At least I can say the posts from last month were good.
It's between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I've got a lot to be Thankful for this year.
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I've heard the phrase: "Grateful Alcoholic" in regards to someone recovered from addiction and had a "spiritual awakening". I "sorta" understood in theory how an addict could say that, but since I was a love addict chasing someone who was going to cheat no matter who they were with (I learned to not take it personally, she was an 'equal opportunity cheater'), the thought of being grateful for living in abject misery (depression bordering on suicidal)... I thought it was bullshit.
Now that's not true, I *KNEW* others could pull that off, Mother Teresa types, but not in the real world where I lived:)
This created within me something NLP calls MetaShame, that is before you were fucked up and unaware, a kind of ignorant bliss, now you find out the *source* of your shame, and you know damn well you aren't going to be able to do shit about that one.
So now you're ashamed of BEING ashamed, catch 22 doesn't even come close to describing this pile of shit.
This is like 'quiting smoking' or you're not really clean and sober.
Substituting addictions? get real, you can quit heroin, crack, alcohol, but quit cigarettes?
Not gonna happen
Fast forward me to today... I love my granddaughter. I love the fact that I AM extended family now, I never had extended family... it's beyond cool.
I was 'bonding' with my son in law, he knows I've had my ups and downs with addictions... he told me something that Blew me Away!
and it was true actually, after I had a chance to ponder it:
He's glad I fucked up back then, he's glad I did exactly what I did, warts and all.
Embarrassing as some of it was for me in the 1990's, he's Grateful to God that everything happened EXACTLY the way it did.
He's not happy I suffered, not happy I was in pain, but and this is THE but.
If everything hadn't happened exactly the way it did, there would be no daughter for him to fall in love with, and no granddaughter to be the apple of both our eyes.
One of the things that I learned from 'bonding' is that he has respect for me that I didn't have, he saw through the addictive lying, rationalizing, the shit that I passed off as " eccentricities " ( House is really an asshole, he's not cool, he's a controlling self absorbed asshole, and I wish I wasn't so much like him)
So.. in retrospect, it wasn't such a bitter pill to swallow after all.
Damn near forgot the thrust of this post was to pitch a book that taught me useful stuff:
Overcoming your Soft Addictions
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This article is for informational purposes only.
Please contact a licensed professional in your area
if you are in crisis or require mental health services
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