Last revised 8/28/2014
Self-knowledge is the key that unlocks and opens the door through which I can see the realities of what made me drink, use and/or do what I didn’t want to do. Self-knowledge gives me a view of what I can do to help myself get, and stay, abstinent from problematic substances and behaviors.*
Substances gave me 1) a feeling of relief from a “bad” feeling, 2) a feeling of the presence of a “good” feeling, 3) a feeling of having done something against an unbearable feeling of helplessness and hopelessness that, at its core, is shame.** The antidote to shame is self-love.*** If I can understand very specifically what it felt like substances did for me, I can replace them with what really does do something for me.
Here are two concepts I need to accept:
- I will drink or use again unless I love myself.
- I will drink or use again unless I do two things at the same time, minute after minute: 1) manage my addiction and 2) manage my emotional, mental and physical health.
These dire, hard truths make me want to be hard on myself. Yet, I cannot command myself to love myself. It is a way I must learn. And since I know all a child needs is a “good enough mother,” as an adult I simply need to become “good enough” at self-love. My understanding of myself and my ability to give love to myself and to share it with others will evolve over time. Some parts of life will simply remain mysteries.
Why I do not love myself is a question that must be answered to begin to open the way to loving myself.
Self-knowledge is gained through a process. That process takes awareness, effort, courage, candor, patience, and time. Activating and maintaining that process takes these components:
- Self-care
- Rigorous honesty
- People in recovery
“[Addicts’] recovery depends on understanding themselves without judgment.”
– Lance Dodes
1) Self-care
To create and sustain the strength and energy it takes to gain self-knowledge, I have to practice self-care.
Self-care (things I can control, in general order of importance)
- Sleep
- Good nutrition
- Exercise (that builds my strength rather than depletes it)
- Manage physical and mental conditions I have other than addiction(s)
- (Appointments with health professionals to help me maintain my physical and mental health)
- Asking myself before every decision, “Does this help me feel better about myself?”
- Working a program of personal growth that requires I read a text then write answers to questions (examples: The 12 Steps, SMARTRecovery, Women in Recovery)
- A practice of self-kindness
- Awareness of when I’m getting too high or too low for too long and consciously bringing myself back into a stable range
- (Track intake of stimulants, like caffeine and nicotine and energy drinks, which may, without my awareness, be destabilizing me.)
- Action on behalf of my well-being for the future (examples: document my finances and make a budget; make appointments to go back to school or learn a new trade; update my résumé; meet with someone to learn about the job I might want, etc.)
- Professional counseling (highly recommended if available, weekly individual and/or group therapy if possible)
- To the extent I can, to maintain my stability, I consciously choose what kind of work I do and on what schedule I do it. When at work, I consciously choose how much work I do so I can pace myself to maintain my stability.
- To maintain my stability, I make conscious choices about how much energy to give to relationships from the past (family, friends, partners, co-workers), about how much energy I will give to new relationships, and about what schedule works best for me to give this energy.
2) Rigorous honesty
- Answer this question: What do I need to be rigorously honest about right now?
- Answer this question: What have I been denying is true that I now see, in reality, is true?
- Report what I have discovered from being rigorously honest about the reality of what is going on with me and/or in my life.
- Call someone or text someone or meet with someone and tell them my truth.
- Do this at least once per day.
3) People in recovery
I need to create a circle of people in recovery that can act as a container to hold me when my addiction to alcohol or drugs or behaviors – or an accumulation of distressing feelings and thoughts – threatens to spill over into me drinking or using (or doing a problematic behavior).
I need to be in a circle of people in which giving and receiving appreciation, then regard, then, perhaps, love, circles in and around me. Over time, paradoxically, I can learn self-love in the company of others.
I need to get a lot of experience with a lot of people. That way, one person’s cruelty doesn’t have the power to destroy me, nor does one person’s kindness have the power to resurrect me.
To create that circle I need to:
a) Get familiar with people in recovery and have them get familiar with me so when I am in need it’s easier to contact them.
b) Spend time with them rather than drink or use or do.
Further, I need to:
- Go to meetings.
- Share during meetings (to create a bridge for others to cross so they can speak to me by name and therefore decrease the separation that unfamiliarity creates).
- Go early to meetings to chat, however awkwardly, uncomfortably or casually with people.
- Stay after meetings to chat.
- Get the phone list.
- Ask people for numbers and give them mine.
- Text someone on the phone list every day.
- Ask people to meet me for coffee or a meal or to take a walk or whatever helps me create a circle of people for myself to help 1) protect me from relapse, 2) foster my personal growth.
Questions to ask and answer to gain deeper self-knowledge:
- When I am just about to drink, use or do, what state am I in? What am I feeling and thinking and what has been happening?
- What keeps me from seeing the truth about what’s going on with me and in my life?
- What keeps me from telling someone else what’s going on with me and going on in my life?
- If I tell some things and keep other things secret, what am I feeling and thinking about what I don’t tell that makes me want to keep it secret?
- What keeps me from calling or texting people?
- What keeps me choosing to be alone rather than to be with people?
- When I’m with people, what keeps me from reaching out to them and connecting with them?
- If I over-do at work, what does that do for me?
- If I over-give and/or over-forgive in relationships, what does that do for me?
- If I stay in a relationship, what do I have to give up? If I leave a relationship, what do I have to give up?
- If I stay abstinent, what do I have to give up?
*For brevity, in some places the term “substances” is used to stand for “substances and behaviors. “Drinking and using” includes “doing” or performing a problematic behavior.
**Definitions of “shame” abound and are debated.
For my purposes, I define “shame” as a feeling that as a “being” and as a “doing,” I am fundamentally and irredeemably flawed. Even if I could conceive of correcting my “being,” I am incompetent to achieve it because my “doing” is flawed. I do not receive love or good things in life because I am unworthy of them. I sense in myself the ability to love and that I was not loved makes me feel uneasy and baffled and afraid. I find that feeling unbearable. On my own, if I feel that, I’ll do anything not to feel it. If you’re with me, and I start to feel shame, I will push back at you with all my might, sometimes with the nicest-sounding words and the kindest-looking actions, to keep you from making me feel that feeling. Know that the harder I resist, the deeper is my shame.
Here’s an interesting discussion of shame from Joseph Burgo and a comprehensive definition from Wikipedia.
***I define “self-love” as a feeling of empathy, compassion, acceptance and appreciation for myself. I am practicing self-love when I monitor my feelings and thoughts and behaviors and choose the ones that are kind to me.
