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The Healing Power of Self Love: Enhance Your Chances of Recovery from Addiction Through the Treatment Program of Your Choice, by Utilizing the Ancient Tools of Discipline, Lateral Thinking, and Insight from the Life Experiences of the World’S Greatest Leaders.
The Healing Power of Self Love: Enhance Your Chances of Recovery from Addiction Through the Treatment Program of Your Choice, by Utilizing the Ancient Tools of Discipline, Lateral Thinking, and Insight from the Life Experiences of the World’S Greatest Leaders.
The Healing Power of Self Love: Enhance Your Chances of Recovery from Addiction Through the Treatment Program of Your Choice, by Utilizing the Ancient Tools of Discipline, Lateral Thinking, and Insight from the Life Experiences of the World’S Greatest Leaders.
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The Healing Power of Self Love: Enhance Your Chances of Recovery from Addiction Through the Treatment Program of Your Choice, by Utilizing the Ancient Tools of Discipline, Lateral Thinking, and Insight from the Life Experiences of the World’S Greatest Leaders.

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In the field of alcoholism and drug addiction treatment, there have always been questions for which there were no satisfactory answers: Is substance abuse a problem of discipline or a disease? Why is it that most alcoholics/ drug addicts do not seek for, or receive treatment? Why is it that only 5- 10% of alcoholics/ drug addicts respond to treatment? Why do untreated addicts have a better chance at breaking the bond of addiction than addicts who get treated? Why has the incidence of recovery without the help of formal treatment continued to rise?

Are the successes of Alcoholics Anonymous (A.A) nothing more than spontaneous remission? Why are some people able to quit their addiction without treatment, while others only get worse after treatment? Why does treatment have a negative effect? Why are some treatment programs more effective than others? Why has the world continued to experience a steady increase in the rate of addiction and self destruction? Why is it that 1 in 2 Americans has a diagnosable mental disorder each year, and 81 Americans commit suicide every day?

Why do non-Hispanic blacks bear a disproportionate burden of disease, injury, death, and disability? Why do the most successful treatment programs for addicts have a spiritual component? Why do non white people suffer from a high rate of substance abuse and self destruction? Why does Africa have the highest rate of suicide, poverty, and disease in the world? Why are some treatment programs more effective than others? Etc.

In a unique blend of psychology, psychiatry, metaphysics, medicine, orient and western religions, The Healing Power of Self Love provides answers to these and many more questions. In making its revolutionary contribution to the scientific world, it also explains how addicts can enhance their chances of recovery from addiction through the treatment programs of their choice, by utilizing the ancient tools of discipline, lateral thinking, and insight from the life experiences of the worlds greatest leaders.

Even though this book was initially designed to meet the needs of alcoholics and drug addicts in treatment, it may be of great value to people who are struggling with other types of addiction, and to those who are faced with major obstacles to their self-realization or self actualization.
LanguageEnglish
PublisheriUniverse
Release dateFeb 6, 2009
ISBN9781440101380
The Healing Power of Self Love: Enhance Your Chances of Recovery from Addiction Through the Treatment Program of Your Choice, by Utilizing the Ancient Tools of Discipline, Lateral Thinking, and Insight from the Life Experiences of the World’S Greatest Leaders.
Author

Oscar Bamwebaze Bamuhigire

OSCAR BAMUHIGIRE has more than twelve years of experience as an alcohol and drug addiction counselor. He has a degree in Psychology from Makerere University, and training in the Therapeutic Community model from DAYTOP International, New York, U.S.A (America’s oldest and largest drug treatment program). In 2003, he represented Africa at an international symposium on alcohol and drug addiction held in Rome, the Vatican, organized by the Vatican and the Italian Federation of Therapeutic Communities. During his stay in the Vatican, he personally met Pope John Paul II. He is one of the founders of Serenity Centre, which is Uganda’s only residential treatment center for addicts. He has also worked as an addiction counselor in other countries like Bangladesh and Kenya, authored more than one hundred newspaper articles on addiction treatment, and featured several times on Ugandan Television and radio talk shows. Early in his career, he received a vocational Award from the Rotary Club of Kampala South in recognition of his work with addicts. Oscar Bamuhigire suffered from alcoholism for ten years, but recovered in 1995 after he joined a 12 step group. He currently lives in Uganda, where he works as an addiction counselor in private practice.

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    The Healing Power of Self Love - Oscar Bamwebaze Bamuhigire

    Section I:

    Why You Became an Alcoholic

    Fleeing from Pain at all Costs

    Although hardly a week goes by without some expert claiming that alcoholism is an inherited trait, the evidence from studies of twins and adopted children is far from clear. While genes may be crucial in some cases, childhood experience is usually the key. The main contributory factor is parental care: even if there is such a thing as a predetermined genetic vulnerability, your childhood history determines whether you will succumb to it.

