Heal The Abuse - Recover Your Life Jason Goodwin (free ebook novel .TXT) 📖

_____ 2. I have failed at recovery before,and I feel very discouraged.

_____ 3. I have had some success with myattempts to quit a chemical or behavioral addiction, but I keeprelapsing and I’m not sure that I can ever stay clean.

_____ 4. I get angry with myself when Irelapse, and I feel very ashamed or guilty.

_____ 5. I am beginning to realize that Ican’t control myself. I am addicted to a particular substance orbehavior.

_____ 6. I no longer criticize myself forrelapsing. I learn from the experience, avoid the triggers thatmade me want to use, avoid the situations that led to my relapse,and press ahead with my recovery program.

Chapter 9 –Self-Sabotage

“People get comfortable with their lifestyle,no matter how negative

or painful it may be.”

-Jason Goodwin

Sabotaging ourselves means taking somethingin our life that is working or moving in a positive direction andintentionally messing it up. It is a habit that keeps us sick,keeps us miserable, but ensures that we don’t have to change orexperience anything new.

People get comfortable with their lifestyle,no matter how negative or painful it may be. As a general rule, wedon’t like change. Even when we discover that our addictions orbehaviors are prolonging our pain. Chaos can become a way of life.Pain can begin to feel normal over time. If misery is all we haveever known, than happiness or success can seem frightening ordangerous.

It is easier to repeat our patterns than tochange them. What is comfortable and normal according to thestandards of how we were raised may actually be abusive or harmfulto our bodies and our self-esteem. If we grew up in families ofalcoholism or addiction, we may have learned that heavy drinking ordrug use was the normal or even expected behavior. We may havegrown up believing that we couldn’t possibly be alcoholics, because“everyone drinks to get drunk.”

Some of us learned to sabotage ourselves on aregular basis in order to keep ourselves down. This pattern seemsto be more common in people who grew up in families of addictionand abuse. Over time, we began to believe that chaos was normal. Wecame to believe that everyone’s life was filled with abusiverelationships, drugs, and alcohol. We learned to feel mostcomfortable when our lives were out of control.

Any attempt to become healthy isuncomfortable at first. There will always be a part of us thatwants to return to our old lives and our old behavior. Our newroutine can feel so strange or foreign that we may want to drink,use drugs, or sleep around again so we can revisit what we’refamiliar with. We need to resist this urge.

Many of us who were abused as children orgrew up in a chaotic home environment started drinking, smokingpot, or sleeping around in an effort to numb our pain. It’simportant to remember that even our addictive behaviors feltuncomfortable at first. Most smokers will tell you they coughed,hacked, and felt sick after their first cigarette. But over time,they became addicted. The down-sides of smoking became lessimportant than the high.

It can take years to get comfortable with thepain of addiction and abuse. For those destructive patterns toeventually feel normal to us, we had to adapt and adjust to them,just as we have to adapt and adjust to our newer, healthierlifestyle.

When we give ourselves the time to heal, ournew, healthier patterns eventually feel more comfortable than theself-destruction of our past. I am currently ten years sober fromnicotine. My lungs are strong again and I no longer suffer frombronchitis. I feel so much better about myself and the direction ofmy life.

Recovery takes time. Real change always does.If you find yourself relapsing or sabotaging your new, healthierlifestyle, take heart. You can learn to recognize and reverse thoseself-destructive patterns.

What helped me the most was having a labelfor what I was doing. Calling it “self-sabotage” helped me to seethis issue more clearly.

Over time, we begin to identify our own, sickbeliefs about why we don’t deserve to be happy. Patterns ofself-sabotage are often perpetuated by feelings of low self-esteemand a belief that we deserve to be punished.

As our self-esteem improves, we start tochallenge those unhealthy beliefs and behaviors. We start tochallenge our crazy thinking. We deserve to be happy. We do notneed to sabotage ourselves and our lives.

Sabotaging ourselves can take the form ofreturning to the active phase of addiction. It can includeisolating ourselves or neglecting our physical, mental, emotional,or spiritual needs. Sometimes we get into unhealthy relationshipsor stay in relationships that don’t work. We focus on the negativeside of life, knowing it will make us depressed. We feel ashamed ofour past and certain that our future will be the same.

Sometimes, we don’t allow ourselves to havefun. We feel that we have to be constantly working. Self-sabotagecan take the form of neglecting our spiritual life or ourconnection with our higher power.

The opposite of self-sabotage is self-care.It’s not enough to stop hurting ourselves. We need to giveourselves the love, nurturing, and support that we deserve.

Personal Journal Entries

Entry #1:Ending Self-Sabotage

-I can heal or I can sabotage myself. Whathas made me want to sabotage myself in the past?

1. Anger that I had no control over beingabused. I need to allow myself to feel angry about the abusewithout hurting myself or others. I need to sit with my anger andallow myself to feel it. I must learn to release my anger inhealthy ways, like exercising or hitting a punching bag. If I feelhurt, I need to cry and be aware of the pain I am feeling. I needto allow that hurt to pass through me and out of me. If I feelafraid, I need to allow myself to physically shake. If I feel sad,I need to let myself cry. These feelings are not going to killme.

2. Over time, I began to feel comfortablewith the pain of sexual abuse. When I sabotage myself, a part of meis trying to return to the way I used to feel. I need to allowmyself to be uncomfortable with the changes I am making.

-What are some of the ways I tend to sabotagemyself?

1. Isolation: I keep myself alone and lonely.This