Category Archives: Psychotherapy

The Face Of Therapy

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     Sorry, but most psychotherapists aren’t going to tell addicts to just enlarge their spiritual life, take some right action, and then send them on their way. And, uh, have you ever met an active alcoholic or a drug addict? It sounds like this: blah blah blah blah-blah blah blah blah-blah-blah…

     Probably the very last thing an addict needs is to be talking incessantly about their addiction and depression, whether sober and miserable or active and manic. By digging into our past and finding even more problems, more reasons and more stuff to blame, it distracts us and ultimately delays our recovery. We don’t become empowered by blaming our problems on some trauma in our lives, thereby recusing ourselves of ownership and responsibility. We become empowered by moving on from the past, blaming nothing and no one, and getting our asses off the therapy couch and taking action – rigorous action.

     Therapists (especially psychiatrists) have little understanding about the nature of the illness of addiction, and thus have no ability or tools to help us, but at the same time think we need therapy. We can liken their industry to corporate advertising or marketing, where we’re told that we need some product to be okay and live a good life. They have us believe that there is some profound, deep-seated, complicated and devious reason for all of our problems.

     Why go there?

     Putting a spotlight on ourselves and our feelings and delicately placing our lives up on a pedestal is the last thing we need to get better. On the contrary, we need to STOP talking so much and get over ourselves. We need to get outside of ourselves. In fact, the solution is the opposite of self-focus, which defines psychotherapy. So much inward focus is selfish, and selfishness is our #1 problem. Selfishness is the one and only thing preventing us from getting better. And there is without a doubt way too much me, me, me involved in therapy.

     I’m curious, where are they getting their information, from the textbooks (i.e. status quo, secular propaganda) of prestigious colleges and universities? I learned more from a couple of junkies and the Big Book than I did in 10 years of psychotherapy, blabbing on and on about a bunch of nonsense. Just like the actions we take, the thoughts and feelings we have are 100% caused by us and therefore 100% our fault. We give birth to them and we own them. We choose how we respond to life events, even when someone else has wronged us.

     Growing up isn’t about looking backwards. It’s about shutting up, taking action, and looking forwards. Therapists should do one thing and one thing only: Tell us to stop coming. In the time it takes for an addict or alcoholic to figure out his entire psychological condition, he may very well overdose and die. Talking every week for an hour (sorry, I mean 55 minutes) isn’t going to do much good if you wind up dead on the floor. Needless to say, it’s our prerogative if we want to pay somebody to be our friend and listen to us. We all need to be heard. But hey, why not save the money and go get a couple of good friends?  

God, teach me that it’s not all about me. Teach me that action, not talking, is the solution…

Take the Garbage Out

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     I don’t know who coined the phrase, Take The Garbage Out, but this is exactly what we need to do when it comes to our minds and all of our petty, worldly problems. The late Suzuki Roshi said that if we practice zazen everyday, problems will cease to exist. It’d be nice if psychotherapists told us to just go meditate and save us the 20 years and the $200,000, but I suppose 8 years of student loans wouldn’t exactly be worthwhile if they didn’t keep us eating out of their hands.

     If I hadn’t meditated everyday after I got home from treatment, I wouldn’t be where I am today. I wouldn’t have altered my bio-chemistry back to normal. I wouldn’t have conquered my fear or the mind-blowing depression. I wouldn’t have freed myself from the prison of psychological diagnoses such as major depression and bipolar disorder. I wouldn’t have freed myself from the brainwashing I got from doctors who told me that I would forever need to be medicated. 8 years of prayer, meditation, inventory and service and I am as free and successful as anybody I know… and 100% unmedicated.

     So do we addicts need to be medicated or do we simply need to meditate?

     One of the meditations I learned while up North, I still do today. Our friend called it Progressive Tensioning & Relaxation and Controlled Breathing.

Sit Comfortably.
Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
Gradually tense every muscle in your body from your toes to your head.
Gradually relax every muscle, again working from your toes to your head.
Take a few more deep breaths.
Breathe in through the nose to the count of 4.
Hold for the count of 4.
Breathe out through the mouth to the count of 4.
Hold for the count of 4.
Do this until you have forgotten that you are meditating, or at least until you have stopped thinking so much and calmed down a bit.

     Or you can just sit or stand, close your eyes, and follow your breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth. Try not to move to scratch an itch or something. The itch will eventually go away if you have the discipline to ignore it. It’s just energy moving through your body – a good sign. And if you find it difficult to stop thinking, say ‘in, out, in, out…’ (in your mind, not out loud) as you breathe in and out.

God, teach me how to meditate…

Shunryu Suzuki Roshi
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind

Psychotherapy

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     Not to bash psychotherapy, but it’s pretty useless for a drug addict.

     Most addicts, being pathological liars and manipulators, will simply get the therapist to tell them what they want to hear. Hearing that we had a rough childhood, that we were abused, that we have anger, depression and sadness is like music to our ears. All of that victim bullshit just allows us to justify our drinking and using. Then we can go home and scream at everyone that,

     No wonder we’re on drugs you assholes! It’s not our fault, it’s our crazy families, or our abusive dads, or our alcoholic genes, or some disorder, or some life event!

     Bullshit. It’s like,

     Hey, sorry I totalled the car Dad, but it wasn’t me, it was the bipolar I have! OR Sorry I just called you a crazy bitch, Mom, but I can’t help it because I have depression! OR Sorry I verbally abused you just to get out of the door to go buy more heroin from Pablo, sweetheart, but I just can’t help it because I’m an addict…  and oh yeah, I have a crazy family so it’s not my fault and there’s nothing I can do about it!

     Therapists give us excuses. The more screwed up we are, the better.

     Talking is not a solution for addicts. We are the biggest bullshit artists in the world. All we do is talk. We talk about this, we talk about that, we talk our way into and out of anything. And even if we are honest in therapy, it’s still useless. Sure talking may educate us about ourselves a bit, but then we leave our 55-minute sessions totally unequipped. What happens for the 6 days and 23 hours left in the week? What tools have we been given for after we leave the office? An insane, hopeless addict is going to need more than a once-a-week bullshit session.

     We need a slew of tools that we can use in our daily lives. We need to learn how to live, work, relate, give back. We need to learn how to meditate, pray, write inventory and help others.

     Finally, unless a therapist has felt and used the way we did, he or she is once again, useless. We have no interest in listening to you if you aren’t an addict who has found a solution that really works. We will only listen to you if you are a junkbox but somehow you are standing before us calm, centered, strong, content and without any air about you. We will only listen to you if you have something that we want.

     Therapists don’t have anything I want. I don’t need something out of an academic textbook. I need nothing short of a spiritual experience. Can my 55-minute sessions produce a profound spiritual experience? Never happened to me, but definitely let me know if did to you.

     P.S. Writing a thorough 4th Step inventory is like the equivalent of 20 odd years of psychotherapy… but it’s free and it doesn’t take 20 years.

God, teach me to embrace action, work, service and looking forward as opposed to talking, excuses, reasons and looking backwards…