I’m Thankful that I’m an Addict

Last week on Thanksgiving Day driving to visit relatives, it took my wife and me an hour and a half to finish thanking God for all the blessings in our life. One of the biggest gratitudes for me was that that day was my 30th “birthday” of my new life in sobriety and recovery. It was not until my third year of recovery that I could see that its blessings were going to far outweigh the pleasures and comforts I had gotten from my two addictive habits.

What were my addictions? People can be addicted to a chemical, a person, a behavior, or even to avoiding something (eating, sex, leaving home, throwing things away, for example). I have learned that not being specific about my particular addiction protects my anonymity. This keeps my focus on the solution, not the problem. So let’s just say that I have regularly attended two different 12-step fellowships. I’ve also attended Celebrate Recovery meetings where people in bondage to any bad habit are welcome to come.

We addicts who have completed the 12 steps to the satisfaction of our sponsor I will refer to here as “recovering.” (For more information about this, including a user-friendly summary of the 12 steps, see the tab for Recovery on my website below, and read the article there, “How to Work a 12-step Program.”) We recovering addicts have most often received some major blessings, and here are my favorite features of our recovering life:

  1. We don’t pick up another addiction. Addicts who quit their habit without working a program of recovery almost always pick up another pain-killing escape from reality to cope with their emotional and physical discomfort. We in recovery have learned where our pain comes from, and how to make changes in the underlying causes of our frustrations.
  2. We entrust our wills and our lives to the care of God (not to the control of God). Most believers pray for God to change things outside themselves, and to change themselves physically (health and wealth, etc.) The serenity prayer teaches us that letting God change our heart and our ways takes courage, and it takes serenity to let go of trying to change toxic people and their habits. The serene have become addicted to a God who gives us the freedom to heal and grow.
  3. We believe that God is close by, with easy access. To addicts, our “higher power” is whatever brings us the people, principles, prayers, and practices of recovery (it takes all four). In meetings with nonbelievers, we refer to “the God of my understanding” or “my higher power who I call Jesus.” This makes it easier for non-believers to get started, and for all of us to avoid arguments over religion and theology. Atheists and believers who’ve been burned by church start out thinking of God as the wisdom and encouragement of their sponsor or home group, and their view of God grows from there.
  4. We protect each other‘s privacy and anonymity. This way we focus on principles, not personalities. We don’t use our last names, our spouse’s first names, or say where we live or work. This helps us tell our stories more honestly. We’ve learned that everybody has a story to tell, and we can always tell our own with more honesty, humility, hope, and humor after we have listened to theirs.
  5. We have found relief from believing some very popular lies. The church and psychology too often join with addictions in teaching us several very commonly believed fictions: the illusions of analysis, control, popularity, and perfection:
  1. We have learned how to live simply. We try to live substantially one day and one moment at a time, by being present most of the time in the here and now. We don’t so much think about owning things as getting to take care of them for awhile. This can include our bodies and our loved ones.
  2. Our groups keep it simple too. Groups own no property, keep no funds to manage, and take no stands on outside issues like politics or religion. This way, we don’t have much to argue about.
  3. We keep membership requirements low. No dues, referrals, votes, or performance standards are required, just a desire to stop our addictive behaviors. I never wanted to join a group that would let anybody in, regardless of their age, gender, race, education, wealth, religion, politics, lifestyle, sobriety, or mental health, but I have loved it. I never wanted to be just a regular guy, no more special than the next guy. But it is so liberating — it loosens all of us up.
  4. We retrain our brains with new principles. The principles first prescribed by Alcoholics Anonymous have given rise to many popular slogans. For example, we often hear each other saying things like this in ourselves: We Let go and let God, One day at a time, Easy does it. We Keep it simple and Do the next right thing, because It works if you work it. Our brains learn these the way they learn addictions – by many repeated exposures.
  5. We find that our gratitude is very contagious. By avoiding attitudes that give us entitlements and expectations, we avoid resentments. We are sincerely grateful when our loved ones trust and include us in their lives again. We don’t feel like they owe us anything for our efforts at recovery, because after we’ve worked through the twelve steps, we enjoy our recovery work.

These all make up quite the benefit package. I have found many advantages and much wisdom from my studies in psychology, and from my Christian faith as learned through the church and the Bible. But most psychologists I know, and most active churchgoers, haven’t received very many of the blessings I have found in recovery. I doubt I would have found more than a couple of them without my addiction that made me seek recovery. No wonder I’m so thankful I’m an addict.

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Dr. Paul Schmidt is a psychologist life coach with offices in Middletown, Lexington and Shelbyville,

502 633 2860   mynewlife.com.

 

A CHALLENGE FOR INTROVERTS TO

CELEBRATE WHO THEY ARE

In 2014 a powerful and introverted New York lawyer Susan Cain wrote an influential and popular book, Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that can’t Stop Talking. She documents conclusively that in the last ninety years America has been developing a clear bias toward extraverted personalities. The other leading nations of the world all lean toward introversion: Germany, England, Japan, and China. Since virtually all our celebrities are outgoing and outspoken, introverts find it harder in America to find and keep their self-esteem. This article is for you.

Cain defines introversion primarily as being quiet and contemplative, and adds adjectives like reflective, modest, thoughtful, introspective, inner-directed, calm, solitude-seeking, and private. (By contrast, the traits of the extraverted “person of action” she gives as sociable, gregarious, assertive, dominant, excitable, risk-taking, flighty, active, outer-directed, light-hearted, and comfortable in the spotlight.)

