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On a serious note, it is a curiosity to me how some people have more 'addictive personalities' than others.... for example, why do some people succumb to negative influences of 'sex, alcohol and drugs' when they hit the heady heights of glorious fame - and others can shrug off such behaviour more easily and live a 'clean life'....?
I have learned through people I know who work with addicts that all addiction is caused by adverse childhood experience.
That experience can be something that happened to the child that was not supposed to happen such as abuse or something that was supposed to happen that did not such as a warm hug from a loving parent.
I have learned through people I know who work with addicts that all addiction is caused by adverse childhood experience.
That experience can be something that happened to the child that was not supposed to happen such as abuse or something that was supposed to happen that did not such as a warm hug from a loving parent.
I know alkies who say that they had a lovely childhood with loving parents.
Personally I think it's one of those 'imponderables' (not exactly what the Buddha said), but with regards addiction, trying to work out why we're addicted to something is pointless.
And even if we did find out it was because our Mummy potty trained us the wrong way, or something, we've still got the addiction. Self knowledge doesn't seem to fix this kind of thing.
Also, some active alkies seem obsessed with trying to discover why they're alkies; and it just seems to lead to more suffering. If we've a problem and if we've a solution to that problem, isn't it better to concentrate on the solution, rather than 'sitting in our own shit' (a lovely A.A. phrase).
Maybe that Poisoned Arrow Sutra is relevant here.
Got to run, work calls, apologies for a rushed post.
@Hamsaka said: 'It recently occurred to me (duh) that I drank, overate/used/smoked in an unskillful effort to stop fucking SUFFERING.' 'Having been a dilettante "Buddhist" (as long as I didn't have to actually DO something) for twenty something years, there are no words for my revelation that I could indeed end my suffering -- in the very least, greatly decrease it -- myself! For free!,
That sounds like (or at seems at least the start of) an awakening to me. Like you @Hamsaka I kind of dipped in and out of buddhism for many years, but am taking it really seriously now in the sense of I've comprehended the teachings - wow! - now I've really got to practice, not just with my bum on a mat for 30 minutes a day, but in everything I do. No matter how many times I read some esoteric or exoteric teaching, nothing has been more revealing than the 4NTs, and the more I return to it, the more revealing it becomes. It's so damn simple - we cause ourselves suffering because we want to be happy, but the way we go about trying to be happy is all arse about face, and causes us to be unhappy!
For me my addictive behaviours haven't caused me physical or mental harm. Some will probably not see some of the behaviours I allude to as being particularly wrong or harmful, but they cause me to be unhappy. For instance I've been a vegetarian on and off for 30 years (but have had a severe carnivorous relapse in the past - the worse time was when I was about 24 when I went past a McDonalds, saw a picture of a big Mac, salivated intensely and caved in to the craving for the taste of flesh, bought and ate one big mac, then another, and for the next 6 years no animal was ever safe from being masticated by me - cows, pigs, ducks, geese, rabbits, deer, frogs, snails, fish, even spam - you name it I ate it!). Then I had a period of regret and became a vegetarian (vegan for a time) again, but the last couple of years saw a resurgence of flesh enter my diet - but it has generally been confined to fish and shell-fish mainly prawns and mussels - for the omega-3 I have told myself lol.
I also tend to raise my voice or shout at my kids when I get angry that they don't do what I want them to - I recognise that it is because I forget they have their own minds and free will, and may see me as a control freak; however, they start shouting back, which escalates to full blown screaming fits. It may not sound that bad but when you start seeing them shout at each other when they get angry, you realise kids reflect the environment they are raised in, and whilst I want to control my environment, I should not crave for it to always be under my control. I want to live in a more peaceful one - so I need to control the way I vent my anger when I lose control. Tricky eh! He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternities sun rise. William Blake - my mantra
Also, Dharma talks - I keep find myself wasting hours listening to them, but they are no longer teaching me anything new, they are not imparting any wisdom to me. I often I see them as people clarifying their view on their path and try to bring you into it (but I 'got' that ages ago, why are you labouring the point, I rhetorically ask the mp3 player), sometimes I think that they are even missing the point, but as they are recordings I can't challenge them, which is frustrating. But they can be inspirational and motivating.
I do find that alcohol seems to regularly become part of my life from time to time as well. I just read in a national paper this morning about a 35 year old mother of 3 children who is slowly dying of liver failure in a local hospital - for 10 years she drank 40 cans of lager and a bottle of cider at home each day as well as spending time down her local pub downing spirits. I am not sure if I could ever get anywhere near that level of consumption in a week, but it's a tawdry lesson about the substance.
So, it's time to really start doing the laundry, practice mindfulness all the time, and live a far simpler and less egoistic life. When I talk about renunciation, I am not talking about giving up everything, I am talking about giving up those things that I know don't facilitate my desire to be happy. When I look out at the world I realise I don't want other people to suffer in the way they are, but, I suppose all you can do is really lead by example.
So here's my little list of goals for the for the next month, not that you mat be interested, but I want to state them to myself.
