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Chapter Three

MENTAL: OUR THINKING GOT US HERE

IN EARLY RECOVERY I READ a little pamphlet called, Transferring Obsessions, written by Dr. Judi Hollis. I remember being so mad when my sponsor first gave me that pamphlet and told me to read it, but it had a huge impact on my later recovery and I am grateful to Dr. Hollis to this day.

She was writing to an audience of Overeaters Anonymous members. She talked about what happens when a woman or man in eating disorder recovery begins to let go of that addiction and how, if a higher power is not the replacement, he or she will move on to shopping, decorating, exercising, dating, sex, work, and using alcohol or other drugs. In my OA community, using drugs was frowned on but there were members who still used alcohol, seeing the separation of substances rather than the singularity of addiction.

It was not unlike the way most professionals viewed drug addiction and alcoholism twenty-five years ago. At that time many hospital treatment programs for drug addiction allowed participants to drink alcohol. In some programs people completing their treatment for drug addiction were given a beer bash as the celebration of their ninety days of “clean” time. We are amazed by that today. Maybe someday we’ll be amazed by alcohol treatment that allows tobacco use or ice cream parties on Friday nights.

Addiction is one disease with many manifestations. We have a tendency, in recovery, to substitute addictive behaviors and compulsions. It makes sense. Today there are any numbers of things that I can “use”—be it behavior or substance—as a way to “fix my feelings.” Conversely, I know that if I can sit still and feel my challenging feelings then I will be much less likely to reach for a substance or behavior to fix me.

Most of us have more than one thing we can use to not feel. You hear it in meetings. Sometimes we hear it spoken about seriously and sometimes as a joke but it’s there. The AA member who says he gave up booze but picked up ice cream or the Al-Anon member who comments on her “retail therapy” is talking about this common tendency.

Stay in recovery long enough and you learn that there is truth in those jokes. As recovery progresses we notice that we can get carried away with any number of ways of soothing or numbing our emotions.

We are human beings, and even nonaddicts use food or a new pair of shoes to boost their moods, but those of us who identify as addicts have to be mindful that we can always use a good thing in a bad way to escape our feelings.

Maybe the easiest way to discern whether something is an issue is to apply a few diagnostic questions: Do you feel shame about this? Do you keep this a secret? Does it bother you if someone points out what you are doing? This discernment continues into later recovery. It must.

But after many years, we are sitting in the same chairs and saying things that are remarkably similar. The principles of recovery are the same, whatever the substance or behavior.

I heard early on that “we will give up our addictive behaviors in the order in which they are killing us.” That is why some people enter recovery first for food issues, and others enter for alcohol or other drugs, and yet another person enters to address family or relationship problems. But after many years, we are sitting in the same chairs and saying things that are remarkably similar. The principles of recovery are the same, whatever the substance or behavior.

My entry into recovery brought me face-to-face with transferring addictive activities. Before I went to Alcoholics Anonymous I was confronting my problems with food and relationships. So my first steps toward healing were in Overeaters Anonymous and then in Al-Anon.

Later I began to notice that often when my relationships were rocky, alcohol was a factor. Then I noticed that there was alcohol in my food, too. I told myself that I was “having dessert.” But I was “eating” desserts like Irish coffees and ice cream with cups of Kahlua. I asked myself, “How bad could that be?” You didn’t see drunks with whipped cream mustaches did you? I always had a spoon in my hand; it was the perfect denial.

So I had to deal with food and relationships and alcohol. Under all of it was a messy family history burdened with still more addiction and abuse and shame, but that took years to uncover and to heal.

Alcohol and other drugs may be things of the past, but what about those credit card bills? And what about gambling and sex, and all those shoes? So I work too hard. Is working too hard a genuine problem? We have to be willing to keep asking these questions.

That was my experience. As I began to recover from drinking, it got harder to delude myself that certain other behaviors were okay. Without the booze, the hole in my heart began to hurt, and my bargain-basement self-esteem gaped open. I needed soothing. But with what?

As a society, we are familiar with the addictive substances we take into our bodies to change our moods—alcohol and/or other legal and illegal drugs, nicotine, caffeine, etc. More recently we have begun to recognize the behaviors that we engage in for the same reason—to change our feelings: video gaming, overspending, gambling, sex, and the ever-popular shoe shopping. These are the process addictive behaviors. They are things we do—watching television, overeating, working long hours, starving ourselves, exercising—to change our mood or to avoid growth.

