I’ve lived my life in addiction to fantasy, to co-dependent relationships, to the excitement of new love and to emotional intrigue. To get healthy, I’ve been 12-stepping for a couple of years and come to these realizations about how to get well.
Get connected! Get connected to God, to healthy people and to yourself.
How do you connect to God, other people and yourself? Work the 12 Steps.
How do you meet your needs without violating your values? Choose activities that lead to growth and contribution to the greater good. If you sense you are growing and contributing, that’s going to feel amazing. If you do things that feel amazing but aren’t good for you or those around you, that’s going to take you down. The most far-gone addict is going to have activities that feel good and do good for those around him. We call that top-line behavior.
The addict needs to make a list of top-line behaviors and pursue them.
Another way to connect to yourself and to others is by going to therapy and learning about the things you do that get in your own way. But self-knowledge without action won’t be enough for an addict to recover.
Look at activities you hate but need to do (such as exercise, volunteering, prayer, religion, etc) and get clear about how they create growth and contribution and then figure out ways to do them that are fun.