1. Abstain from alcohol, it doesn't do anything for me really anyway, and as many other people here are doing it, lets call it compassionate solidarity; even though it will only be benefitting me long term. 2. Start to reduce my intake of fish, and increase my intake of fruit, vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds, in the quest to become a born-again vegetarian. It can take time to get used to the increased fibre that necessarily comes from eating a wider and varied number of protein substitutes when changing to a vegetarian diet. I like prawns but the eastern and western passion for prawns is decimating some parts of the worlds marine life. Start with eliminating prawns from the diet then. 3. Stop trying to control my kids and stop raising my voice/shouting at my kids, if they make me angry. Essential! 4. Try to be more mindful of my actions. 5. Stop listening to dharma talks - well I'll start by just reducing it to maybe one or 2 a week - I like talks by Jack Kornfield and Sogyal Rinpoche, so I'll try and stick to those I find by them. But I suppose that's like an alcoholic saying I'll just drink Smirnoff and Jack Daniels from now on! Oh well even the smallest steps eventually lead one to climb a mountain. 6. Consider regular tantric practices. hmmm - I think 5 goals is enough for now. Oops I'm developing @Hamsaka syndrome, and spilling out my thoughts into a word wall!
@Tosh... do you think Buddhism/meditation/mindfulness helped you? Can you pin point what is different for you this time? Thanks.
@jae, I listened to this a while back and today thought of your post; here have a listen to an A.A. member giving a share on what sounds like a very 'Buddhist' topic:
Sandy B. "Practicing the Presence of Now" - AA Speaker
Don't worry too much about 'God'; that also can mean lots of different things to different people. In fact I think Sandy's concept of God is the Present Moment - the Ultimate Reality.
@Tosh....thank you for posting this....doing the twelve steps, is that a private affair between you and your mentor? I chose my mentor in the short time I was there, I'd really like to see her and for her to see the 'look in my eyes' ...thank you so much for this, with loving kindness
@jae, yes, it's kinda private. I mean what normally happens is you meet up once-a-week or so with your sponsor and start going through the Big Book. It's language is outdated, but the information is still relevant. First you learn about what the problem really is (it's not the booze) and then you move into the solution; doing a personal inventory (taking a look at ourselves - not an easy thing to do), then speaking about what we found with our sponsors. Then from that inventory, we make a list of people and institutions we've harmed and make amends to them so that we can get free of our past. Remember our past can drive us back to the drink; it's important we deal with it.
We don't want to spend the rest of our lives hiding from creditors or from folk we've harmed do we? And some amends are made indirectly. For example I owed the tax man a lot of money and I would've went to jail if I'd owned up to what I've done. My sponsor said I was more use to my family outside of jail, rather than in it, so he suggested I kept quiet about what I owe, but set up an affordable monthly payment to a charity of my choice; so that I pay the money I owe, but to this charity. I guess this creates some positive karma from a negative situation (me ripping off the tax man). I'm still giving money to this charity and will be for a lot of years to come!
It's a powerful part of the process and A.A. does this bit of the program better than Buddhism (I did a Buddhist foundation course which covered similar ground, but they called it "Giving Victory to our Enemies" (it's not about being a doormat btw; just the opposite).
Then the later steps, 10, 11, and 12 are easily translated into a Buddhist practise; which is why Buddhism and the 12 Steps can fit pretty neatly together. Our literature actively encourages us to 'be quick to see where the religious are right' and says 'there are many helpful books' (leaving it upto to us to find what books we want).
Our literature also describes our program as a 'broad highway', not some tight-dogmatic spiritual path. I've sat in an A.A. meeting that I know have contained Christians, Muslims, two Sikhs, a Buddhist, agnostics and atheists; and we all got on swimmingly well together.
I also hear many members sharing 'Buddhism' at meetings, but they don't mention the word 'Buddhism'. We share our experience of what works for us.
It's a good place for alkies too!
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
I also tend to raise my voice or shout at my kids when I get angry that they don't do what I want them to - I recognise that it is because I forget they have their own minds and free will, and may see me as a control freak; however, they start shouting back, which escalates to full blown screaming fits. It may not sound that bad but when you start seeing them shout at each other when they get angry, you realise kids reflect the environment they are raised in, and whilst I want to control my environment, I should not crave for it to always be under my control. I want to live in a more peaceful one - so I need to control the way I vent my anger when I lose control. Tricky eh! He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy; He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternities sun rise. William Blake - my mantra
My 'kids' are 27 and 30 now. But I can still remember the shouting! Me at them, and then them at each other. How is it that it seems so OBVIOUS that just by shouting at a child, compliance is more likely lol!? Greater decibels = greater ??? I laugh now, but when I hear my daughter raise her voice at my grandson (just like HER mother did to her) I cringe. I haven't raised my voice to my grandson and he is capable of great mayhem. Something about hearing my daughter yell at him shamed me (in a good way, I think), showed me an ugliness in myself I wanted to let go of.
