CONSCIENCE BEHAVIOR II

INTRODUCTION

The way into a productive life for a recovering addict is by changing their way of thinking. It has been said time and time again that the addict has cognitive distortion that has basically been conditioned for him to choose pleasure over pain regardless of the costs. However, this can be augmented by changing the belief systems of the recovering addict must be replaced with new ones similar to the way the recovery addict can condition himself into thinking his way of thoughts to not use. Conscience behavior is aligned with the second Step: ‘Coming to believe in a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity’. The conscience is the place where many addicts believe is where the Higher Power Conscious is ruled from. Some recovering addicts use the name of God to mean their Higher Power. Those who are atheists are not as keen on religion may still use the acronym GOD to mean ‘Good Orderly Direction’. This is what the conscience does for us; it allows us to follow good orderly direction by providing us with the ability to make the right choices, stay honest, think rationally, and respond to situations as opposed to reacting to them.

Recovering addicts have lived for too long distrusting everything that is said to them including what comes from their own mind and this is what the main cause for their inadequate feelings and low self-esteem. How can the recovering addict begin to believe that is a good person when his past history has shown them to be a manipulating, lying cheat? The most effective way is to change the internal belief systems. Generally speaking, there are two: Global and Personal Belief Systems. Global belief systems can be what the recovering addict believes the way society thinks and/or what people may have believed about him. Personal beliefs are stem from way back and have been conditioned in his way of thinking. Regardless, both of these viewpoints can and must be changed for the recovering addict to ever believe that he is an adequate person and has the ability to make better decisions. The other way of correcting the recovering addict’s cognitive distortion is by focusing on what he considers to be pain and pleasure so he can learn to use pain as leverage to change and pleasure to motivate himself to achieve his goals and desires.

Practice makes perfect and so does changing the way the recovering addict’s perceptions. There are some exercises found in this paper that can assist the recovering addict to learn how to change his belief systems, build leverage, and focus on his pleasure points which will help his recovery to abstain from mood-and-mind altering substances, develop self-motivation, and create techniques to master his ability to break through the Wall and fight complacency in healthy ways. These exercises are based on Neuro-Linguistics Programming (NLP). NLP is the regulation of how the body functions and the fundamental dynamics between the mind and the interaction between body and behavior. “Once we effect change, we should reinforce it immediately. Then, we have to condition our nervous systems to succeed not just once but consistently. Neuro-Associated Conditioning is a step-by-step process that can condition the nervous system to associate pleasure to those things you want continuously move toward and pain to those things you need to avoid in order to succeed consistently in your life without constant effort or willpower. Remember, it’s the feelings that we’ve conditioned to associate in our nervous systems – our neuro-associations – that determine our emotions and our behavior.” (Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within, 1992).

THE COGNITIVE DISTORTION OF THE ADDICT’S MIND

It has been researched that many addicts and alcoholics started their substance abuse early in life anywhere between the pre-teens to their early adulthood. This substance abuse not only kills the brain cells but it stagnates the development of the brain. The brain only reaches full development around the twenties and so any alcohol or drug abuse that is done prior to this stage has a dramatic effect on the mind and therefore the personality of the person that permanently restructures the brain chemistry. The general personality of the alcoholic or addict is selfish, egotistical, domineering, and emotionally immature and this is directly related to the breakdown of the developing brain. Also, the addict lives of the instant gratification, pleasure, and any means of self-motivation taking no consideration of the outcome or the well-being of others. The pleasure-principle is all that matters to them and their stubborn narrow-minded perspectives outweighs any common sense especially given by anyone who is more experienced or knowledgeable. Control and power is what drives the alcoholic and addict even to the detriment of their own selves.

In Dr. Clive Graymore’s book, Alcoholism: Insight to the Addictive Mind, he suggests that the primal personality of the alcoholic is childlike and has little analytical skills to make intelligent decisions. This active addiction behavior is what creates cognitive distortion giving the alcoholic and addict the tendency to be impulsive, reactive, and base all decisions on his emotions. However, this personality can change in time and although the recovering alcoholic and addict may never return to his original state; he can be restored to sanity and still live a productive and successful life. The first thing that the recovering addict and alcoholic must restore is his ability to make decisions.

Making Decisions

How often has the recovering addict reacted to the Wall and chose to self-sabotage all his goals and achievements by being complacent, procrastinating, and just giving up? Then, they blame recovery for making their lives appearing limited, boring, and seeing no pleasure out of their new state of life. But frankly, they are the cause of their own woes. The recovering addict must learn that the only way to gain independence and autonomy is by taking control of their own lives by making decisions and taking control of their lives by making decisions and taking action. “Real freedom is the recognition of the ability to change and should be a constant challenge and delight. The excitement of being in control of owning one self is the opposite of addiction. At the same time as enjoying this freedom, we must question the rigidity of some of our attitudes, formed initially from a synthesis of emotions and intellect but which can continue throughout our lives without religion.” (Graymore, Alcoholism: An Insight to the Addictive Mind, 1987).

The recovering alcoholic and addict must remember two valuable concepts: information is power only when it is acted upon; and repetition is the mother of skill. So, how does the recovering alcoholic learn to break the habit of sabotage, complacency, and procrastination? First, the recovering addict and alcoholic must make a decision: a) deciding to do something about his current affairs or b) choosing to live with the pain of doing nothing at all and risking boredom, stagnation, and feelings of hopelessness. It’s a simple decision but few recovering addicts decide to do something. And even if they make the decision, even fewer of them act on their decision. A decision is just a decision of changing one’s mind unless acted upon. At least when a decision acted on three things can happen: a) the action changes everything for the better and the person feels more positive about life while building his self-esteem and confidence to make even more decisions; b) the action changes for the worse and the person can immediately reverse the decision or simply learn from his mistake; or c) nothing happens forcing the person to make another decision to take action upon. This is the most empowering part of regaining recovery by building a new life through independence, trial-and-error, and character building. Secondly, constantly practicing new decisions be it as trivial as choosing what to eat to something more complicated like deciding to switch jobs or homes.

