Beating an addiction is a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I think the pandemic amplifies this rollercoaster and heightens the desire to engage the mental defence mechanisms used to escape reality in the past. We are forced to be with those closest to us, those which have been on the front line of the devastation addiction causes. Historically, my addiction has used many means to hide my addiction from these important people in my life. Compartmentalization, repression and rationalization, either directly or catching collateral damage, these people have been directly harmed by my compulsive behaviors. The stress of the pandemic, change of circumstances, work and all the rest provide addict ammunition to mount a comeback…. and use all his tools

Yesterday I had a discussion with a group of guys and the issue of compartmentalization came up. The concept that my behaviour has nothing to do with my wife and how it is impossible for her to understand that. When i am truly honest with myself this is horse shit. The underlying causes of my addiction has nothing to do with my wife, the devastation of the disease was embedded in my software before i met her… but using compartmentalization and rationalization have given compulsion a place to ferment and hide out. By truely accepting the damage that my compulsion causes and that it is directly hurting my family is an important step that can be easily forgotten in the middle of this crazy time. Of course this might seem so simple to those who do not suffer and addictive compulsion. The difficult thing to communicate to non-addicts is the way the addict mind creates a real “safe” fantasyland to escape to. This space is personal and in this space there is no reality or presence. Is is a vicious cycle that leads to a greater need to alter or escape reality and leads to further compulsive behaviors. Combined with rationalization, an insidious defense mechanism that masquerades as reason it is a powerful and often stealthy cocktail of mental wizardry that constantly fuels the addictive feedback loop. The sad thing is that this escape mechanism does involve my wife. I escape from her and i disrespect her and all women. So to say that she doesnt understand and the addiction has nothing to do with her is actually my own form of regression and rationalization that my addictive sub personality is using to excuse his existence and it is simple bullshit.

Finally, one other note on cognitive dissonance. It would seem that an addict is in a perpetual state of cognitive dissonance…. although the addictive personality is able to suppress essence and the true self. Creating a fantasy land to live allows this to perpetuate…

My recovery process is heavily influenced by the work of George Collins. In general it is not rocket science- but it s not easy. The key elements (as i see them) are to understand that our history does not define us, that we are not our minds and to be present. In theory, I am able to see my addictive behavior and when it emerges be present enough to deploy tools to focus that energy onto more productive positive behaviors. This is easier said than done- this especially true at the start of the process- whereby minds autopilot kicks in. I read a chapter from the book above sometime ago- and finally am getting around to pull some of the interesting and helpful points that i think help identify and begin to get on top of autopilots control.

It is obvious to me that compulsion and indiction harness a number of innate neurological processes to become entrenched in our life. One of these areas is certainly the way in which our minds are constantly in auto-pilot. We become entrenched in the past, the future our general busyness that we essentially purged of all consciousness or presents. Our habits drive our behavior because we have no filter in place- because they have got us to where we are- through good time, and sadly traumatic times as well.

Two very interesting quotes from Mark Willaim’s & Danny Penman’s book…

“Habits are frighteningly subtle, yet can be incredibly powerful. Without warning they can seize control of your life and drive you in a direction totally different from that you’d intended. Its almost as if the mind is in one place and the body is in another”

“Habits trigger thoughts, which trigger more thoughts, which end up triggering yet more habitual thoughts. Fragments of negative thoughts and feelings can form themselves into patterns that amplify emotions…. by the time you’ve notice the unwanted thoughts and feelings they have become to strong to contain”

In the case of compulsive behavior, we act out in these moments. Whilst this looks like a process, over the years what looks like a long drawn thought process can be compressed into milliseconds and before you know it your being compulsive.

To take back control (turn of autopilot) we need train ourselves so we can make the choice- not our addictive sub-personalities. We need to learn to shut down some of the background running out of date software and instal healthier more effective programs.

The way to start this process is difficult, albeit easy to write. The first is to be able to focus on one thing at a time- to see the forest through the trees. This is often achieved through meditation which is obviously a huge part of being present and the second is developing tools to help dissolve away the bad habits when they arise.

Recovering from addiction is hard work. The moment you let your guard down, the addictive traits wiggle their way back in. The idea of cognitive re-wiring is to try and stop, limit these moments be in control and do the next right thing. For me, i need a constant arsenal of tools and weapons to help me keep moving forward on the path to presence. I am fortunate because I have a group of people that I am able to talk with and who are vested in my recovery. One of these people sent me this video. the key is to run towards your heaven.