Raising little human beings to independence is the toughest job on the planet because it is nearly thankless until the stinkers are in their early to mid twenties. My experience here of course. That's because they are exactly like us, except we've forgotten much of the experience of being a child. We can't help forgetting, it's buried under layers of brain development and conditioning. I dunno if it would help our child-rearing TO be able to remember our 'child mind' and thus more empathically relate to our children. I was a single parent, and I had so many plates in the air (and so many more that needed to be) I'm on my face grateful my kids still like me and want me around, and have turned out to be wonderful adults.
My natural temperament is not toward 'controlling', so issues of controlling the kids past a certain point (setting the house on fire, opening a gallon of black latex paint in the bedroom) didn't go up on the radar but plenty of other stuff did.
My children have expressed here and there what they 'appreciated' about my parenting. They aren't old enough (or raised their own kids long enough) to have real perspective, but I'll take the appreciation . The main thing they appreciated was that lack of micromanagment, breathing down their necks, watching their every move, making them over in some image I had in MY head rather than allow their particular blooming. They didn't say it like that, of course.
Kids really, really want to be left alone to be themselves. However abysmally misguided they can be, it only creates further neurotic issues in them the harder the parent tries (or the more the parent rejects). Raising kids is a path of awakening as tough as ANY monastic life (my uneducated opinion). There's certainly plenty of grist for the mill as Ram Dass once said, to grab you and throw you over the Awakening Wall if you wanted to. Not in a pleasant way either, but the purpose of grist is not to be pleasant, but to drag, grab and force your attention.
I know alkies who say that they had a lovely childhood with loving parents.
Personally I think it's one of those 'imponderables' (not exactly what the Buddha said), but with regards addiction, trying to work out why we're addicted to something is pointless.
And even if we did find out it was because our Mummy potty trained us the wrong way, or something, we've still got the addiction. Self knowledge doesn't seem to fix this kind of thing.
If you would like to know more about the "adverse childhood experience" approach then please allow me to suggest this...
@charirama, I don't need to read about the 'adverse childhood experience', because I've experienced the adverse childhood experience. I don't need to reify negative childhood experiences, I just need to understand suffering, the origin, cessation and the path that leads away from suffering.
Are you familiar with the Poisoned Arrow Sutra? The guy won't accept medical attention until he understands who shot the arrow, what his family name is, what the arrow is made from, who made the fletchings, etc.
Speaking from my own experiences, this stuff just keeps us trapped.
However you do need to understand some things such as the origin of suffering,
I wrote that in my last post above in the first paragraph; but there's a difference between understanding suffering in a Buddhist context and reifying negative childhood experiences.
It's back to the potty training thing; if I found out that I was somehow an alcoholic because my Mummy potty trained me the wrong way - and that turned out to be true - it still wouldn't solve my alcoholic problem; I would still drink; self knowledge of this type doesn't seem to solve these kind of problems.
@Tosh and @Jeffrey... but when you found out 'your mum had trained you the wrong way' and then understood, felt compassion and forgave her you could move on, let it go.
A lot of painful experiences are buried so deep we block them, they need to be found/contemplated to start the understanding, compassion, forgiveness..
So both are origin and the understanding need to be addressed, do you agree?
However you do need to understand some things such as the origin of suffering,
It's back to the potty training thing; if I found out that I was somehow an alcoholic because my Mummy potty trained me the wrong way - and that turned out to be true - it still wouldn't solve my alcoholic problem; I would still drink; self knowledge of this type doesn't seem to solve these kind of problems.
Sometimes people need to place the blame for their present condition where it belongs, at the feet of the parent or abuser, as a skillful means to stop blaming themselves. Stop feeling that they are inherently flawed or evil. Forgiveness is less important. Indentifying the childhood trauma has to be followed up by a commitment to change ones behaviour or it won't solve anything. That kind of work should be done in the privacy of a therapists office.
How is it we are we discussing childhood trauma in a thread about addiction?
Like @Tosh intimates, there is no point trying to change the conditions that brought us to this or that point, but there is a point in dealing with the issues that are now present.
Sometimes people need to place the blame for their present condition where it belongs, at the feet of the parent or abuser, as a skillful means to stop blaming themselves. Stop feeling that they are inherently flawed or evil.
Yes, I can see how that could be a 'raft' to cross a river with.
@Tosh and @Jeffrey... but when you found out 'your mum had trained you the wrong way' and then understood, felt compassion and forgave her you could move on, let it go.
A lot of painful experiences are buried so deep we block them, they need to be found/contemplated to start the understanding, compassion, forgiveness..
So both are origin and the understanding need to be addressed, do you agree?