Some things like alcohol and other drugs, nicotine, caffeine, sugar, sometimes salt (who ever eats just one potato chip?) overlap categories as substance addiction or process addiction.

Technology can become a vehicle for process addiction when it’s used to avoid emotional discomfort or pain: texting, tweeting, playing games on our phones . . . and on and on and on.

Here’s the tricky part, and why I need ongoing discernment involving other people in recovery: The addictive processes are often things that also have good qualities. For example, let’s look at exercise.

As we get healthy in recovery we want to get in shape. We start going to the gym or running. But what happens when we miss a day of running or we can’t get to the gym? Do we start to feel anxious, angry, and resentful? Some of us exercise for the same reason we used substances: Fix my feelings! I’ve been there.

And shopping? Who doesn’t want to look nice or wear clothes that are becoming? But do we obsess? Spend money we don’t have? Wander the mall in a trance? I’ve done all that, too.

Later in my recovery I had to examine my relationship with money and work. Oh, I had such denial about work. How could something so good be so bad? Wasn’t I making up for lost time, finally becoming a productive member of society?

Work, like food, has to be looked at carefully. Putting in long hours may not be the only criterion to use in determining whether or not working is an addiction. We have to look at our motives and at the impact that work has on our health and on the people closest to us.

Some of us in recovery work long hours because we are unhappy at home, or we might work excessively because the workplace is where we can feel total control. Others in recovery may work seven days a week and it’s pure joy and all for the good. I think about friends who write or make art or who have small businesses that they love. They pour themselves into their passion and that both reflects and enhances their recovery.

What’s under all of it? For me the common denominator under the many manifestations of addiction is a special “cocktail” of shame and fear and feeling “not- good-enough.” The shame mantra pushes me toward too many pairs of shoes, or buying expensive gifts simply to impress. I’m still tempted to believe that the right handbag or sweater will fix me. But another woman with that same “not-good-enough” drumbeat in her head won’t allow herself anything; she “treats” her shame with deprivation and denial. She might not allow herself to have anything but bargains and secondhand clothes. If you looked at our outsides you’d think we were different but inside we’re a matched pair.

We need to keep talking to our sponsors and to women friends about anything that feels uncomfortable, shameful, or that we want to keep secret.

But we keep on. Recovery from our primary behaviors of addiction may have given us our sea legs, but we need to stay vigilant. We need to keep talking to our sponsors and to women friends about anything that feels uncomfortable, shameful, or that we want to keep secret. Those are the signs and hallmarks of addiction. It’s your relationship to the substance or behavior—not the substance or behavior itself—that makes the difference.

I ask myself, “Does this behavior stop me from feeling my feelings? Feelings that, if I felt them, would help me to grow?” I know that keeping busy may still be my longest lasting addiction. As my friend Brigid likes to remind me, “Feelings can’t hit a moving target.”

Can we ever get to the bottom of our addiction? As someone said when I was new in recovery, “If you want to know why you drank, stop drinking and you’ll soon find out.” It was good advice. When we stop the addictive substance or behavior and we “sit still and feel,” the source will reveal itself.

All of this requires discernment, which is defined as judgment, perspicacity, or penetrating insight. (Please note: “judgment” is not always a bad word.)

This is why at a certain point in our recovery we need to find meetings where we can talk about a wide swath of topics. It doesn’t help if I am only attending meetings where exclusively the discussion of a particular substance is welcome. By year seven or eight our drunk- or drugalogues have all been told, and may be growing old—but we might be killing ourselves with food, gambling, or sex addiction. We have to shine a light on our patterns—all of our patterns. Something that helps me with this discernment was said by Marion Woodman, Jungian analyst and teacher: “The natural gradient in us is toward growth. Whatever we use repeatedly and compulsively to stop that growth is our particular addiction.”

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY

But what happens when it’s not the booze or the blues alone? Compared with men, women with drinking problems are at increased risk for depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and marital discord. So for women in recovery, coping with clinical depression or another mental illness is frequently an additional serious topic.