Motivation to keep getting stronger and re-writing the software is easy when you are close to bouncing from rock bottom. The recency effect is powerful. However, as you move forward and this wanes how do you maintain momentum. How do you avoid becoming complacent? This is a constant issue that I struggle with. That is why these videos and talking with people help. Managing addiction, chemical based, sex based or whatever the basis, is a true battle that needs to be fought on multiple fronts. Cognitive reconditioning is certainly in my opinion one of these.

Note: I have not seen or read anything else by Peterson. My perspectives are my own based on this work.

I am fortunate to have been given a book by Christopher Desanti (Urban Mystic), I have been reading bits and bobs from the book. This morning I opened the chapter on yearning and one sentence jumped of the page…. “abundance is here and now but not in the way I had thought it would show up”. This hit me in the face….I have been yearning for success and abundance, which i thought was to come in the form of professional, financial success and fame. The irony of this is that none of this is what I think abundance for me was about. I never had a mother who could take care of me and I do not know who my father is. I can safely say my childhood was very rough around the edges. There was no abundance of family or love. And yet today- I do have an abundance of love… I have love from my family. I have a beautiful wife, amazing kids and acceptable in laws. Everything that i lacked I now have….. amazing how my mind continues to question this and drive for more. More of this and more of that. Sometimes its about stopping and smelling the roses.

We are addicted to out minds. If you disagree with me… try and stop your mind… sit back and think of nothing… is it possible? is it uncomfortable?… of course it is…The reality is that our minds create a lot of falsehoods. For addicts it gives a false sense of pleasure that usually culminates in pain and sadness. So what can we do about?

It is, at least in my opinion, not surprising that what we believe about ourselves (our self image) is formed based on our personal and cultural conditioning. This creates an alter-personality, driven by superficiality (like the outer layer of an onion https://path2presence.com/2019/04/15/day-to-day-fight-with-compulsion/). This phenomenon has also been described by Eckhardt Tolle as the phantom self or ‘ego’. The consistent chatter of the mind that results over years of conditioning a false self, created by the unconscious identification with the mind. Mind believes that by focusing on the past and future, wealth, etc etc that it protects us. This is derived from the primitive fact that we once had to hunt and gather and protect ourselves from predators. So the mind had to be functioning at all times for self-preservation. But using our higher cortical abilities we evolved, hunting and gather occurs at the supermarket, and there is no prehistoric tiger or other creature coming to eat us in our sleep. Sadly, some of us the reptilian brain (the driver of mind for most of us) may not have evolved along the same lines and instead creates a lot of noise. So what is the key to seeing mind? According to Tolle, being present. I think a step towards is just stopping and accepting that the present is all you can really change. The past is gone and the future is not written. The future is only influenced by the choices and actions we make in the present- its all we control….. Accepting the presence for what it is sounds stupid on the surface. However, if you stop and close your eyes and just breath- letting go of all thought– there is a liberation that can occur. I have felt this only a few times… and the goal is to try and be in this place everyday…

I started this blog as a means to try and help me pave my way forward toward being more present and to overcome my personal demons. My compulsion evolved over many decades into what it is today. Almost 12 months to the day I began the path to freedom and recovery. My path to recovery is constantly being ambushed by resistance and sabotage and has involved coming to terms with a lot of hard truths.

One of the sad facts I have realized is my life lacked true intimacy. Even though I had amazing girlfriends and an amazing wife, I had never had a truly intimate loving relationship. This is not an indictment on my past partners- but on me. My life was characterized by compulsive impersonal non-intimate behaviors. My addiction focused on continuously searching the next dopamine hit. My world was seen through a sexualized lens that was obsessed with getting the “rush” of sexual euphoria. Even though the being compulsive saw me act in ways that conflict with my essential values, the obsession to have immediate gratification was over whelming and drove many poor decisions. The fact that I now know that I can have an intimate relationship has been a tremendous eye opening and important factor in my recovery. When resistance or sabotage on my addiction attempts to throw me off course- I focus my energy on my values, what is always true and my family.

Another observation from my past is that I was living a lot of my life in mental isolation. If shame, fear , anger, resentment, etc are the fuel to drive compulsion, then i believe isolation is the place where compulsion grows. My problems were hidden from all of the world. This isolation was driven by self preservation when I was younger. Traumatic events that I experienced played a role (maybe an essential role) in the fact that I isolated myself and managed life using sexual arousal. Sex was as an anesthetizer that allowed me to escape painful realities, to regulate my mood and to move forward. This isolation resulted in disconnection from reality and nurtured many negative character flaws including dishonesty. The way I ended up here is not of importance now, what is important is the fact that through this blog, talking to a therapist, a group of like minded folks and my wife, i bring everything to the surface. My addiction has no place to hide and isolate itself. I regularly identify with it and analyze how to move forward. Being honest with myself and those around me is essential.