Yes, I can see that too. I thought about this post today, @jae, and think it's a very complex issue. But if we're on a spiritual path, I think it's important that we realise that there is a spiritual axiom where if we feel disturbed - for any reason - it's our fault, not the other persons. This might sound negative, but it's actually very empowering if we realise it at some depth. When I'm starting to get annoyed with Mrs Tosh (for example), if I can catch it with mindfulness before the anger overtakes me, I can tell myself it's my fault, not hers, that I'm disturbed; even if at the time it feels like it's all her fault. The difference between the thinking of "It's my fault" and the feeling that it's her fault can cause a cognitive dissonance (a confusion) that's enough for me to realise I should just keep my fat mouth shut (and therefore not cause her or myself further trouble).
There is also a Buddhist doctrine called Dependant Arising which states that there is no single cause of a result. There is always a main cause and contributory causes and all the causes need to take place for the result to happen. So even if it were our childhoods that were the main cause to result in an addiction later on in life, there are also contributory causes (such as lack of awareness/mindfulness and our genetic inheritance). And because trying to calculate what caused what is far too complex, and wouldn't help anyway, I think it's wiser to admit "I have an addiction" and then find a solution (a method) to overcome that problem.
Hi Tosh yes I see your point, I like the way you describe the 'annoyed with Mrs Tosh theory' I will try to apply this, my father always told me 'I had no clutch' I need to be more tactful.
Thinking before you speak is a challenging one for me, sobriety is good as the 'handle' doesn't fly off so quickly.
...if we're on a spiritual path, I think it's important that we realise that there is a spiritual axiom where if we feel disturbed - for any reason - it's our fault, not the other persons.
I agree completely. I do, however, believe that past trauma can cause us to react in ways that hinder our spiritual growth. I don't believe it is about blaming others at all but that it is about understanding ourselves and why we react to certain things the way we do.
I believe that addictive behavior is the result of reacting to something we feel is out of our control.
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HamsakagoosewhispererPolishing the 'just so'Veteran
My father was an alcoholic and addict, and was also profoundly mentally disturbed with a personality disorder not to mention a garden of conventional mental illness varieties. On the surface he is intelligent, hilarious and can fake charisma with the best. People like him, feel comfortable around him, and trust him almost immediately. When he let it all hang out at home, his wife and two daughters lived in Hell.
It only makes sense to me, the oldest daughter, to take full responsibility for every twisted psychological structure I have thanks either to his abuse or genetic contribution. Who else is going to deal with it, him?
I wouldn't let him come within a square mile of me, and he's something like in his mid 70's, I could probably stuff him in my trunk without help.
In the greater scheme of my whole life, he's just one of many things that affected me beyond my control. Some of my ''stuff" is pretty deep in there, as happens when a parent terrorizes an infant without words, but there is "stuff' happening all the time because human beings in general don't know we are all the same thing. And all that's not including Acts of God like volcanos, earthquakes, viruses, accidental gas leaks, drunk drivers, and space alien Locusts looking for another planet to plunder.
The Buddha insisted (and gave direction to find this for ourselves) that the cessation of suffering lies within us and we can develop access to this and use it with power and effectiveness. The parental blunders and abuses become no more important in the great scheme of things than all the rest of the horrors we humans visit upon one another, not to mention all the impersonal shit like tsunamis and nasty mutations of E. coli.
But if one persists in focusing upon parental responsibility, you'll end up having to admit dear old Dad (for instance) was once a defenseless infant given a bag of genetic traits and parents of his own, who had parents of their own, and please do insert the Acts of God and ill fortune liberally throughout all their lives, too.
If a starving, sickened street person comes at you, hearing command voices and attacks you, it might take a few days to get over the shock but you can't stay righteously angry at such a damaged being for acting damaged. It's pretty hard for me to stay angry with my father, or his parents, or theirs either.
The pain and damage within me is mine, no matter who or what caused it under whatever circumstances. Knowing the beginning of damage is good for moving forward -- I have a grandson, and what influence I will have in his life will be free of the damage done to me. Backing up a generation, before I gave birth to my oldest, I was determined to STOP the damage, and although I meted out plenty of my own original damage on my kids, the damage they grew up with was not even in the same universe as what I grew up with.
But for me, the buck starts and stops here. Like @Tosh says, responsibility is kind of radical, it may seem like taking on stuff that isn't yours, but only at first. Pursue it deeper than the surface, and it is ALL YOURS (whoopee!! :wow: )
So (slapping hands together, cracking some knuckles) let's get started!
@Tosh, I was responding to the arrow analogy. One of the things we do want to know about the arrow (suffering) is the origin of suffering ie the second noble truth. We don't need to go into history, rather we can see the origin of suffering right now in the present.
There is a lojong teaching called 'drive all blames into one'. I haven't got the right touch with it yet, because it's not supposed to make you a door mat and I haven't figured it all out yet.
But it means that there is like a hot potato of blame and nobody will take the potato. By taking it yourself the group can get back to problem solving.
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personDon't believe everything you thinkThe liminal spaceVeteran
I haven't read through this thread but it may interest some people here if it hasn't already been mentioned that HHDL's meeting with the Mind and Life Institute this year was about addiction and craving.
You can download or stream all the meetings at HHDL's website.