    The Times

    With the rare exception of that brand of psychopathological human species, which derives extreme pleasure out of being flogged on a regular basis, the natural tendency of Homo sapiens and other species is to avoid pain/ suffering, and to seek out pleasure. We are biologically programmed to avoid pain as a means of self-preservation. Because of this, we naturally seek out those experiences which bring us pleasure, and refrain from those that cause pain or suffering. We eat, drink, sleep, dress, get married, study, work, get involved in charitable activities, smoke, have sex, steal, lie, commit suicide, pray, indulge in crime, meditate, exercise, and read, among many other activities, so that we may avoid pain and suffering.

    By engaging in these activities, we hope to make our lives better- to find happiness. Even when we choose not to engage in these activities, our motive is still the same. Those who practice fasting and self flagellation for religious reasons for example, hope that these painful practices will bring them happiness or pleasure by warding off greater suffering at some future point, in this lifetime or thereafter. Therefore, even those who deliberately subject themselves to pain, do so because they hope to avoid pain!

    Through reflex action, we instantly draw away from anything that causes us physical pain. When subjected to unbearable levels of physical or psychological pain, our mind may even ‘shut down’, making us unconscious or mentally ill, so that we become oblivious to this pain. The avoidance of suffering, and the search for pleasure, is a major driving force behind all human behavior. In a real sense, we are predisposed to pleasure seeking. The Dalai Lama explains:

    It is a fact- a natural fact of life- that each one of us has an innate desire to seek happiness and to overcome suffering. This is something very instinctive, and there is no need to prove it is there. Happiness is something that we all aspire to achieve, and of course we naturally have a right to fulfill that aspiration. In the same way, suffering is something everyone wishes to avoid, and we also have a right to overcome suffering.¹⁵

    Much of human behavior is modeled around this delicate relationship between pain and pleasure. The irony however is that, even if we are biologically programmed to avoid pain as means of self preservation, we must experience it if we are to grow and survive. We must work hard, if we are to meet our basic needs; we must exercise regularly, if we are to live healthy lives; we must study hard for very many years, if we are to have satisfying and fulfilling careers; we must control our natural desires and drives, if we are to avoid breaking the law; we must endure the pains of declaring our own independence from other people, if we are to mature and grow; we must save more and spend less of our income, if we are to survive the pangs of poverty; we must fight in self defense when attacked, if we are to survive; we must refrain from all forms of over indulgence, if we are to remain healthy and sane; we must transcend material desires, if we are to grow spiritually and self-actualize.

    Growth of any kind, by its very nature, involves the endless struggle against our natural drive to avoid pain. Growth in all its forms is a prerequisite to happiness, just as its absence is a major cause of intense suffering. This means that, while on the one hand we must avoid pain in order to survive, we must experience it if we are to survive. We must suffer so that we may ultimately cease to suffer.

    Because much of the human race has a tendency to avoid suffering, it exists in a state of unending misery. We are suffering, not because life is difficult or unjust, but because we refuse to willingly suffer and this stifles self growth. It is because of this that the first of the Four Noble Truths which Buddha taught was ‘Life Is Suffering’.

    When external reality is painful, or put another way, when the problems in our lives generate pain, we naturally seek to avoid that pain. How we go about this task of avoiding the pain that reality generates, is what determines whether we become alcoholics or not, normal or abnormal, well adjusted or maladjusted, sane or insane, happy or sad. This is the dilemma that every human being is faced with- how to avoid this pain and remain sane at the same time! So if this aspiration to achieve happiness and overcome suffering is our natural state of being and our natural quest, says the Dalai Lama the question is how we should go about fulfilling that aspiration?¹⁵

    The pain generated by our external reality is what we commonly refer to as life problems. Mentally healthy people deal with this pain by successfully coping and adapting to their environments. Through the application of the tools of discipline, they are able to solve most of their problems. Consequently, they experience a significant reduction in the pain generated by external reality, and life becomes bearable. Life becomes worth living, because the pain of living does not exceed the pleasure of living. In this sense, life is the endless attempt to reduce on the pains generated by external reality, through the application of the tools of discipline in problem solving, so that we are not overwhelmed by the pains of living. When the pain generated by external reality exceeds the pleasure it generates for a significant period of time, we can be said to be maladaptive, abnormal, or mentally ill.

    Most people experience periods in their lives when there is more pain than pleasure in their external reality. During such periods, they feel more sadness than happiness, and more sorrow than joy. As long as such periods are brief and passing, they remain mentally healthy. All of us as a result, have been depressed at one point or another, but we didn’t become alcoholic, maladaptive, or suicidal! In fact, psychologists argue that there is such a thing as healthy depression. According to them, it is normal for us to feel depressed, as long as it is passing and does not cripple our ability to function normally.