Despite all of the ups and downs, i can say that i have experienced what being in the “now” feels like- even though temporarily. The ability to be free from compulsion is a possibility- it is hard work. But the reward is worth it. I try and focus on this as much as possible and move forward…. Today is no other day– the trials and tribulations of controlling compulsive behavior. Roughly a year into recovery after 25 years of addiction… i am happy with my progress… but there is a long way to go still.

Most of the time our mind just generates noise. It potentiates worries, fears, thoughts about the future, thoughts about the past, reenactments of the way things should have been and/or should be. In this state it is not possible to be happy. In my opinion it is impossible because there is nothing to be tethered to. Everything is in flux. It is a moving target- the memory alters what actually happened in the and the future obviously is impossible to predict. The only moment we can tether to is the present- and yet the mind does not allow us to do this. This noisy process of the mind potentiates our sexual compulsion. There is nothing pleasurable about this, living in lala land and having poor mental well being. The incessant noise associated with anxiety, fear, shame and so fourth is a fertile ground for compulsion to survive and flourish. Obviously managing the initial wounds that drive compulsion are important- but what happens on a day to day basis as we try to manage our addictive compulsions? How do you maintain control- or take it back? How does your inner essence filter the minds bullshit from reality and help you move forward? How can we sit there an observe mind and instead of using addiction as crutch to control the incessant nature of the mind- sit there and simply realize and say… there goes my mind again… silly mind and diffuse it?

Here is basic list of some items that can work- not always, but a lot of the time. It takes commitment… and time… but it does get better

Breathe- Just trying to slow yourself down. Turn off the amygdala driven response and give the higher cortical brain regions time to kick in. This is also very helpful in day to day interactions… slowing down the automatic responses allowing for your mind to generate a more meaningful and measured response.

Get outside- getting into nature and just letting the breeze and environment can really slow down mind.

Exercise-This needs no further explanation i do not think.

Meditate- This is hard to do— but I have learned it does not have to be hours on end. A few minutes here or there can help. Look at the Waking up mediation app- it is great introduction to mediation.

Talk to someone– find someone to talk to… someone you can be 100% honest with. Honesty is important

Everyone wants to be free, even more so every addict wants to be free of their compulsion and in control….. if this is so then why arent we? Why cant we control our compulsions? Why is it so f&^king hard to be…. 

When i started my process of recovery, my psychotherapist said that recovery would be the hardest thing I would ever do. He also said I it would be a life long process. Of course no one likes to hear that things are either hard or would take an entire life time to really work through. The realization that I would be immersed in a battle between presence and a dissociation from reality for the rest of my life sounds depressing. The resistance within the addictive mind is strong. For more than 2o years i had lived dissociated for the most part from reality… so why stop now? Why not just continue in the parallel universe my mind has created. Obviously this is somewhat rhetorical. However, in  my case lots of factors play into getting healthy. Of course my family is a strong motivator- but also another factor that I have been reflecting on in the last week or so- is Freedom. It might seem simple or cliche, but to be free from compulsion and mind is a powerful motivator. If you are an addict- think about how much the compulsion controls you. Can you simply put it down and do what you really want to do, without mind thinking about acting out. The answer is likely no… well it is often for me. When I realized how much I was not in control of myself and how i was a slave to my addiction it really hit home. The tentacles of addiction and compulsion controlled me and I was not free. If my mind wonders or I relapse- i lose my freedom.  

So then- if i am so intent on being free and I live in the land of the free, why is it so hard to be “free”. So many websites and books are dedicated to this (just google it- the image above is the image search for freedom from compulsion)…One i saw listed 30 ways to be free– “30!”….  https://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/30-ways-free-your-mind-immediately.html

30 ways! amazing… so simple… yet I can barely get one method working sometimes.  Why is so hard  to manage the relentless strong hold compulsion and addiction can have on our minds? I think the answer control- we have to remain in control. When we cede even 1% to the addiction we lose. I know this is easy to write down and another thing to control in practice.  But if we let addict in just even so slightly- the slip can turn into a slide. Trying to remember who we really are and want to be and that we really do decide our actions has been an important step for me to fight my compulsion. This is not to say I always win, quit the contrary- slip ups happen- but i take control back and start the climb again. My desire to control my life and truly be free helps drive me forward. 