I have a highly addictive personality myself. I've been addicted to alcohol, pot, anxiety medication, sex, love, pornography, anger, misery, egoism, video games, cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, pretty much anything that I thought might get me through another day, or even to the next moment. I can even see myself getting addicted to meditation. At least, there's no hangover!
Genetics and epigenetics are extremely complex. We tend to simplify it by saying "it's genetic" as if because it's in our family we are going to have it, too. But really we are just more predisposed to flipping the switch that turns on those genes. Hobbies, memories, diet, all sorts of environmental factors, in fact, affect our genetics. We have choices as to which ones we switch on and off...more control that we previously thought we had. It isn't simply "my grandfather was an alcoholic" but also the factors that led him to turn to alcohol that are in your genes as well. His anxieties, his fears, his inability to deal with his feelings. All of those things are genetic.
Of my 4 grandparents, 3 of them were alcoholics. 2 of them died as a result. One of them was an alcoholic to deal with his Navy experiences. He ended up with cancer as a result of his job in the Navy, but his alcoholism made his cancer much more difficult to treat. My grandmother was an alcoholic basically out of choice to try to be more like my grandpa, to spend time with him, to understand him, and then to hide from who he, and she, had become. From those grandparents came 7 aunts and uncles of mine. Of those 7, only 1 became an alcoholic. But then she had 3 children, and all of her children are alcoholics and drug addicts. It's a strange thing. But I find epigenetics fascinating, and it's nice to know we have more control over which genes we switch on and off than we used to think. We don't have to be victims of our genetics. But it does require us to look into our family tree to figure some of that out. There are things in my life where I've always just said "It's in my genes!" as a way to explain why i have certain abilities I don't know where they came from. But it's true that those things, even hobbies, are present in our genetics, and the more generations they come from, the stronger they get if you choose to turn them on. Meditation has a huge impact on some of that stuff. So does diet.
Anyhow, I'm pretty careful with drugs and alcohol, but I've never had a problem being able to take it or leave it. I can leave beer in the fridge for months and not touch it. It doesn't bother me at all. But candy is another story. I have to avoid buying it, because if it's here, I will eat it, even if I am stuffed from a good meal. Internet is probably an addiction for me. I have to forcefully break my connection to it, and I do. But it is such a compulsion. I shut off my computer, but then on my phone is everything my computer has. Non-stop alerts to messages, emails, responses to facebook posts...and it is that interaction that I get addicted to. Knowing I have a message and not responding to it is as irritating to me as having a horrible itch I cannot get to.
For me it is 'thirst' from a Buddhist perspective. In my life I want a treat. Over a LONG period of time I learned to just embody the thirst and after a long time it goes away. In the mean time I just meditate and do a lot of body centered practice in the meditation. Nonetheless I do drink coffee and alcohol to alter my mental experience. I am not 'all one thing'. Sometimes I am like a renunciate and sometimes I take intoxicants.
Comments
That experience can be something that happened to the child that was not supposed to happen such as abuse or something that was supposed to happen that did not such as a warm hug from a loving parent.
Personally I think it's one of those 'imponderables' (not exactly what the Buddha said), but with regards addiction, trying to work out why we're addicted to something is pointless.
And even if we did find out it was because our Mummy potty trained us the wrong way, or something, we've still got the addiction. Self knowledge doesn't seem to fix this kind of thing.
Also, some active alkies seem obsessed with trying to discover why they're alkies; and it just seems to lead to more suffering. If we've a problem and if we've a solution to that problem, isn't it better to concentrate on the solution, rather than 'sitting in our own shit' (a lovely A.A. phrase).
Maybe that Poisoned Arrow Sutra is relevant here.
Got to run, work calls, apologies for a rushed post.
'It recently occurred to me (duh) that I drank, overate/used/smoked in an unskillful effort to stop fucking SUFFERING.'
'Having been a dilettante "Buddhist" (as long as I didn't have to actually DO something) for twenty something years, there are no words for my revelation that I could indeed end my suffering -- in the very least, greatly decrease it -- myself! For free!,
That sounds like (or at seems at least the start of) an awakening to me. Like you @Hamsaka I kind of dipped in and out of buddhism for many years, but am taking it really seriously now in the sense of I've comprehended the teachings - wow! - now I've really got to practice, not just with my bum on a mat for 30 minutes a day, but in everything I do. No matter how many times I read some esoteric or exoteric teaching, nothing has been more revealing than the 4NTs, and the more I return to it, the more revealing it becomes. It's so damn simple - we cause ourselves suffering because we want to be happy, but the way we go about trying to be happy is all arse about face, and causes us to be unhappy!