    Our mental health is dependant on the extent to which we are disciplined, because this determines the degree to which we can successfully solve our life problems, which in itself increases or reduces on the pains of living. Mentally unhealthy people avoid, rather than solve their life problems. This creates more problems instead, and it intensifies rather than mitigates their suffering. When we are undisciplined, we avoid solving our life problems by resorting to negative coping mechanisms like alcoholism, self destruction, crime, or mental illness, which inevitably cause us more suffering. In our ignorance, we resort to these negative coping mechanisms in the hope that they will bring us much happiness, and we are baffled when this has the opposite effect. This is what Dough Larson meant when he said, The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

    Unable to apply the tools of discipline, their negative coping mechanisms drift them further and further away from happiness, the harder they try to achieve it. In this sense, every mad man hopes to attain happiness through his madness, just as every alcoholic aims to attain happiness through his alcoholism, and they are stunned when this doesn’t happen! Contrary to what most normal folks think, through the lenses of the alcoholic’s foggy brain, a dimly lit pub is usually the bright light at the end of a dark tunnel! The Dalai Lama explains:

    The suffering of change refers to experiences we ordinarily identify as pleasurable. However, in reality, as long as we are in an unenlightened state all our joyful experiences are tainted and ultimately bring suffering…The point is that we perceive them as states of pleasure or joy only because, in comparison to painful experiences, they appear as a form of relief…If you look carefully, everything beautiful and good, everything that we consider desirable, brings us suffering in the end…. because the nature of our life is suffering we desire happiness, yet out of ignorance we create more suffering for ourselves….¹⁵

    The avoidance of reality through alcoholism and other self destructive behaviors is learned behavior. Much of this learning is unconscious. In many ways, it is the sad product of a subtle form of brainwashing, whose effects we are often unaware of as we learn a dangerous habit. Like any other learning experience, it can occur as a result of modeling, observation, conditioning, socialization, or a combination of these. In modeling, we learn to avoid pain by imitating the role models in our lives. This is how many children of alcoholics become alcoholics. When we see our parents drinking or taking drugs in moments of stress, instead of solving their life problems in a disciplined way, we grow up not knowing of any other way to solve problems, and the alcoholic lifestyle seems to us the only normal way of coping with the challenges of daily living. This is what prompted Curl Jung to say that, Children are educated by what the grown-up is and not by his talk.

    The effects of this type of learning are deeply engraved on our unconscious mind because it occurs in early childhood. This shapes our life perception in such a way that we may have no conception of normalcy. It is partly because of this that many alcoholics opt to commit suicide when forced to sober up, rather than risk to live a life they can not conceptualize.

    Classical conditioning is another form of learning, which occurs when we do something over and over again, for a considerable period of time. In the course of time, what was initially a simple activity turns into a habit, then an addiction, and eventually it becomes second nature to us, to the extent that we may engage in it almost instinctively, without much consequential thinking or conscious thought. When we get high, over and over again, a billion times in a lifetime, we become classically conditioned to getting high, so much so that we will pick up a drink when we least intend to do so, and without giving it much thought.

    Even the things we once associated with our alcoholic escapades become triggers for our craving to get high, and an encounter with them becomes sufficient to send us scampering for the nearest bottle. The tinkling of glass, the sight of a beer advert, the décor of a familiar pub, the sweet whispers of a romantic song, the sudden encounter of an old friend on skid row, and many other things that once lingered around us as we drunk ourselves into oblivion, may ignite a powerful craving that can send us into the nearest pub almost impulsively. Through classical conditioning, we become mentally programmed to get high without much foresight or hindsight. Even at our very best, when in a fleeting period of sober clarity we swear upon the living God to go on the wagon for keeps, we may be stunned to find ourselves drunk the very next moment! Once established in such an erratic lifestyle, our actions baffle rational observers, who may be tempted to think that we are insane.

    When an alcoholic who is dedicated to his recovery, picks up a drink minutes after his discharge from nine months of intensive residential treatment, level headed citizens of sound mind conclude that he belongs to a sanitarium! When a fine bride-groom of high social standing fails to make it to his long awaited wedding, because he has passed out in some shoddy pub along the way, after a brief encounter with a bunch of weather beaten colleagues of no fixed address, who wouldn’t say he is mad? When a surgeon of the finest breed, repeatedly swears to sober up in preparation for a major surgical operation, but is dead drunk minutes after blurting out his resolve, who wouldn’t say he is mentally deranged? Absurd as these examples may seem, they are quite commonplace among alcoholics.

