Friday, June 20, 2014

Blaming Others for my Behaviors

Hi
Glad to be here, glad to be anywhere at this juncture!

I have become aware of something lately. That being that there is never one single explanation for why anything occurs.The reason I have noticed this is because the many one reason explanations I have been getting doing interviews on remission and drug use. Doing some of the transcripts from recordings I noticed that most people have a single "reason" why they choose to use drugs and alcohol. The other thing is that  it always seems to involve other people.

Now I have no real belief in "blaming" anyone for my actions. I am highly aware of how much conditioning embeds its self in my reactions to any input. I also am aware that my ego has an issue with taking responsibilty for my reactions. It simply doesn't want the responisbility for taking actions that may not be in my best interest.

So my ego, for a long time, blamed my drug and alcohol use on my parents, my lack of self esteem, my lack of friendships, my sexual abuse issues, my sister, and a variety of other components of growing up and existing in society.

All of this sounded pretty good. I wasted years in therapy using these so called issues one at a time. Never really realizing that the reality was that I had no one to blame but myself. It felt good blaming others and other things on my continued use. But really, would those dynamice really keep me going for decades using drugs and alcohol? The answer is no.

So how do we cut this cycle short?

My question to myself is simple. Is what I am saying real? Or is it just a fantasy? Now to be precise I was abused sexually as a child. And I am sure that it had some effects on me as I grew up. But lets be honest. My abuse issues had nothing to do with me using drugs to numb myself for decades. And in fact using the abuse as an excuse did nothing but keep it going and definately placed any resolution on the back burner.

Reality says that there are lots of people out there who have not abused drugs and alcohol. They come from some pretty devestaing places, cultures and societies. Yet they never made the choice to abuse drugs and alcohol to help "bury" the feelings.

I am curious about this issue and would love to hear from anyone who has had experience in this same arena.

In Loving Kindness
Bryan