For me my addictive behaviours haven't caused me physical or mental harm. Some will probably not see some of the behaviours I allude to as being particularly wrong or harmful, but they cause me to be unhappy. For instance I've been a vegetarian on and off for 30 years (but have had a severe carnivorous relapse in the past - the worse time was when I was about 24 when I went past a McDonalds, saw a picture of a big Mac, salivated intensely and caved in to the craving for the taste of flesh, bought and ate one big mac, then another, and for the next 6 years no animal was ever safe from being masticated by me - cows, pigs, ducks, geese, rabbits, deer, frogs, snails, fish, even spam - you name it I ate it!). Then I had a period of regret and became a vegetarian (vegan for a time) again, but the last couple of years saw a resurgence of flesh enter my diet - but it has generally been confined to fish and shell-fish mainly prawns and mussels - for the omega-3 I have told myself lol.
I also tend to raise my voice or shout at my kids when I get angry that they don't do what I want them to - I recognise that it is because I forget they have their own minds and free will, and may see me as a control freak; however, they start shouting back, which escalates to full blown screaming fits. It may not sound that bad but when you start seeing them shout at each other when they get angry, you realise kids reflect the environment they are raised in, and whilst I want to control my environment, I should not crave for it to always be under my control. I want to live in a more peaceful one - so I need to control the way I vent my anger when I lose control. Tricky eh!
He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy;
He who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternities sun rise.
William Blake - my mantra
Also, Dharma talks - I keep find myself wasting hours listening to them, but they are no longer teaching me anything new, they are not imparting any wisdom to me. I often I see them as people clarifying their view on their path and try to bring you into it (but I 'got' that ages ago, why are you labouring the point, I rhetorically ask the mp3 player), sometimes I think that they are even missing the point, but as they are recordings I can't challenge them, which is frustrating. But they can be inspirational and motivating.
I do find that alcohol seems to regularly become part of my life from time to time as well. I just read in a national paper this morning about a 35 year old mother of 3 children who is slowly dying of liver failure in a local hospital - for 10 years she drank 40 cans of lager and a bottle of cider at home each day as well as spending time down her local pub downing spirits. I am not sure if I could ever get anywhere near that level of consumption in a week, but it's a tawdry lesson about the substance.
So, it's time to really start doing the laundry, practice mindfulness all the time, and live a far simpler and less egoistic life. When I talk about renunciation, I am not talking about giving up everything, I am talking about giving up those things that I know don't facilitate my desire to be happy. When I look out at the world I realise I don't want other people to suffer in the way they are, but, I suppose all you can do is really lead by example.
So here's my little list of goals for the for the next month, not that you mat be interested, but I want to state them to myself.
1. Abstain from alcohol, it doesn't do anything for me really anyway, and as many other people here are doing it, lets call it compassionate solidarity; even though it will only be benefitting me long term.
2. Start to reduce my intake of fish, and increase my intake of fruit, vegetables, pulses, nuts and seeds, in the quest to become a born-again vegetarian. It can take time to get used to the increased fibre that necessarily comes from eating a wider and varied number of protein substitutes when changing to a vegetarian diet. I like prawns but the eastern and western passion for prawns is decimating some parts of the worlds marine life. Start with eliminating prawns from the diet then.
3. Stop trying to control my kids and stop raising my voice/shouting at my kids, if they make me angry. Essential!
4. Try to be more mindful of my actions.
5. Stop listening to dharma talks - well I'll start by just reducing it to maybe one or 2 a week - I like talks by Jack Kornfield and Sogyal Rinpoche, so I'll try and stick to those I find by them. But I suppose that's like an alcoholic saying I'll just drink Smirnoff and Jack Daniels from now on! Oh well even the smallest steps eventually lead one to climb a mountain.
6. Consider regular tantric practices. hmmm - I think 5 goals is enough for now.
Oops I'm developing @Hamsaka syndrome, and spilling out my thoughts into a word wall!
Mettha and thanks for being there!
Sandy B. "Practicing the Presence of Now" - AA Speaker
Don't worry too much about 'God'; that also can mean lots of different things to different people. In fact I think Sandy's concept of God is the Present Moment - the Ultimate Reality.
No pressure to listen or reply though.
We don't want to spend the rest of our lives hiding from creditors or from folk we've harmed do we? And some amends are made indirectly. For example I owed the tax man a lot of money and I would've went to jail if I'd owned up to what I've done. My sponsor said I was more use to my family outside of jail, rather than in it, so he suggested I kept quiet about what I owe, but set up an affordable monthly payment to a charity of my choice; so that I pay the money I owe, but to this charity. I guess this creates some positive karma from a negative situation (me ripping off the tax man). I'm still giving money to this charity and will be for a lot of years to come!
It's a powerful part of the process and A.A. does this bit of the program better than Buddhism (I did a Buddhist foundation course which covered similar ground, but they called it "Giving Victory to our Enemies" (it's not about being a doormat btw; just the opposite).
Then the later steps, 10, 11, and 12 are easily translated into a Buddhist practise; which is why Buddhism and the 12 Steps can fit pretty neatly together. Our literature actively encourages us to 'be quick to see where the religious are right' and says 'there are many helpful books' (leaving it upto to us to find what books we want).
Our literature also describes our program as a 'broad highway', not some tight-dogmatic spiritual path. I've sat in an A.A. meeting that I know have contained Christians, Muslims, two Sikhs, a Buddhist, agnostics and atheists; and we all got on swimmingly well together.
