Overcoming a Dysfunctional Litter
(Note: People instinctively work to keep the anxiety in their environment to a minimum all the time. I’ve read several great articles lately about effective ways to do this. This series is about ineffective ways people deal with their anxiety. If you’ve ever wondered at how some people behave, or what their motivations are, this [...]
Before I started down my path of recovery in earnest, I did a lot of reading about recovery. I devoured self-help books, mostly about addiction and relationships (the banes of my young adult existence). I learned a lot about what was wrong with me (or at least, what I thought was wrong with me). But [...]
You can’t cheat an honest man. — W. C. Fields The huge variation among the modern day descendants of New Thought–collectively known as New Age spirituality–is inevitable, given that New Thought draws from so many different disciplines and philosophies. And given the human tendency to dumb things down, literalize them, and interpret them in the [...]
Most of my adult life, I have attributed my problem childhood to my parents’ alcohol addictions. My introduction to recovery was through drug awareness. Even in my teens, when I was a blossoming addict myself, I attended a few Alateen meetings. I educated myself about chemical dependency. Even as my world revolved around becoming an [...]
After my criticisms of self-help groups, I thought I ought balance out my thoughts with what I believe works about them. After all, self-help rescued me from myself in a way nothing else could have at the time and I have no desire to hide or deny this truth. While I stand by my position [...]
I’m not a joiner. I’ve never been one for group affiliations. Even in high school, I always felt like I had to be phony, somehow, in order to be part of a group. I did it, of course, but I never quite found a comfort zone doing it, and I always felt like I was [...]
In AA meetings, which I once attended religiously, people spoke of “losing their privileges to drink.” They weren’t responsible with it, couldn’t handle it, had all sorts of bad consequences from it, consequences which eventually landed them in AA (nobody goes to AA because things are going well for them). I like this idea of [...]
His mama ran off when he was just a kid So he never really knew her at all Just a picture of a girl in a sad blue dress Hanging beside a cross on the wall His daddy used to drive those eighteen wheelers Now he drives the bottle deep into the night He was [...]
Personal change doesn’t always happen by the merit of your own efforts. Sometimes, it happens by default, because you’ve run out of other options. This is particularly true for people new to the process, and those avoiding the process altogether. It was certainly true for me. Before I embarked on a conscious process of positive [...]
After two and a half years, I am thrilled to say that I got a comment on this article. And not only a comment, but a thoughtful, well-reasoned out comment, from someone who put a lot of time and effort into making her point. I have so many ideas in response, I thought I’d write a [...]