Euphoria is a good word that today has a negative meaning; it is often used to describe the artificial high
or altered state of mind produced by an addictive trigger. It’s earlier
meaning was joy, excitement, enthusiasm, and exhilaration. Euphoria
derives from a Greek word euphoros, a word that refers to
healthy elation. I like to use euphoria to refer to a natural joy in
living, its original meaning. This normal, day-in and day-out happiness
seems to be missing in people vulnerable to addiction. Most addicts
simply don’t know how to have fun. We should be able to get up every
morning looking forward to the day’s activities. We ought to be able to
take pleasure in the simple acts of daily living, from our friends and
from the work we do. You probably know people who are like this even if
you are not.
When simple joy in living is missing from
daily life, it can be recovered though abstinence and by following a
selfish program of personal growth. If you are an addict, I suggest you
set that as your ultimate goal. Learn the skills and attitudes that
will afford natural relief from the dark feelings described below.
Learn how to practice the ordinary euphoria that is your right. This
will take time, but keep the goal in mind.
So far, we’ve covered three of the necessary
factors leading up to addiction: triggers, risk factors and attitudes.
This article considers another broad range of important human behaviors
that I call dark feelings. These, too, seem to be a necessary part of the chain in the development of any addiction.
Addiction begins with a risk factor and
becomes a reality when an effective trigger creates the addictive
altered state or high. A lot happens in between a risk factor and the
trigger in order to make the person vulnerable to the mind-altering
effects of the trigger.
People who are likely to become addicted
seem to be unhappy and emotionally miserable much of the time, and
seeking relief from depression through addiction is not the
same as having real fun. The addictive trigger relieves this chronic
discontent almost immediately, but, of course, the cure is temporary
and the price is high. The trigger produces a strong contrast effect, an elevated mood or altered state of mind making it seem as if it was a miracle cure or wonder drug.
The discovery and use of a trigger, whether
a substance or an activity, is an honest attempt at self-medication. We
all want to feel good; our United States Constitution tells us that the
pursuit of happiness is a basic goal of democracy. Unfortunately,
deliberate mood changes obtained by addiction are a false happiness.
When it comes to the chronic unhappiness
that dark feelings create I again ask the reader to think in the
broadest possible terms, to lump very different looking emotions
together because they have a common element or role to play in the
development of an addiction. And the range of unpleasant human emotions
is huge. Once more, not every addict shares exactly the same emotions
just as not every addict shares the same trigger or the same risk
factors. What addicts share in common, what makes them all brothers and
sisters together, are risk factors, dark feelings, self-defeating
attitudes and triggers of one kind or another. No two addicts are
exactly alike and yet they share the same general patterns. They can
also, by the way, come to share the same recovery program.
The part emotions and unhappiness play in
addiction is important for two reasons. First, emotions can change,
transform themselves and morph into different emotions. Anger, for
example, can turn into depression, and depression can lead to feelings
of persecution. Jealousy can turn into anxiety, fear can turn to anger,
and boredom can change to frustration and yearning.
The second reason for taking an inventory of
feelings and being able to recognize various kinds of emotional misery
is simply that it doesn’t have to be that way. Once recognized, dark
feelings can be changed. Emotional suffering is unnecessary. And this
is a primary characteristic of a good recovery; one is no longer a
victim of ones own feelings, one becomes a master at controlling them
and limiting the damage they can do.
Many research people who study addiction
have talked about depression, a mood often relieved by a trigger. For
years, alcoholics were treated for depression without dealing with the
dependency on alcohol. Sometimes this helped, and sometimes it created
an alternative addiction to tranquilizers. But the addict is not
psychotic, not legally or medically insane. Alcoholism is not usually a
symptom of some severe underlying mental disorder such as schizophrenia
or manic psychosis. We have learned that addiction is a problem in its
own right.
We need a more general word to describe the background mood of the addict, and mental health professionals use words like dysphoria, dysthymia and negative affectivity. In common language, and as a more useful general term, I prefer dark feelings.
