I am generally at a loss for inspiration during the summer when I take care of the turnover and maintenance on our rental property. Summer heat + physical labor + baby + dog = no good blog posts. So at times I’m reduced to re-posting older entries like this one about the modality of choice for your average therapist or addictions ‘specialist’.
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is what the “experts” and the taxpayer-funded (immorally funded) addiction programs have to offer, besides doing skits, writing down triggers, or just sucking on Methadone wafers for the rest of your life.
CBT – identify the faulty belief, change the thinking, then change the behavior. Ahhh, we’re talking about alcoholics and drug addicts here – pathological liars with twisted, deranged minds. So forget about the fact that most addicts cannot recover without spiritual help, CBT isn’t gonna cut it. After using for 15 years, my brain is so destroyed that I can’t possibly think straight. My sponsor said it one night at this old meeting we used to have.
“If I can’t think my way into right action, then I have to act my way into right thinking.”
Sometimes we’re so messed up that we just need to start taking right action and then the mind follows.
I used to see this therapist in Boston. Totally useless. Good guy, though. I think he was reasonably genuine and wanted to help. All we did was talk.
“Hmmm, so Charlie… why do you think you use? Maybe we should dig into this family stuff and that might tell us why.”
You gotta to be kidding me. Yeah, buddy, it’s my crazy family… that’s why I use. Newsflash: Nothing in our lives is responsible for making us use and become addicts. But I’m sure glad my poor Dad paid the guy every week because he gave me some top notch excuses to get hammered.
Drug addicts are completely nuts and, by the way, nobody can help me unless they ARE me, unless they use the way I do, unless they feel the way I do, unless they just happened to be recovered and living a fulfilling life – unless I want what they have, so to speak. Therapists try and tell you what your problem is. Guess what? I already know what my f’ing problem is. The problem is that I have no idea what to do about it. I need a solution. I need tools. I need someone to lay out exactly what I need to DO to recover.
But what do we do in therapy? We get the therapist to tell us what we want to hear. Now I can walk out of the office and justify my drug use. Yup, he told me I’m depressed and I’ve been abused and I have anxiety and bipolar 1 or 2, 2a or 3c, or some other ridiculous diagnosis… and that’s why I use. Let me help out the Docs a bit: the diagnosis is addiction. But instead they give us justifications and excuses.
“Sorry I just stole a hundred bucks from your wallet and totalled your car on my way to see Pablo, Dad, but it wasn’t my fault, you see… It was the bipolar’s fault!”
“Sorry I just called you a stupid bitch and slammed the door in your face so I could go get jammed out of my skull, honey, but you see, it’s really not my fault… it’s the horrible depression I have!”
No, no, I got it… “It’s my parent’s fault!” Yup, that’s it. Perfect. “Those assholes!”
Um, yeah, okay. As if I have the right to use because of somebody else. Bullshit. I made myself a drug addict. Nobody else. We should be fully accountable for our actions.
Bottom line: I need a real solution and sorry but talking is not a solution. Besides, all alcoholics and addicts do anyway is talk. We just talk, talk, talk… haha, like me. Ridiculous.
God, please give me the power, strength and willingness to stop talking and take action…