    Strangely though, the alcoholic, being convinced of his own sanity, is often as astonished by this Jackal and Hyde dimension of his existence, as the reasonable observers who label him a lunatic. In good time, as his condition progressively worsens, certain concepts like ‘common sense’, ‘self control’, ‘rational thinking’, ‘consequential thinking’, ‘foresight’, and ‘hind sight’, may begin to represent constructs that are alien to him, and he may be tempted to seek voluntary commitment in any willing asylum. Unable to come to grips with this rare form of insanity in a man who appears to be very rational when sober, some Christians are tempted, in good faith, to conclude that the drunk is demonically possessed. What else, in their opinion, can account for such bizarre contradictions, which lie within the confines of the mind of an otherwise fine product of modern civilization?

    Many of us who have been through this hell of an experience, can not forget that terrible mental torture which systematically eroded our self confidence, each time we awoke from the dark cloud of an unplanned binge, after yet another failed attempt to stick to our well publicized resolve to remain bone dry for life. Soberly reflecting upon the hazy events of the previous day, we often conceded to our innermost selves, that our rationalizations for the binge just ended were not so convincing after all. The chaos which lay in the wake of our most recent alcoholic escapade was always convincing enough. But what we couldn’t quite figure out was why our rationalizations had seemed so convincing when we made them! Nor could we understand why we couldn’t stick to our simple resolve never to get high again!

    We were baffled by our actions because we had little or no knowledge of the power of the unconscious mind over the conscious mind. What usually happened was that every time we made a conscious decision not to drink again, it wasn’t registered on the unconscious mind, which was conditioned by years of alcoholism to hunger for a drink. Because the unconscious constitutes more than 90% of the human mind, when it is in conflict with the conscious mind of a man who lacks thought discipline, it almost always wins. Alcoholics are the victims of a powerful form of conditioning, which can not be overcome by sheer will power in the absence of thought discipline.

    We can also learn to become alcoholics through operant conditioning, which occurs when we frequently indulge in pleasurable activities. Through this kind of learning, we become conditioned to do things which bring us pleasure, and to avoid those which cause suffering or pain. Each time we take a drink, our behavior is reinforced by its pleasurable effects. Initially, we may just discover its pleasurable effects, but having done so, we are driven to seek out another similar experience, until what was once just an experiment, becomes a habit, and finally an addiction.

    One of the deadly effects of operant conditioning is that it only permits us to associate our drinking with pleasurable experiences, because these occur immediately after we take a drink, and it totally blinds us to the problems our drinking causes us, because these occur long after we have taken a drink. In this type of learning, associations are only made with the immediate and not long term consequences of a particular action. As a result of this association, we are driven to drink, in spite of the consequences of our drinking habit. The effects of this conditioning are also firmly etched on the unconscious, so much so that an alcoholic on his death bed may still crave for a drink, even if he is fully conscious of the fact that for him to drink is to die! Unable to associate alcohol with the problems in our lives, it naturally follows that we tend to blame other people for our suffering. As a result, we fail to accept responsibility for our problems, and this makes problem solving an arduous, if not impossible task.

    Socialization is a form of learning which occurs through parenting, customs, cultures, and traditions. Through socialization, we may be bred to become alcoholics. This happens when we are initiated into a self destructive lifestyle by our parents, and reinforced to remain that way. The victims of child abuse are usually conditioned by their traumatic experiences to perceive reality as being hostile and threatening. Unable to cope with this reality, they are tempted to flee from it. When their abusive parents also turn out to be alcoholic, these children turn to alcohol, which is often readily available at home, as a means to flee from their harsh reality. Their alcoholic parents may actually even encourage them to booze, because it is part of the family ‘culture’, and it is their ‘customary’ or ‘traditional’ way of dealing with the pains of reality.

    Through child abuse/ neglect, our parents unconsciously create the very conditions that necessitate our flight from reality, and they may even avail us with the means to do so! This way, the traumatized children of alcoholics learn to use alcohol to numb the pain of reality, having learned to do so from their alcoholic parents. Child abuse/ neglect are often neatly interwoven within cultures, which also condone excessive drinking/ drug abuse. In this case, when we become alcoholics, we are practicing what we were taught by our ‘loved ones’ in early childhood.

    Alcoholics learn to use alcohol to avoid the pain of external reality. They create an alternative fantasy world with the help of alcohol, which is a substance that significantly alters reality, by altering mood and perception. The reality we perceive when we are high is so profoundly different from that which we perceive when we are sober, to the extent that these two realities can be said to be different worlds. What we perceive when we are high is our fantasy world, which serves as a substitute for genuine reality. It is inside this self created world that we seek refuge when we are alcoholics, because inside its confines we feel less pain, if any, than we would have in the real world.

