Someone recently wrote to Cosmopolitan Magazine with the following concern:

Me and my husband have been married for four years and have three wonderful kids. He bought the X-Box 360 [a video game system] about 2 years ago and all he does is play it all day and most of the night, sometimes all day and night. I’ve tried sitting down with him and explaining that I need help around the house, not to mention with our little ones, and he says he understands, yet it is still the same thing every day with no signs of changing. I am also sure you can understand what type of effect this has on our sex life. We do have sex at least twice a week but it doesn’t last that long. Most of the time it is a quickie, so not very enjoyable for me. And when he does try to make it last longer and maybe tries to put more passion into it, I try but about 75 percent of the time have too much resentment and can’t relax or get over the fact that it is the only attention I get. So it is very upsetting to me. No hugs, only kisses when we are in the act, no cuddling…nothing. As soon as he is done he sleeps or jumps back on the game. What is wrong with me? How come he doesn’t want to be part of the family unit anymore? I also need suggestions on how to get over all the resentment I hold.
Signed: Is it Me?

Here is my response to her letter.

Dear “Is it Me?”
The answer to your question is both “No it is not you” and “Yes it is you.” Let me explain. Your husband is doing what he is doing because of who he is, not because of who you are. We can become much more personal in a relationship if we stop taking our partner’s behavior personally.

While that is true it is also true that all behavior in a relationship is communication. Sometimes we are unable to decode what our partner’s behavior is saying and sometimes the person himself doesn’t even realize what his behavior is communicating. So here are some possibilities of what your husband might he be saying with this behavior:

First possibility: “I am ignoring you and involved in this game because I am angry with you and showing you how it feels to be ignored.” (I state this as a possibility because many men feel abandoned when their wives are attentive to their children’s needs. You have been married four years and have three children and I am certain raising three children requires a lot of you attention and energy. He seems to be acting like a child and maybe this is his way of saying he misses you and wants your attention.)

Second possibility: “I don’t know how to be a father nor do I know where I fit into this family, I am lost.” (He may not know how to be a husband and a father. Some men have an idea of how to be a husband but are clueless when it comes to knowing how to participate in childrearing. If this is the case you need to invite him to disclose this to you. He will likely be very embarrassed and ashamed if this is the case which may be what makes it is so hard for him to share this with you.)

There are other possibilities too but let’s shift focus to what you are doing that is part of the problems in order for you to become a part of the solution. The first think I pick up is that you are criticizing him. Most men become defensive when they are criticized by their wives. When you tell him “I need you help around the house, not to mention with our little ones…” you are criticizing him for what he is not doing. Try this instead, Tell him you miss him. That he is important to you and that you are concerned that something you have done has pushed him away. Invite him to tell you how he feels about you and if he does listen carefully because he will be telling you what he needs from you that he is not getting.

Your criticism is likely to come from your resentment. To get over your resentment I suggest a three step process: First identify your resentment. In your case it might be something like: “I resent you for playing Xbox all the time and abandoning me and our children.” Step two involves stating the demand that underlies your resentment. This doesn’t mean that your demand is unreasonable, sometimes our demands are reasonable, sometimes they aren’t. But it really doesn’t matter because you need to state what you demand regardless of its degree of reasonableness. You might say something like, “I demand that you become more involved in this family and that you never abandon me or our children.” I imagine that this might reflect your demand but it might not. So identify your demand and say it out loud to yourself. Finally, the third step is to find something you can appreciate in his behavior that your resent. So in this case you might say, “I appreciate that you are home when you are playing your Xbox instead of going out and drinking etc.” There is always something to appreciate in a resentment. This process will help you understand and resolve your resentment.  

On Culture and Addiction

In this article I want to discuss how our culture sets us up for becoming an addict. Before I do it’s important to realize we are all in a trance. We are hypnotized by our culture. This is not necessarily a bad thing, it just is the way things are. It happens in every culture, It has to.

Culture is transmitted through the family. Parents teach children their culture’s world view. This world view is like a filter, it defines what is real and what isn’t, it proscribes what is appropriate behavior and what isn’t, it dictates how we should be and what we should feel. It defines everything about our existence. The way this is taught is unique to each family because it is woven into the fabric of our family’s history.