I also hear many members sharing 'Buddhism' at meetings, but they don't mention the word 'Buddhism'. We share our experience of what works for us.
It's a good place for alkies too!
Raising little human beings to independence is the toughest job on the planet because it is nearly thankless until the stinkers are in their early to mid twenties. My experience here of course. That's because they are exactly like us, except we've forgotten much of the experience of being a child. We can't help forgetting, it's buried under layers of brain development and conditioning. I dunno if it would help our child-rearing TO be able to remember our 'child mind' and thus more empathically relate to our children. I was a single parent, and I had so many plates in the air (and so many more that needed to be) I'm on my face grateful my kids still like me and want me around, and have turned out to be wonderful adults.
My natural temperament is not toward 'controlling', so issues of controlling the kids past a certain point (setting the house on fire, opening a gallon of black latex paint in the bedroom) didn't go up on the radar but plenty of other stuff did.
My children have expressed here and there what they 'appreciated' about my parenting. They aren't old enough (or raised their own kids long enough) to have real perspective, but I'll take the appreciation
Kids really, really want to be left alone to be themselves. However abysmally misguided they can be, it only creates further neurotic issues in them the harder the parent tries (or the more the parent rejects). Raising kids is a path of awakening as tough as ANY monastic life (my uneducated opinion). There's certainly plenty of grist for the mill as Ram Dass once said, to grab you and throw you over the Awakening Wall if you wanted to. Not in a pleasant way either, but the purpose of grist is not to be pleasant, but to drag, grab and force your attention.
Gassho
You really should write a book my friend the way you communicate is both moving, informative and hilarious, don't ever stop!!! xx
Are you familiar with the Poisoned Arrow Sutra? The guy won't accept medical attention until he understands who shot the arrow, what his family name is, what the arrow is made from, who made the fletchings, etc.
Speaking from my own experiences, this stuff just keeps us trapped.
It's back to the potty training thing; if I found out that I was somehow an alcoholic because my Mummy potty trained me the wrong way - and that turned out to be true - it still wouldn't solve my alcoholic problem; I would still drink; self knowledge of this type doesn't seem to solve these kind of problems.
A lot of painful experiences are buried so deep we block them, they need to be found/contemplated to start the understanding, compassion, forgiveness..
So both are origin and the understanding need to be addressed, do you agree?
Sometimes people need to place the blame for their present condition where it belongs, at the feet of the parent or abuser, as a skillful means to stop blaming themselves. Stop feeling that they are inherently flawed or evil.
Forgiveness is less important.
Indentifying the childhood trauma has to be followed up by a commitment to change ones behaviour or it won't solve anything.
That kind of work should be done in the privacy of a therapists office.
Like @Tosh intimates, there is no point trying to change the conditions that brought us to this or that point, but there is a point in dealing with the issues that are now present.
Yes, I can see how that could be a 'raft' to cross a river with. Yes, I can see that too. I thought about this post today, @jae, and think it's a very complex issue. But if we're on a spiritual path, I think it's important that we realise that there is a spiritual axiom where if we feel disturbed - for any reason - it's our fault, not the other persons. This might sound negative, but it's actually very empowering if we realise it at some depth. When I'm starting to get annoyed with Mrs Tosh (for example), if I can catch it with mindfulness before the anger overtakes me, I can tell myself it's my fault, not hers, that I'm disturbed; even if at the time it feels like it's all her fault. The difference between the thinking of "It's my fault" and the feeling that it's her fault can cause a cognitive dissonance (a confusion) that's enough for me to realise I should just keep my fat mouth shut (and therefore not cause her or myself further trouble).
There is also a Buddhist doctrine called Dependant Arising which states that there is no single cause of a result. There is always a main cause and contributory causes and all the causes need to take place for the result to happen. So even if it were our childhoods that were the main cause to result in an addiction later on in life, there are also contributory causes (such as lack of awareness/mindfulness and our genetic inheritance). And because trying to calculate what caused what is far too complex, and wouldn't help anyway, I think it's wiser to admit "I have an addiction" and then find a solution (a method) to overcome that problem.
Thinking before you speak is a challenging one for me, sobriety is good as the 'handle' doesn't fly off so quickly.
I believe that addictive behavior is the result of reacting to something we feel is out of our control.
It only makes sense to me, the oldest daughter, to take full responsibility for every twisted psychological structure I have thanks either to his abuse or genetic contribution. Who else is going to deal with it, him?
I wouldn't let him come within a square mile of me, and he's something like in his mid 70's, I could probably stuff him in my trunk without help.
In the greater scheme of my whole life, he's just one of many things that affected me beyond my control. Some of my ''stuff" is pretty deep in there, as happens when a parent terrorizes an infant without words, but there is "stuff' happening all the time because human beings in general don't know we are all the same thing. And all that's not including Acts of God like volcanos, earthquakes, viruses, accidental gas leaks, drunk drivers, and space alien Locusts looking for another planet to plunder.