    But once this chemically induced state fades away, the harsh realities of life return in condescend, because even if we escaped from them for a while, they remained fully alive, hovering menacingly all around us. Like festering wounds which remain untreated, we are amazed to discover, when sobriety forcefully asserts itself, that our situation is worse than it initially was because we shied away from solving our problems, which now pile upon us. Afraid to confront this reality, we flee back into our fantasy world again, only to reemerge into a worse condition later. Our situation progressively worsens, until we find ourselves stuck in a pendulum motion, which oscillates from being high, to day dreaming, to fantasizing, to depression, to self pity, and back. Eventually, as we drift further and further away from happiness, we move closer to suffering, until we may become totally consumed by it.

    It inevitably follows that, the further away we drift from reality, the more likely we are to lose our conception of it. At some point, it may represent a construct alien to us. Trapped inside a world of illusions, we mistake our insanity for sanity, and can not understand why others label us mad, abnormal, maladjusted, and psychopathological. Blinded by years of dreaming, we desperately defend our irrational conduct, for it is rational inside our fictitious world. It is partly because of this that most alcoholics tend to be in a perpetual state of denial. Trapped inside their fantasy world, they are unable to see what is crystal clear to everyone else!

    When alcoholics enter into treatment, they are forced to confront the painful reality from which they were shielded by years of heavy drinking. Not knowing how to deal with this pain, many of them quit treatment. Those who are fortunate enough to remain, struggle painfully through one crisis after another until they accept the truth and recover from their illness. It is while inside treatment that the alcoholic’s natural dread for pain becomes most evident. Burl Gilliland and Richard James provide a good illustration of the alcoholic’s flight from the pain of reality, and the ensuing crisis which unfolds when sobriety forcefully thrusts itself upon him:

    Clients who are addicted will have used drugs to shield themselves from all kinds of hurtful feelings, thoughts and behaviors. Once this shield is taken away, all the problems will tend to converge like an accordion, and clients will be assailed from all sides at once. The very reasons that the alcoholic drank in the first place will return in condensed, magnified, and more powerful ways. Each instance will present a crisis point for clients. As a result, the whole therapeutic inpatient treatment program may be seen as trans-crisis in nature. Successfully jumping one huddle generally means getting ready immediately for the next one and the next one after that… The cyclical battering alcoholics take between having no conscience and having an overpowering one is draining and leaves little psychic energy for anything but depression when they start sobering up… ¹⁶

    Perez J.F. in his book Counseling the Alcoholic, argues that alcoholics use fantasy to flee from life circumstances and emotions. They drink to avoid boredom on the job, anxiety in relationships, and frustration over career progress.¹⁷ They avoid painful life events by burying them in the unconscious. Without alcohol, life is too painful for them to bear, and this becomes very clear during the withdrawal phase of treatment. Parker observes that, because of this, the first ten days of treatment are the most difficult (Parker, 1986). An article in the October 2004 issue of the A.A Grapevine titled ‘Why Are We Drinking’ provided a graphic description of the alcoholic’s dramatic flight from reality:

    I developed an affinity for the cocktail lounge. I found a fantasy world where, in my intoxicated state of mind, I imagined all my ego driven ambitions coming true. The dim lights, the jukebox music, and that ever-present mirror behind the bar stimulated these dreams. I had found the spot over the rainbow where bluebirds fly. In the romance of the bar, I found my refuge from reality. The reality from which I was trying to escape had the habit of reappearing…. reality was becoming more and more painful as each year passed. My need to escape form this pain became more and more desperate. Yet, I did nothing to resolve the situation. My two old friends, alcohol and denial, were now family… ¹⁸

    The avoidance of reality has its genesis in a troubled childhood. Under any circumstances, the capacity for a child to endure the horrors of daily living in an abusive family setting has its limitations. Quite often, such children experience more pain than they can mentally or physically tolerate. When subjected to such levels of unbearable pain, they are forced to flee from it by seeking refuge in a fantasy world of their own creation.

    Due to a child’s cognitive and emotional incapacity to solve problems, most especially those of this magnitude, its mind creates this fantasy world as an alternative to problem solving. But when children are forced to seek refuge in a world of fantasy for any significant period of time, such avoidance of reality becomes second nature to them. Eventually, even as adults who are no longer living under a hostile environment, they may continue to flee from reality because they have become conditioned to do so.

    This phenomenon is what psychologists call transference. Because of transference, these adult children continue to flee from what they do not really know. They are afraid, but can not quite figure out why they have this all pervading fear. They are sad, and yet they consciously acknowledge that they have no real reason to be sad.