The most important thing to realize about our culture is that it is focused on “having.” Our culture is based on capitalism. Capitalism needs consumers. We are hypnotized into believing that our self-worth is based on what we have, rather than on who we are. We measure success with the amount of  material things we possess like money, homes, cars, and adult toys, not our character. I’m sure you heard that quote, “He who finishes with the most toys wins.”

This obsession with “having” infects how we interact with our self and others too. We end up treating ourselves and others as objects and/or possessions. We become obsessed with how marketable we are. Women are typically treated and also treat themselves like sex objects. While men are usually treated and also treat themselves like success objects. What makes a man successful in his job makes it nearly impossible for him to have a warm and loving intimate relationship. A woman who treats herself as an object cannot be intimate because she is concerned about her image, not who she is.

More is better isn’t it. That’s what we learn in our culture. In fact we become addicted to more. I’m certain you’ve heard addiction described as the experience where “one is too much and a thousand isn’t enough.” Unfortunately this applies to nearly everything in our lives. We are rarely satisfied with what we have and even more dissatisfied with who we are.

We are obsessed with becoming something we are not. True self-esteem is rare, we just don’t feel good enough which is crazy because we aren’t even certain of what it means to be good enough. Our concept of who we should be is corrupted by our notions of who we think we should be. Women spend billions of dollars on plastic surgery to have the “perfect body.” Men are also visiting the plastic surgeon more than ever before.

It’s all about more, more and more. We spend millions of dollars on the latest exercise equipment so we can become more attractive and have a better body. Unfortunately most of it is gathering dust underneath our beds or in our garages. We pursue schemes to get rich so we can  buy more things and have more money which in some magical way will make us feel more secure. Men become workaholics because they are obsessed with having more and being more successful. We turn into humans, doing and performing, rather than humans, being (sic).  What a tragedy.

Another nonsense is that life should be easy and gratification instantaneous. We become obsessed with finding the easier softer way and we want instant results. Well life isn’t easy and most worthwhile things don’t come easy. But nobody tells us that. Instead we are bombarded with messages that tell us to take a magical pill and your headache will immediately disappear. There is no need to figure out a better way to handle your stress. If you are depressed take an antidepressant and that will make you feel better. No need to figure out what you are doing that makes you depressed. We buy weight loss medication on TV that promises to help us lose weight while we sleep, so there is no need to spend hours in the gym. It’s easy.

When we turn to drugs including alcohol they really work. I mean really work, instantaneously we feel better. We are sexier, more fun, more comfortable, more relaxed, more spontaneous. We are free from our fears and concerns. We are free from the false self that develops in this insane culture. I had a friend say that he didn’t know if he was born an alcoholic but the moment he took his first drink he knew that an alcoholic was born. We are set up by all of this nonsense to become addicted. We become addicted to drugs including alcohol, to sex, to gambling, to compulsive overeating or restricting. We become addicted to dramas, to spending money. We become addicted to more.

I may sound paranoid but I do believe that there is a cultural conspiracy that undermines he development of our true, spiritual self. We are  encouraged to abandon our true self and become an idealized self riddled with our culture’s proscription of who we should be.

Let’s also consider looking at addiction from a different perspective. The fact that we aren’t satisfied with our false self solution, that we become dis-eased, means that something is right about us not that something is wrong with us. Jung described the alcoholic as having a “spiritual thirst.” It is our spiritual self that constantly reaches out, cries out to be actualized. It is like an alarm that will continue to ring despite the number of times we hit snooze. So it’s what is right about us that doesn’t allow us to completely abandon ourselves to the nonsense in our culture. This is not a culture based on wisdom. Recovery however is based on wisdom.

Recovery helps us find our lost, true self. It helps us reconnect with who we really are. Recovery is about “being” not “having.” It’s an incredible journey that begins with shattering our false self. This opens the door to discovering a spiritual solution to our dilemma.

Every spiritual discipline is concerned with “being” not “having.” That why the 12 Steps work. They facilitate a spiritual experience. In recovery we have to have a 180 degree shift in our attitude and perceptions, this is a remarkable personal transformation. We shift from obsessed with “having more” to concern with “being,” and living a life guided by spiritual principles. This breaks the trance and cures our cultural sickness. We become like Alice in Wonderland, realizing that what is isn’t and what isn’t is. What an amazing journey.

