Do you treat the surface or the core?

What is addiction?

Trying to fill a void.

Running from the frightening.

Losing ourselves.

So what causes void?

Absence.

Lack of appreciation....compassion...

love....confidence....fulfillment.

And those things can't come from outside

sources, lest we always be dependent.

We need a source of inspiration--

and unless we transform into that

self-sustaining source, learning to provide

for ourselves, we will always be seeking.

Behind the addiction is the reason for the addiction.

The past brought us to where we are...

but our present self can be whatever we determine.

****

Starting Point

One of my favorite songs goes "Let's start at the very
beginning...a very good place to start!"

For me, finding the secret to controlling my desire to
self-medicate came from addressing an innate dislike
for myself; No one ever taught me how to love myself.

As a child, I learned to distrust my own emotions,
feel shame, keep quiet, stifle creativity, be ashamed
of desire, fear people, and hate every unique part
of me. Those old thoughts became so ingrained, I
never knew how much of my misery I carried around
with me out of habit.

You would think that loving self, like survival skills, would 
be fundamentally inscribed in our DNA, but aversion to
hunger and cold have nothing to do with a healthy, genuine
love for self. Look at how many 'successful' people are
obviously missing any real esteem.

So, I like to suggest that looking at what is 'okay' about
ourselves is a great starting point for finding a reason
to go on, a reason to care, a reason to take good care of
self, and so on.

For many of us, really looking at self and liking what we
see is something we have avoided for a very long time.
It is something that scares us senseless.

Developing a positive outlook on self, a forgiveness
for past mistakes, releasing anger about abuse and
harms we have endured...these are all healthy habits
that can--in time--help us to change how we look
at us and life itself. As another fave song says; "Change
the voices in your head, make them like you instead."

This is one of those slow, difficult processes, but it is
worth the effort and pain. Those old negative tapes
are playing, whether we acknowledge them or not.
The sooner we deal with it, the easier everything else
falls into place.

If I don't love myself, through and through, how
can I know what I have to offer? If my sense of
self is made stable by another or several others,
how can I cope on my own?

The Right Foundation

In order to become whole, I have to rid myself of conditional
love, self-doubt, and living for the approval of others.

I may need a connection to the world, but my primary
connection must be to the needs of my real self--someone
I have more often than not avoided and ignored entirely
through the years.

Survivors of childhood abuses proliferate the addiction
and recovery scene.

Most of us come from alcoholic/addict households.

Most of us come from shaming and dysfunctional
households.

Most of us come from some form of emotional,
physical, sexual, or other abuse.

There is a deep and abiding connection between one thing
and the other. Our addictive nature, our compulsive living,
is not only chemical addiction; it is a learned self-abuse and
lack of self love addiction.

There are common denominators between all these
survived phenomena; all of us kids-in-adult-bodies.
These issues don't go away from being dry
or going cold turkey. Being clean does not stop;

-Looking out for the needs of others ahead of ourselves
-Indecisiveness, inability to make decisions, passivity
-Being drawn to abusive people/situations (including
    in recovery)
-Being really gullible or really untrusting
-Constant emotional highs and lows
-Difficulty with intimate relations; tendency to sabotage
   when things    become 'regular'
-Difficulty holding down jobs
....and so much more....

Our use of external medications comes from a deep place
of hurt that wants to be avoided. If we focus primarily on
the external 'problem,' we don't heal ourselves; we merely
shift from one toxic supplement to another (sexing,
workaholism, religious fervor, fanaticism, etc.)
It's all the same thing.

These things aren't solved by dogma or suppressing self in
order to become more like everyone else.

The need of a repressed and undeveloped soul is to discover self,
love self, express self....not perform and win approval of others.

Most of us are rebuilding people from the ground up.
Be sure you start with the right foundation.