    An adult child is a child ‘trapped’ inside the body of an adult. These grown ups think, feel and behave like children. Because most alcoholics are adult children, their most common characteristic is that they are childish. Generally, they fume and fret over issues which only children would react to. As a consequence of transference, they remain inwardly driven by a powerful compulsion to flee from reality at all costs, because, as far as their unconscious mind is concerned, they are still living in the hostile environs of their troubled childhood.

    Transference is a set of ways of perceiving and responding to the world/ external reality, which one develops in childhood, and which is appropriate to that childhood environment, but which is later inappropriately transferred into the adult environment. In this sense, adult children and alcoholics flee from a reality which doesn’t exist. They run when they have no reason to run, and fear when they have no reason to fear, because they think the mirage of their traumatic past is actually their present moment. This misperception of reality makes them view reality as being hostile, unpredictable, life threatening and painful when it isn’t. Much of the suffering which alcoholics experience is caused, not by the pain of the reality, but their misperception of it:

    It is not an event itself but our belief about that event that causes us to feel and act in certain ways. By starting to think insane thoughts about what people or events should, ought, must do or be to make a perfect world, chemical dependants become victims of their irrational thoughts about events.¹⁹

    Therefore, it is not the circumstances under which we live which drive us to drink, but our perception of those circumstances. This has a lot to do with the fact that the reality in which we live is shaped by our perception. Using the Buddhist concept of dependant origination, the Dalai Lama explains:

    It is simply in dependence upon other factors that anything comes into being. Therefore there is nothing that has any independent or intrinsic identity of its own. Whatever identity we give things is contingent on the interaction between our perception and reality itself…. Things do exist, but they do not have an independent, autonomous reality…there is a disparity between the way things appear to you and the way they actually are. What appears as some kind of autonomous, objective reality out there does not really fit with the actual nature of reality. Once we appreciate that fundamental disparity between appearance and reality, we gain a certain insight into the way our emotions work, and how we react to events and objects…We also grow to understand that although certain types of mental or emotional states seem so real, and although objects appear to be so vivid, in reality they are mere illusions. They do not really exist in the way we think they do.¹⁵

    It has been demonstrated, over and over again, allover the world, by legions of people who have endured traumatic experiences, that it is not the conditions under which we live that make us maladaptive, but our perception of those events. In the onetime war ravaged region of northern Uganda, where the cruel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebels massacred civilians, chopped off people’s limbs, and forced others to devour human flesh, there were endless tales of those victims who miraculously clang onto their sanity, regardless of their traumatic experience, because of their unique perception of reality.

    One such survivor was Rt. Rev. Macleod Ochola, whose presence was first felt globally when he appeared on BBC TV, CNN and at a conference in the Diocese of South West Florida, urging the world to pardon the LRA rebels, and to intervene in the humanitarian crisis in northern Uganda. His difficult times began in 1987, when his daughter was brutally raped by a gang of LRA rebels, while he was away from the country with his wife. Before the he could return to Uganda to comfort his daughter, she committed suicide. In the aftermath of her ordeal, she lost faith in life, because as far as she was concerned, the pain of reality had become too much for her to bear. Rather than confront this reality, she sought permanent refuge in total oblivion through suicide.

    Fortunately, Bishop Ochola and his wife were able to cope with this tragedy, but as fate would have it, he was devastated again ten years later, when a landmine planted by the LRA rebels blew up his wife to pieces just six miles from their home in Gulu town. In spite of this tragedy, he did not give up on life, nor did he crumble mentally. Instead, he chose to become a member of the regional peace delegation, which urged the world to forgive the LRA rebels for their atrocities, and to bring an end to the twenty year old civil war. At some point, while on a peace mission, he even met face to face with Joseph Kony- the overall military commander of the LRA- together with his senior commanders, and he received them with love!

    Else where, in the dim corridors of history, similar tales of impressive endurance lie in abundance. Austria was gripped with shock when, in the late 1990’s, a pedophile kidnapped a ten-year-old girl called Kampusch. For eight years, all efforts by the police to rescue her were futile, until in 2007 when she escaped to her freedom. By then, she had spent several years in captivity in an underground cell, during which she had thought only of escape. I couldn’t confide in anyone because he always threatened he would do something to that person if I said something, that he would kill them … I couldn’t risk that, she confessed to journalists after her escape.

    In a well composed manner, Kampusch told the media how she once attempted to leap from the pedophile’s car, but Priklopil held me back and then sped away. She felt it was much too risky to try to get away because she feared Priklopil would kill her if she failed. Shortly after Kampusch won her own freedom, she made headline news allover the world. Appearing mentally and physically healthy after her eight and a half year ordeal, she spoke very confidently on TV. At no time during her ordeal, or thereafter, had she despaired over life, or contemplated suicide. With remarkable bravery, she demonstrated an impressive determination to push on with life even in her darkest moments! She courageously chose to face her life problems, rather than flee from them through fantasy, suicide, alcoholism, or mental illness. Gaping in awe, the world raked its brains trying to figure out how such a young girl could have survived her traumatic experiences wholly unscathed. By keeping her mind in one piece, she had virtually defied the laws of modern psychiatry.