Reflections on the Process of Recovery

What is recovery? I see the process of recovery as involving three things: first it helps break the bonds of addiction, secondly it helps us recover our lost, true self, and finally it helps us grow up and learn how to live life clean and sober. This third phase is what Bill W. referred to as “emotional sobriety.”

For many years, mental health professions tried to help their alcoholic patients by focusing on treating the underlying causes of their problem like a childhood trauma. Their thinking was something like this, “If I help this person resolve the underlying causes of their addiction they will be asymptomatic, that is they will no longer be alcoholic and therefore able to drink socially.”  This approach failed miserably, as did other approaches that tried to teach a person to drink in moderation. Today we understand why.

Neuroscientists have validated something the founders of AA intuitively understood about alcoholism, that “We are like men who have lost their legs, we will never grow new ones.” The addict’s brain changes during the process of addiction and is no longer able to regulate the use of alcohol or other drugs. This change is irreversible, once an addict always an addict.

Treating an addict without the direct treatment of their addiction doesn’t work. It didn’t work back then and it won’t work now. There is no easier softer way. So how does someone who is addicted stop using or drinking. Successful treatment begins by helping a patient accept a paradox. They must surrender to win. They must admit they are powerless to find a way to arrest  their addiction.

Once an alcoholic or addict realizes the futility of a frontal assault on their malady with willpower they are thrown into an existential crisis. What I used to do doesn’t work, what I know to do to solve a problem doesn’t work yet I do not have a viable alternative. Quite a predicament isn’t it. This is exactly what is supposed to happen during recovery. The resolution of this predicament creates a willingness to go to any lengths to find a solution. Bill W. described recovery as being a spiritual experience that is conceived on a pedestal of hopelessness.

The recovery of our true self our spiritual self is a consequence of working the 12 Steps. The 12 Steps systematically and methodically create a spiritual experience by shattering our reliance on our “false-self,” and replacing it with a reliance on a “Power greater than ourselves.”

Our false-self is our idealized self. This false self is the solution to a very basic problem. We all want to be loved and accepted. In fact we all have a basic fear or anxiety that we won’t. This basic anxiety must be resolved. To resolve it we construct an idealized image of who we need to be in order to be loved and accepted. The type of personality that we develop as a solution is shaped by an interaction of several different factors: our family dynamics, our biological constitution and our culture.

Typically personalities evolve along three different vectors: the appeal of freedom, the appeal of love, and the appeal of mastery. I will address these in more detail in a future article, for now I want to make the point that these solutions all alienate us from our true, spiritual self. We try to be something we are not. It’s no wonder that most of us are afraid they are going to found out to be a phony, because we are.

The 12 Steps systematically dismantle this false solution and help us recover our lost, true, spiritual self. Another way of saying this is that in recovery we recover the ground we missed in our personal development. We are warned in the Big Book that “…until we let go of our old ideas the result will be nil.”

We need to let go of our false self in order to find our true self. We need to build life on what is real, not on misconceptions and myths. Recovery is about becoming authentic, about actualizing our true self, and about growing up, The final stage of recovery is learning how to live life, clean and sober. In order to develop real maturity and balance in our relations with ourself and others we need to face our emotional dependency. Bill W. referred to this as an “absolute dependence.” Emotional dependency interferes with emotional sobriety. We need to grow up and learn how to take total responsibility for our lives, our spirituality, our self-esteem, our ignorance and misinformation, our happiness, our recovery, our relationships with our loved ones and what shortcomings we need to change. There’s a funny thing that happens, when we take responsibility for our need to change other people stop trying to change us.

This is what happens in recovery. We are purged of our false self,. We surrender to our powerlessness over drugs including alcohol and accept that our lives have become unmanageable. Our “false self” is shattered. Steps 1 thru 12 illuminate a spiritual way of life by the use of paradox and right action. The Steps help us integrate parts of ourselves we disowned and discover other parts of ourselves never realized. And finally they help us reunite with our loved ones and our community. We learn how to be a part of the solution rather than the problem. We live life with a new purpose, to help the alcoholic or addict who is suffering. We realize that our trouble are of our own making.

What a remarkable process. We owe a great deal to Bill W. and Dr. Bob. May they rest in peace!