The Buddha insisted (and gave direction to find this for ourselves) that the cessation of suffering lies within us and we can develop access to this and use it with power and effectiveness. The parental blunders and abuses become no more important in the great scheme of things than all the rest of the horrors we humans visit upon one another, not to mention all the impersonal shit like tsunamis and nasty mutations of E. coli.
But if one persists in focusing upon parental responsibility, you'll end up having to admit dear old Dad (for instance) was once a defenseless infant given a bag of genetic traits and parents of his own, who had parents of their own, and please do insert the Acts of God and ill fortune liberally throughout all their lives, too.
If a starving, sickened street person comes at you, hearing command voices and attacks you, it might take a few days to get over the shock but you can't stay righteously angry at such a damaged being for acting damaged. It's pretty hard for me to stay angry with my father, or his parents, or theirs either.
The pain and damage within me is mine, no matter who or what caused it under whatever circumstances. Knowing the beginning of damage is good for moving forward -- I have a grandson, and what influence I will have in his life will be free of the damage done to me. Backing up a generation, before I gave birth to my oldest, I was determined to STOP the damage, and although I meted out plenty of my own original damage on my kids, the damage they grew up with was not even in the same universe as what I grew up with.
But for me, the buck starts and stops here. Like @Tosh says, responsibility is kind of radical, it may seem like taking on stuff that isn't yours, but only at first. Pursue it deeper than the surface, and it is ALL YOURS (whoopee!! :wow: )
So (slapping hands together, cracking some knuckles) let's get started!
Gassho
But it means that there is like a hot potato of blame and nobody will take the potato. By taking it yourself the group can get back to problem solving.
You can download or stream all the meetings at HHDL's website.
http://www.dalailama.com/webcasts/post/300-mind-and-life-xxvii---craving-desire-and-addiction
I have a highly addictive personality myself. I've been addicted to alcohol, pot, anxiety medication, sex, love, pornography, anger, misery, egoism, video games, cigarettes, sugar, caffeine, pretty much anything that I thought might get me through another day, or even to the next moment. I can even see myself getting addicted to meditation. At least, there's no hangover!
Genetics and epigenetics are extremely complex. We tend to simplify it by saying "it's genetic" as if because it's in our family we are going to have it, too. But really we are just more predisposed to flipping the switch that turns on those genes. Hobbies, memories, diet, all sorts of environmental factors, in fact, affect our genetics. We have choices as to which ones we switch on and off...more control that we previously thought we had. It isn't simply "my grandfather was an alcoholic" but also the factors that led him to turn to alcohol that are in your genes as well. His anxieties, his fears, his inability to deal with his feelings. All of those things are genetic.
Of my 4 grandparents, 3 of them were alcoholics. 2 of them died as a result. One of them was an alcoholic to deal with his Navy experiences. He ended up with cancer as a result of his job in the Navy, but his alcoholism made his cancer much more difficult to treat. My grandmother was an alcoholic basically out of choice to try to be more like my grandpa, to spend time with him, to understand him, and then to hide from who he, and she, had become. From those grandparents came 7 aunts and uncles of mine. Of those 7, only 1 became an alcoholic. But then she had 3 children, and all of her children are alcoholics and drug addicts. It's a strange thing. But I find epigenetics fascinating, and it's nice to know we have more control over which genes we switch on and off than we used to think. We don't have to be victims of our genetics. But it does require us to look into our family tree to figure some of that out. There are things in my life where I've always just said "It's in my genes!" as a way to explain why i have certain abilities I don't know where they came from. But it's true that those things, even hobbies, are present in our genetics, and the more generations they come from, the stronger they get if you choose to turn them on. Meditation has a huge impact on some of that stuff. So does diet.
Anyhow, I'm pretty careful with drugs and alcohol, but I've never had a problem being able to take it or leave it. I can leave beer in the fridge for months and not touch it. It doesn't bother me at all. But candy is another story. I have to avoid buying it, because if it's here, I will eat it, even if I am stuffed from a good meal. Internet is probably an addiction for me. I have to forcefully break my connection to it, and I do. But it is such a compulsion. I shut off my computer, but then on my phone is everything my computer has. Non-stop alerts to messages, emails, responses to facebook posts...and it is that interaction that I get addicted to. Knowing I have a message and not responding to it is as irritating to me as having a horrible itch I cannot get to.
I think the root of any addiction is an inability to manage our emotions/feelings. I used to use booze to manage mine, but I can use other stuff too.
I suspect it's this inability to manage emotions/feelings that gets passed to us genetically.
For me it is 'thirst' from a Buddhist perspective. In my life I want a treat. Over a LONG period of time I learned to just embody the thirst and after a long time it goes away. In the mean time I just meditate and do a lot of body centered practice in the meditation. Nonetheless I do drink coffee and alcohol to alter my mental experience. I am not 'all one thing'. Sometimes I am like a renunciate and sometimes I take intoxicants.