    Rational beings from all walks of life were stunned to learn that, after so many years of intense suffering, she had the courage and compassion to use her publicity to fight for the rights of abused children! Traumatic experiences, noted one viewer, often bring out the best or worst in people. I think that she has come out the stronger. Another amazed viewer observed that many were shocked by her self-control, degree of education, and sheer presence, faced with a million-wide audience after eight years in total isolation. A sober European journalist of sound repute reported that, many Austrians felt ashamed because this girl’s manners, education and charisma surpassed what millions of them had achieved after a normal life with friends and family, school and formal education. She is a bit like a saint coming out of a dark cave after nearly a decade he said, an experience that probably would destroy most people’s souls.

    Many years earlier, a story had appeared in the Vancouver Sun about another young girl in the United States who demonstrated similar bravery:

    As a child of 12, Abby Drover was astoundingly brave. She was kidnapped from her Port Moody home 25 years ago, a victim of pedophile Donald Hay. She survived and stayed sane for 181 days while imprisoned-often starved, raped and otherwise abused-in a dirty, stinking, hole-in-the-ground cell under the Hay garage. Once she was miraculously freed, she didn’t even receive any official help to deal with the aftermath of the trauma. But her courage is intact. After 25 years of finding her own way to live with her past, Ms. Drover aired those memories in public for the first time last week. She spoke out specifically against a parole application that could have let her attacker back on the street, and in a broader way for the too many children who are victims today and can’t speak for themselves, like 10-year-old murder victim Heather Thomas. Only a victim of so vile a crime can fully communicate the horror of a pedophile’s act. We salute Ms. Drover for speaking out.

    In the midst of the bloody dregs of the 1994 Rwanda genocide, were some dark clouds with silver linings. One such silver lining was Henriette, a young Rwandan woman who was one of the few eyewitnesses that survived the gruesome events of this barbaric relapse of history, though not wholly unscathed. Her family was Tutsi, the minority ethnic group targeted for elimination by the blood thirsty, machete wielding Hutu militia. Raving and deranged, they stampeded through her home and butchered 16 of her family members as she watched in horror!

    Before the blood on their double edged machetes could dry, they turned onto her with an unquenchable wrath, and raped her repeatedly until they were too blind with exhaustion to kill her. While they rested in momentary satisfaction, she pieced together some courage and escaped. As fate would have it, in the months that followed, she became pregnant as a direct result of her rape. Many other women who endured a similar fate found much solace in infanticide or suicide, but in a move that bewildered the world, Henriette chose to look after her child. Filled with love to the brim, in a country submerged in hate, she went ahead to adopt three Hutu orphan children of the genocide!

    In the aftermath of the genocide, when some rays of sanity descended upon this bloody scene, she got a job as a tour guide in Rwanda’s largest memorial to the brutal genocide. Whenever she guided curious tourists around the memorial, she bravely shared with them about her traumatic experiences! They gaped in disbelief, for hardly anyone amongst them had witnessed such bravery in their civilized lifetime. It was evident that, like many other survivors of the genocide, she had practically been through hell. But what stunned many well fed tourists was that, even after such a horrific experience, she was happy and sane.

    She quickly became famous for her courage allover the world, to the extent that Oprah Winfrey put her on her talk show. I’m not like I was before, she said on Oprah show. Seven years ago, I had no hope. No joy. But on this day, I’m very happy. I feel I’m okay. I’m like other people. Henrietta’s dream had always been to go to college, and impressed by her courage, compassion, and endurance, Oprah’s Angel Network offered to send her there!

    Because of their attitude towards their life experiences, these people created their own happiness. A Jewish survivor of one of Hitler’s concentration camps once observed that:

    We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken away from a man but one thing: the last of his freedoms- to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.

    All these survivors were subjected to much more suffering than many of us have had to endure in a lifetime, and yet unlike most of us, they chose not to succumb to self destruction. Their adorable experiences give credence to the argument that happiness, or sadness, is determined by individual perceptions, and not by the circumstances under which individuals live. Because of her perception of life, Bishop Ochola’s daughter committed suicide, where children who had endured much more pain and suffering, chose to embrace life with a smile.

