The 12 Steps are based on the admittance of one\u2019s powerlessness over their particular addiction or compulsion.\u00a0 The irony of doing this is that it takes incredible personal power to make the statement that you are powerless.\u00a0 The decision to admit powerlessness over our disease is not an easy one.\u00a0 It always comes at the end of a long battle, with many heartbreaks and material losses.\u00a0 It is literally the U-turn we are making from being dysfunctional into a very powerful creator.<\/p>\n
Addiction and co-dependency are the same disease.\u00a0 Most people do not understand it in that way.\u00a0 The addict uses a drug or behavior that stimulates the mid-brain chemical reaction known as the Brain Reward Cascade.\u00a0 The co-dependent uses thoughts and actions to stimulate the exact same process.\u00a0 I was coaching a client recently who has a family member suffering from addiction. \u00a0Midway through the call, I referred to her as an addict.\u00a0 She was stunned and replied that nobody has ever called her that before.<\/p>\n
I went on to explain that anytime we rely on an outside source to control our own happiness, we are playing the \u201creward cascade\u201d game.\u00a0 Co-dependency, much like gambling addiction, shopping addiction, and sex addiction, are considered the pure addictions.\u00a0 This is because the desired result does not come from any external source.\u00a0 They are thought and action-driven addictions which stimulate the dopamine release, providing us the reward we are seeking.<\/p>\n
Once we have the awareness that we have a disease, a continuing and progressive illness, we are put in the position of making a choice.\u00a0 Do I continue with my behavior in spite of my knowledge?\u00a0 Or do I accept my condition and make the necessary changes?\u00a0 This is pure power and control, the opposite of powerlessness.\u00a0 Granted, we cannot recover ourselves.\u00a0 We do need help and guidance from others.\u00a0 Again, we are placed in a position of using power to do what is needed to make sure that we rehabilitate the behaviors that no longer work for us.<\/p>\n
Our thoughts create our emotions.\u00a0 Most people are not aware that this is how our brain works.\u00a0 Have you ever been walking down a street at night when the thought comes to your mind that it may not be safe?\u00a0 What happens?\u00a0 Your heart starts racing. \u00a0Your breath becomes rapid and shallow.\u00a0 You simply had a thought that triggered the body\u2019s \u201cfight or flight\u201d response.\u00a0 This thought was created by you.\u00a0 It didn\u2019t just happen to come across your mind; you created it.\u00a0 What\u2019s more, you likely created it out of data in your brain from an external source without any relevance to what is real in that moment.<\/p>\n
This is how we operate most of the time.\u00a0 We come from data external to our self and act as though it is the God-given truth.\u00a0 We end up building our life around these beliefs we have about how life is, and those beliefs are typically created out of faulty data.<\/p>\n
Recovery is all about using our power to change our beliefs that are based on faulty data.\u00a0 The 12 Steps provide the necessary tools for experiencing life from a place of power rather than of powerlessness.\u00a0 Abstinence simply is not a satisfying enough response to the admittance of our inability to control our use of drugs and behaviors, but changing our perspective from one of \u201clife is happening to<\/i> us\u201d to one of \u201clife is happening through<\/i> us\u201d will repair our low self-esteem and allow for life\u2019s greatest joys to be experienced.<\/p>\n
(Kevin McCormack C.A.d, is an addictions professional and Conversations with God<\/i> life coach.\u00a0 Kevin hosts an Addictions and Recovery column on the website www.TheGlobalConversation.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0 He is a recovering addict with over 26 years of sobriety.\u00a0 Kevin is a co-host of \u201cConversations with God on Recovery\u201d workshops and retreats.\u00a0 The next retreat will be held June 23rd<\/sup> \u2013 26th<\/sup> in Medford, Oregon.\u00a0 To contact Kevin, visit his website www.Kevin-spiritualmentor.com<\/span><\/a><\/span> or email him at Kevin.spiritualmentor@gmail.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The 12 Steps are based on the admittance of one\u2019s powerlessness over their particular addiction or compulsion.\u00a0 The irony of doing this is that it takes incredible personal power to make the statement that you are powerless.\u00a0 The decision to admit powerlessness over our disease is not an easy one.\u00a0 It always comes at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5095","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-addiction-and-recovery"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5095"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5097,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5095\/revisions\/5097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theglobalconversation.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}