Hi.
Yesterday I was talking to a friend of mine who lives in S.Korea. This post is dedicated to her. We were talking about how difficult and painful it is to enter any kind of sustained remission/recovery. So I suggested some things about the pain we need to endure to successfully enter a new stage in our lives. I suppose that this really applies to addiction and remission. But, I suspect that we can take this model and extrapolate the process into any changes we want to make in our life.
Any changes we make come with a certain amount of pain and suffering.
The severity of the pain indicates the depth of the change.
The commitment to change, in part, is a willingness to endure pain as long as it takes for the
change to take effect.
The pain of addiction is like starting out in an endless space and, at first, the space slowly starts to become less. Initially this seems like a good thing. The less space the more it feels like we have some control over the place we are. Then. The space becomes less and less at an accelerated pace. What used to feel like control starts to feel like controlled. Instead of ruling the space the confining space starts to rule us. The pain grows and increases. Soon we are in a prison, then a cell, and finally a coffin. The pain becomes agony and there doesn't seem to be a way out. We feel trapped, and scared and and crazy and worthless and fakes. It's the pain of addiction.
The pain of remission/recovery finally comes when we cannot stand it anymore. We finally decide that something has to change. Now everyone of us is going to come to this point at a different place and time there are no comparisons. I had tried to commit suicide after ruining my music career and seriously hurting lots of people in my life.
We decide to take a stand. We stop the addictive behavior and thoughts and guess what? We discover we are in a tiny confined place of our own making. Slowly, very slowly we start to unfold and expand. It hurts. And. It doesn't feel right. We have become so used to our little space that we forgot what it is like to be free. But, we decide that the pain of recovery is worth it! So we start the struggle and initiate expansion.We make some progress, we fall down, we cry, we make some progress, lapse, move forward, inch by inch we start to remake that space around us. One day we are finally back in the cell, and then one day we are back in the prison, and finally we break free. Into the weather of life. It is the struggle of birth,
it will come with fear and pain, and at the very end:
Our Freedom.
The pain of addiction will only increase and if we stay addicted the space will continue to become less until we finally disappear.
The pain of remission/recovery only results in an expansion back into life. It becomes less and less as we continue to process remission.
So our choices are these:
Addiction = increased pain and confinement.
Remission/Recovery = struggle with decreasing pain and finally freedom.
My encouragement: If you are in pain buy the time you need to wait it out, then move. You need to be very gentle, patient, and nurturing to you.
Everyone I know is on the journey through the pain into the light. I am committed to helping anyone who is on this journey as so many are committed to helping me.
We can do this.
Love, Bryan