I especially like the simple 3-question definition of Jane Collingwood at PsychCentral. She says you are an introvert if:

I have drawn up five questions to identify introversion, and those that ring true for any introvert can help explain to others how it feels to be him or her:

To help introverts explain to extraverts how they don’t feel, and to help them understand how it feels to be an extravert, here are five are signs of EXTRAVERSION:

By the definitions researchers use, most surveys put the percentage of introverted Americans around 35-40% (that’s if everybody is or isn’t, and it’s 25-30% if you account for the 20% who test out as “ambiverts”. The percentage of introverts in those other four countries is well over 50%).

An important thing to understand is that introversion and extraversion are inborn traits that do not change much despite the passage of time, changes in lifestyle, or efforts to change in counseling. It’s the way God made you to look at life and live it. It’s like your height or your skin color—best to learn to feel good about it, and see how it’s a strength for you and other people. What is open to change with education and effort is whether these traits are celebrated as a gift or bemoaned as a curse. Both attitudes are self-fulfilling prophecies, and more powerful predictors of happiness than the disposition itself.

If you are cursed with insecurity about your introversion, one way to change that attitude is to write down all the reasons you feel it’s a weakness (e.g., losing energy in social situations, slow making decisions, not saying much in meetings) and think (you’re good at that!) of ways each of these qualities is also a strength (working well in quiet solitude, seeing more sides of an issue as in risk management, hearing things others may miss like emerging consensus and new ideas from inside your brain).

Some biases against introverts are exposed by research to be myths. For example, research has shown us that introverts are NOT more likely to be agreeable/cooperative, conscientious, nervous, open to experience, or emotionally stable. Those traits can be acquired or avoided just as easily by introverts as by extraverts.

All of us need to appreciate that the quiet, thoughtful ways of introverts bring very important assets to any group. Because they think more and talk less, they don’t waste the group’s time. And because they think things through, what they do say is certainly more valuable to a healthy group or relationship than the chatter of those who say more.

Dr. Schmidt is a psychologist life coach with offices in Middletown, Lexington, and Shelbyville (633-2860).

 

Game Players, Team Players, and Game Changers

As a psychologist, I’m not much on typologies. They assume all people fit nicely into one of several personality types, and I keep seeing bell curves from the research. Nevertheless, I am going to give you here three approaches to life that I see, three mindsets if you will. I think we all have moments of all three, but when push comes to shove, I think most of us make most of our big decisions in one of three ways. I very seldom look at people in these terms in everyday life, but sometimes when I am making my big decisions, I find it useful to think about the major parties I am choosing to partner with, to make sure they usually play on my team.

Behind door number one live people whose primary purpose in life seems to be looking out for number one. They typically take more than they give, and they are generally willing to be a bit mean or deceitful if it helps them get what they want. They are inclined to be opinionated, pushy, sneaky, dramatic, inconsiderate, and unsympathetic. They may be skilled at appearing helpful and unselfish when you need them to be, but they have usually figured out that the situation will pay them to act this way. Life to them is a game, to end up with the most toys, or the least pain or something, these folks hold very little sacred in life, because to them, life is most often a game to be played.

Door number two opens up to reveal people who generally look to do their fair share. They seem to give as much as they take, and to leave things pretty much the way they found them. They are fairly even-tempered and agreeable people, and when they think about making a deal with you, their approach is usually some version of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” If the first group could be called Game Players, these would be Team Players.

Behind the last door we find people who I think of as Game Changers, because they are trying to leave the world a better place. They can give you more than they take, because they try to give of themselves from the inside, where they seem to have some private source of renewal. They are known for their truth and grace, their honesty and kindness. They seem always to be looking forward optimistically to a better life, whether in this life or the next. They are less worried about becoming empty inside than they are about becoming dried up. They make efforts to keep believing that the ones who give the most in life end up with the most, both in this life, and if there is one, in the next.

From my seat mentally looking at the game of life, and in my heart as I am on the field playing it, I have come to believe that most people live behind the second door, and they are the ones most often taken advantage of. They can’t easily understand how someone can go on for very long as a Game Player or a Game Changer. They can’t understand why everybody doesn’t play fair. It is also more difficult for Team Players to discern the motives of others with a different outlook. After all, both wolves and shepherds tend to present themselves as sheep, because it’s the sheep that both of them are after.

There are two times in life when it is most important to discern what type of person we are dealing with. One is when we make big decisions to partner with people, like who to go in with on a purchase, who to work for, who to work with, who to live with, who to marry, and who to guide us when we lose our way. At these times, we cut deals, and it is most important to get clear on who is giving and taking what, and who is worthy to be trusted as honest and kind.

The other time when discernment is crucial is at times of loss, when there is no one to partner with. These are the only times in life where people have much of a chance to walk through a new door, and interview people to consider playing for a different team. People do sometimes regress down to a more self-gratifying lifestyle at such times, and in fact, that is the course of least resistance. For a Game Player, evolving down involves considering playing other people by using more selfish and deceitful rules. Evolving up for both sets of Players requires embracing the people and principles of a higher-numbered door.

I of course recommend moving up to a higher life form. Whether or not there is any pie in the sky, it is just crystal clear to me that the only people who grow happier as they age are the geezers who live in the community behind door three.

 

Dr. Paul Schmidt is a psychologist life coach with offices in Middletown, Lexington and Shelbyville, mynewlife.com.

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