Changing Belief Systems

“Belief systems are the stories we tell ourselves to define our personal sense of ‘reality’. Every human being has a belief system that they utilize and it is through this mechanism that we individually make sense of the world around us. As humans, we tend to use belief systems to varying degrees to cope with events in our lives. Ultimately, we need to make sense at some level. Therefore, those areas where the ‘sense of reality’ is most challenged will tend to be the areas in which the most controversies exist.” (Adams, Science, Faith, and Belief Systems, 2011). In other words, if we didn’t have a belief system we would have no standards, morals, or values and we also wouldn’t be able to differentiate who has similar ones as ours and would not be able to associate with those who are most similar to ourselves.

The addicts and alcoholics belief systems are primarily based on global belief systems and they are based on two different perspectives of society. The one society is considered their morality (or lack of) followed in their ‘friends’ and other using buddies which basically is considered to be every man for himself, having to steal to survive, and using lying as a survival skill for saving one’s skin. Hence, the belief systems are generally dishonest, self-serving, egotistical, and - contrary to the belief – the standards are based on the lowest level of existence. Alternatively, there is general society’s belief systems which is tainted to imply ‘follow like sheep’, ‘stay in the box’, and ‘comply to the socialistic outlook of life’. It would be wise for the addict to understand that neither belief is necessarily true and the global belief system actually changes depending o the neighborhood, environmental background, average education, and ranges of ethnic and nationality around that particular society. In other words, it is not a black-or-white answer which is wonderful to realize because a person is able to learn flexibility and open-mindedness quickly when wiling to acknowledge this fact.

On the other hand, the addict’s personal belief system is oddly complex since it is determined mainly by the mood the addict is currently in. The addict will base most of his personal belief systems from his past and if he is a pessimist, he will look at only the times when he failed to succeed whether it was academically or socially. He may also base his personal belief system on his personal low self-esteem automatically feeling less then mentally, psychologically, or economically. However, if he is having a good day; he will distort his personal belief system on his pseudo-confidence to making him feel superior then everyone else. The addict’s personal beliefs will be based on his cognitive distortion, glamorization of the past, and romancing the future which never allows him to accept himself for who he is or what reality actually is. Thankfully, personal belief systems as well as cognitive distortion can be changed through creative visualization, critical analysis, and self-esteem building skills that will be discussed later.

BREAKING PATTERNS

The recovering addict and alcoholic would find it beneficial to revisit his concept of pain and acknowledging it is discomfort to change. Change merely means breaking patterns from the old to the new. It is not really painful as much as it just causes discomfort for the ego. The ego wants things to always stay the same so it can have better predictions to the outcome and so it can stay in its comfort zone (even if it is miserable). But what the recovering addict needs to consider are the benefits of change: finding new freedom; building confidence; gaining independence; creating better self-value’ and so much more to say nothing of achieving more goals and success in life.

Breaking the Pattern from Complacency

Complacency means laziness to some people but it really means being afraid to do anything to move from one’s comfort zone. Comfort zones stop progression and create stagnation which actually builds more fear, anger, resentment, self-pity, and disillusionment. The first step would be for the recovering alcoholic to decide whether he prefers the comfort zone that leads to a placid existence or moving out of his comfort zone to taking a chance of success. If the latter is the most preferred option, the recovering alcoholic needs to put more pain concepts into his ability to lapse into complacency. By associating pain and any intense emotion (i.e. self-pity and resentment) towards doing a half-shoddy job or nothing at all; he will then create leverage to choosing to rather do his best efforts even when he doesn’t feel like it. The only way to do this is by moving into a rational state of thought which means ignoring his feelings and apparent state of mind and just getting up and taking action. Even if this is just about taking baby-steps, it beats doing nothing. For example: the recovering addict may not want to go to meetings or do his stepwork for various reasons like laziness. However, he needs to consider the times when he stopped going to meetings and doing his stepwork so he can recall vividly how his overconfidence grew, his reservations of using came into play again, or how his defects of character and shortcomings started becoming more noticeable.

Breaking the Pattern of Fear of Success

Fear is a common element in all people and especially recovering alcoholics and addicts. Success may be too hard to imagine for the recovering addict as he may believe that it creates too much responsibilities, less free time, more stress and anxiety, etc. However, the recovering addict needs to consider his goals and how much he really wants to achieve them as he contemplates breaking the pattern of fear of success. If the recovering addict would like to lose weight so he can feel more confident, work harder to attain recognition, employ better efficiency skills to develop more self-value, or have more friends or a social life so he can stop feeling bored and lonely; then he may be more wiling to move towards these goals then looking at the so-called pay-offs of doing nothing.

“The failure by most people to find an alternative way of getting out of pain and into the feelings of pleasure is the major reason most people’s attempts at change are only temporary. Many people get to the point where they have to change, where change is a must because they link so much their old pattern (fear of success) and they link pleasure to the idea of change. Any pattern of emotion or behavior that is continually reinforced will became an automatic and conditioned response. Reinforcement is responding to a behavior immediately after it occurs.” (Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within, 1992). In the case for recovering addicts, it is the pattern of behavior that can break the fear of success more than anything else.

(Excercises posted on page entitled RECOVERY EXCERCISES)