Such a term includes the wide range of unhappy feelings with which the
potential addict lives day by day, but it does not imply some kind of
psychiatric diagnosis.
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We humans, often the victims of our
emotions, do have a capacity for controlling them, but it is a skill
that has to be learned. Recognizing and describing your unhappy moods
is a first step in learning what you can do about them in an
addiction-free life. As you know by now, I like lists of possibilities.
I believe in the importance of taking a personal inventory. Below you
will find a list of moods that are often mentioned by addicts as their
common, enduring feeling over time. Such dark feelings are relieved
temporarily during use of the addictive.
Reminder: this is not a
test for which some overall score is important; this is simply an
inventory you can use to pinpoint various moods. Check only those
feelings you experience all or most of the time and which are affected
by using an addictive.
_____Feeling tired, worn out and discouraged
_____Haunted by bad memories
_____Feeling blue, tearful or sad most of the time
_____Irritated, feeling hassled
_____Bored, empty, seeing no point in most activities
_____Guilt
_____Pessimism
_____Expecting harm and danger
_____Feeling like a failure
_____Hopeless, without confidence
_____Expecting disappointment
_____Hating to depend on others
_____Constant self-criticism and self-doubt
_____Uncomfortable and self-conscious in the presence of others
_____Doubt about ability to deal with difficult situations or people
_____Doubt about your physical appearance
_____Doubt about your skills
_____Feeling like you might harm others
_____Anger at being criticized, fear of criticism
_____Feeling unappreciated or unrecognized for what you do
_____Angry because the world owns you more than you get
_____Alienated from others and lonely
_____Fearful of exploring you feelings
_____Unable to express love or tenderness
_____Anxious most of the time
_____Fearful or phobic of specific things
_____Struggling with impulse
_____Resentful of any authority
_____Feeling driven
_____Tormented by the negative judgments you make
_____Always wanting to be in control or on top if things
_____Feeling helpless and ineffective
_____Everything seems good or evil, black or white
_____Unable to let go of details
_____Rage, anger or deep resentments
_____Feeling pushed or controlled by circumstance or by others
_____Tormented by automatic thoughts that pop into your head
_____Inability to predict how others will respond or behave
_____Taking everything to the extreme
_____Anger at the limits others set on your behavior
_____Always on the defensive
_____No one sees you as you think you really are
_____Always being blamed by others
_____Having no clear goals
_____Being too suggestible
_____Too devoted to work
_____Others do not trust or love you as they should
_____Lack of self-discipline
_____Constantly yearning for what you don’t have
_____Always finding fault with people, places or things
_____Financial insecurity
_____Angry all or most of the time
I am sure there are lots of other ways of
feeling discontented, and perhaps you can write down some that are
problems for you. It may help to write a detailed description of your
background emotions as an artist would paint a landscape. Share that
with a counselor or group sponsor. Avoid anyone who will argue with you
or who is likely to say that you should not feel the way you feel. Snap
judgments are not what you need. Of course, you should not go through life feeling miserable, but for now what is important is a complete inventory of feelings.
The picture of how addictions work is now
almost complete. A risk factor somehow gets translated into dark
feelings, and dark feelings set you up for the emotional impact a
trigger may have. The final factor that creates this vulnerability is
thinking, discussed in the previous chapter. Ideas, beliefs and values
can create and intensify your dark feelings to the point as which some
action, any action, seems absolutely unavoidable. Sadly, that action is
often ends up being the use of a trigger or addictive.
One the positive side, healthy and realistic
ideas, beliefs and values can be the solutions to the problem of
constant dark feelings. Overcoming addiction involves one of the most
difficult and unlikely things we can do for ourselves, yet it is one of
the most obvious things we can do. You can simply and literally change
your mind, and only the owner can do that. Get professional counseling
if you think that will help, but remember that you are the one who has
to make the changes. Yes, medication may help, but while it may relieve
some of the feelings, it will only make you ready to work on personal
growth and change.
Next, we’ll put things together: risk
factors, attitudes, dark feelings and triggers to complete the picture
of the chain that invariably seems to lead to addiction.
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