as in the case of a workaholic suffering a heart attack)
3. Confrontation by a family member or loved one
4. Vocational or life purpose crisis (a pink slip that forces one to look at one’ addictions)
5. A spiritual crisis, a feeling of alienation from God

The addiction cycle, as a rule, cannot be broken without yielding to a Power outside ourselves.  We may have to surrender again and again, as we admit our powerlessness over, not only the primary addiction, but over various other aspects of our lives.  We must recognize when we are powerless over people, places, and situation and learn to let those things go.  For example, when we are caught in freeway traffic, instead of allowing anxiety and anger to build, we need to admit that we cannot alter our situation.  In even the most trivial issues we face, we must learn to become flexible.  We may also find ourselves switching addictions or transferring obsessions, and we will need to apply the first step to these new dependencies as well.  

For codependents, control or the lack of it, is central to every aspect of life.  As we admit our powerlessness, we embark upon the antidote for our control addiction, an addiction characterized by extremes of both over control and under control.  For example, the workaholic may over control efforts to achieve and accomplish.  What tends to be under controlled is the quality of spiritual life and the investment of time and emotional intimacy with family members.  By admitting powerlessness, he opens the door to allow God to create a healthy, new balance in which he can lessen the compulsive control exercised in the work area.  He can then begin to experience a greater positive control over his contribution to family relationships and quality private time.  

We should not be fearful that powerlessness will result in passivity.  On the contrary, to admit powerlessness is to subordinate our human will to God’s will so that we can become the most effective and potent instruments we were created to be.