Tag Archives: CBT

Don’t Care How You Feel & Don’t Care What You Believe

Posted on by under Action, Beliefs, CBT, Feelings, Talking, Therapy, Whining
Spirituality isn’t about trying to achieve constant rapture. It’s about facing reality and being human. 
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     Charlie, we really don’t care how you feel. Getting better has nothing to do with feelings. It’s all action…

     That is by far the most helpful thing anybody has ever said to me. Often when I start working with someone, they go on endless rants about how they feel – “Yeah but this, yeah but that…” It’s always that somehow their addiction makes sense because of how they feel. And the best is that I don’t understand. I don’t understand how they feel so screwed over by someone, so unheard, so misunderstood, so alone, so weak, so useless, so depressed, so not living up to their potential, so blah, blah, blah. Um, yeah, I get it. I whined too about how nobody understands. I justified using drugs and alcohol like an absolute pig because of the way I felt. “Well, you would be drinking and sniffing heroin too if you went through what I went through!”
     Um, no, sorry. Most people don’t do that. And yes, they even suffer, too.

     This is why therapy is such a joke. Addicts who I sponsor say, “Yeah bro, the Steps are great but I also want to dig into my stuff, my feelings. You need to know how I feel, man!” No, I don’t. And fine, call me a sociopath but I really don’t care. CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) has it completely backwards. Addicts and alcoholics are so fucked in the head, we can’t think our way into right action. We just need to shut up and start acting our way into right thinking…

     I also don’t care what you believe. It really doesn’t matter compared to what you do. You can believe in the most noble, lofty principles in the world and still be a useless sack. You can believe in every good thing in the world and never truly evolve or grow spiritually. You can have your doctrine of choice memorized front to back and never really change at all. You can be one of those religious show-offs who throws passages around like no other and still be a deranged monster. What matters is what we do, not what we believe.

     Bottom line: Getting better has nothing to do with our feelings. In fact, our feelings quite often prevent us from getting better. The most important thing any addict wanting to get better can do is to drop his preoccupation with SELF. Stop focusing on how you feel because the truth is it doesn’t matter and nobody cares anyway. We need to walk through our feelings without broadcasting them on the nightly news. It is action, not feelings or beliefs, that will ultimately give us freedom.

God, please give me the willingness and the power to grow along spiritual lines…

Don’t Care How You Feel

Posted on by under Action, Beliefs, CBT, Feelings

     Charlie, we really don’t care how you feel. Getting better has nothing to do with feelings. It’s all action…


     This is by far the most helpful thing anybody has ever said to me. Most of the time, when I start working with an addict, they go on endless rants about how they feel – Yeah but this, yeah but that… It’s always that somehow their addiction makes sense because of how they feel. And the best is that I don’t understand. I don’t understand that they feel so screwed over by someone, so unheard, so misunderstood, so alone, so weak, so useless, so disable, so depressed, so not living up to their potential, so blah, blah, blah. Um, yeah, I get it. I whined too about how nobody understands. I justified using drugs like a pig because of the way I felt.

     “Well, you would be drinking and sniffing heroin too if you knew what I was going through!”

     Bullshit.

     This is why therapy is such a joke. Addicts who I sponsor say, “Yeah the Steps are great but I also want to dig into my stuff, my feelings. You need to know how I feel, man.”

     No, I don’t.

     And fine, call me a sociopath but I really don’t care. I also don’t care what you believe. All I care about is what you do. What actions are you going to take? Bottom line: Getting better truly has nothing to do with our feelings. In fact, our feelings quite often prevent us from getting better. The most important thing any addict wanting to get better can do is to drop his preoccupation with self. Stop focusing on how you feel because the truth is it doesn’t matter and nobody cares anyway. We need to walk through our feelings without broadcasting them on the nightly news. 

    Getting better has nothing to do with feelings. It has everything to do with action. CBT has it completely backwards. Addicts and alcoholics are so fucked in the head, we can’t think our way into right action. We need to just shut up and start acting our way into right thinking…

See Also: Don’t Care What You Believe

God, give me the power, strength and willingness not to let my feelings stop me…

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Posted on by under http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008/kind#post

     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 becoming 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…