Yes it can be depressing that recovery is a life long endeavor- but i think it is more depressing to never truly be free. 

There are days when the compulsive urges are over whelming – to the point that just relenting seems like the easiest path to take. This resistance can be really difficult to manage. I wish I could take one of these “compulsin” tablets to do the trick. However, I strongly doubt it. I have noticed the best way forward (for me) is to try and deconvolute the reason for wanting to act out. I used to think my compulsive urges were just random events– however, it seems that nothing is random with my addiction…. when ever there is a compulsive urge there is a reason behind it- a trigger, an addictive purpose. Determining the reason for the minds relentless compulsive pursuits is not always easy for me. At the surface it is stress, fear and poor-self-esteem. Who would have thought? I know this is an overly simplistic excuse- It takes more internal reflection to really learn what drives the disorder for me. To sit down and really look inward and learn and then apply the changes necessary to become more whole and present.

I think my psyche is like an onion. The outside layers are develop in contact with the outside world. Outside external forces necessitate that the outer layers of the onion be fibrous and protective to ensure the onion does not deteriorate. I think we are no different- our external interactions directly impact the development of our own superficial layers. However, as we peel away at each layer- we get closer and closer to understanding our real selves. What really drives us. The issue is that peeling away takes time and is also very uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable for us to move away from the superficial protective layers into our cores. Writing this post- i feel like this is stupid- why would this make so uncomfortable? If you believe that the past can no longer hurt us and you are not defined by the past, then the only reason I can see this process is so uncomfortable is because our mind loses control as we journey inward. But this is the whole point…… so i need to do this more and more….

I think another important point, for others who may ready this…. know that my addict looks for every angle to take over– any slight loss of my focus will lead to relapse. If there is a relapse, it is important to not let the addictive mind use this negative energy turn this into a spiral. When we slip- we need to be supportive and ensure that it is a slip and not a slide…..when climbing a mountain, if you slip up, you establishing your footing and start climbing again…. dont just slide to the bottom!!

(paraphrased from George Collins book).

The idea that we can re-write our software and fix the damage cortical pieces that lead us into addictive behaviors might be described as positive brain washing. Scrubbing out the bullshit compulsion that got us here and replacing it with something more positive and rewarding. Like everything, you have to commit to the process of healing- if your not committed it simply will not happen.

The two key behavioral reset behaviors that kicked off my recovery process included saying 20 times a day “what is always true” and the realization that “I am not my mind”. Today I want to briefly remind myself “what is always true” (note these are tools taken from George Collins).

The process of saying over and over (20 times) “what is always true” whilst looking in the mirror was a key first step to move out of my delusional addicted state and slowly come back to reality and into presence. This simple step, performed mostly first thing in the morning and at night, is a simple but effective way to for me to frame my life and the person “I” am and want to be. This process triggers the cognitive centers in the brain to consider what is reality- who do I want to be, who do I love and what are my responsibilities. When I consider this mantra I think of my family, my children, my career goals. At no stage does being an addict or being defined by addiction come to mind when I am thinking about this (No one is defined by their addiction as far as I am concerned). I think of this as a form of cognitive reestablishment. When we are under the spell of addiction, we spend a lot of time living in a parallel universe (I call it La la land). The stories and delusions our addict personalities feed ourselves to rationalize our behavior are extreme and the addictive personality thrives in isolation and uses fear as a tools to maintain its control. By using “What is always true” mantra, it brings my mind back to the present. In addition, it kick starts the cognitive process of monitoring and managing the compulsive urges that occur (which can often come on thick and fast). It primes the real me to be on guard and ready to fight the compulsions.

It is easy to write this, living it is another thing. Obviously for people suffering compulsive disorders we have an issue with framing the real world correctly to begin with. Our minds created these addictions to escape any number of shitty things. While this is a simple idea- it had a lot of power for me. In my case it was the initial step in my recovery. A step that saved my relationship with my wife and resulted in much more loving and relationship. I also have a truly loving and intimate relationship with her now- something that (sadly) my addiction had prevented for many years (this is not meant as an excuse for any of the hurt my behavior caused, just an observation).

Also, almost 1 year into recovery- writing about what is always true reminded myself why I am doing this. I often forget I am in control. I forget what is always true… but coming back to reality and knowing I am in control- that I have a beautiful life – that I just need to spend more time being present to feel it, helps take the edge off.