    In 1998 when I was heading an alcohol treatment program for Sudanese refugees in the war ravaged region of northern Uganda, I saw many people who had succumbed to alcoholism, suicide, and mental illness because of the harsh conditions under which they were living. But in this miserable setting, many others living under the same conditions found happiness. Refusing to succumb to self destruction, they forged ahead and enrolled into school, farmed their land, established businesses, and even entertained themselves with regular traditional dances, drama, and music. In this hunger stricken rural setting, it was heaven or hell, depending on the individual’s lenses. At that time, it was reported by some researchers that at least 40 people committed suicide everyday in this little corner of the world, and yet wherever there was a funeral of some kind, there too was a celebration of another kind. Here, where misery seemed to prevail, the same traumatic events, inflicted upon the same emaciated people, triggered contrasting responses. The same could be said about almost any other place on this globe.

    Helen Keller once observed that, When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. This was echoed by Democritus when he said, Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. It is not what happens or does not happen to me, what I have or do not have, who I am with or not with, where I live or do not live, what I eat or do not eat, what I wear or do not wear, which determines whether I am happy or sad. Ultimately, it is my perception of life events and reality, which makes me happy or sad, depressed or joyful, suicidal or serene, alcoholic or sober.

    Because reality is shaped by perception, it is not fixed, nor is it the same for everyone living under the same conditions. It is multi dimensional and multi faceted. Curved by the chisels of the individual’s mind, it assumes the contours he gives it. Curl Jung once said, It all depends on how we look at things, and not how they are in themselves. According to the Phenomenologist, reality is more of a microcosm than a macrocosm, because it lies within the realms of the individual’s mind, and it is subject to his interpretation of it. According to this argument, the world is not as it is, but as I think it is. I see not what there is to see, but what I have been conditioned by childhood experiences to see. As a consequence, the same reality in which we are all immersed ignites contrasting emotional responses from different people. The Dalai Lama writes:

    So, strong emotional responses in fact assume the existence of some form of objective reality. However, if you realize that there is no intrinsic reality to things and events then, of course, this will automatically help you to understand that no matter how real and strong emotions may seem, they have no valid basis. Once you know that they are actually based on a fundamental misconception of reality, then emotions themselves become untenable…. You will notice how much we tend to project qualities onto the world. More especially, you will realize that most of our strong emotions arise from assuming the reality of something that is unreal. In this way you may be able to gain an experiential sense of the disparity between the way you perceive things and the way things really are….¹⁵

    Above everything else, if the alcoholic is to arrest his involuntary flight from reality, he must experience a fundamental psychic transformation- to shatter his old lenses and wear new ones- and in so doing, acquire a new life perception. When such a revolution in perception occurs, his compulsive drive to flee from reality starves from its roots, withers, and dies. He ceases to crave for a drink, and feels propelled into the fourth dimension of existence as a new reality comes into being. Some ascribe the name ‘eureka’, or ‘Aha experience’, to this phenomenon. Those who are religiously inclined ascribe to it the label ‘born again’ or ‘miraculous healing’. In Alcoholics Anonymous, Dr William D. Silkworth referred to this revolutionary outlook upon life as an ‘essential psychic change’. Other professionals in the addiction field aptly call it a ‘moral psychic transformation’.

    This essential psychic change usually marks the beginning of a long journey towards freedom from transference. It is a long process which requires us to consciously reconstruct our own reality bit by bit, until we can acknowledge that reality is not painful, inconsistent, unpredictable or hostile. It begins when we acquire the capacity to envision the cessation of suffering as an alternative to our self destructive lifestyle. This motivates us to pursue the right path towards happiness, as we become conscious of the fact that alcoholism intensifies, rather than mitigates our suffering. Once we have perceived an alternative to our suffering, we can then distinguish between being high and being happy, for the two mental states are mutually exclusive.

    According to Buddhism, happiness is not just a feeling, but the actual cessation of suffering, and therefore a state of mind. The cessation of suffering is the highest form of happiness, because it brings about complete freedom from suffering. It can be achieved through the application of the tools of discipline. When we are totally undisciplined, we are in a state of absolute suffering. When we have some discipline, we experience some freedom from suffering. When we are totally disciplined, we experience the total cessation of suffering.

    Dedication to reality is one of the tools of discipline, with which we can set foot on the right path towards happiness. When we are dedicated to reality, we get in touch with our current state of suffering and the factors which cause it. We consciously acknowledge the fact that the root cause of our suffering is our alcoholism. When this happens, we feel tired of being sick, and sick of being tired. Revolted by such misery, we begin to visualize a life without alcohol, and realize that sobriety is a good alternative to our alcoholic life style. By visualizing an alternative to our self destructive ways, we free ourselves from the bondage of alcoholism, and the cessation of our suffering becomes proximate. Helen Keller phrased this nicely when she said, Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it. With a high dose of optimism, Matthew Fox also said, Suffering is a journey which has an end. The Dalai Lama made some impressive observations:

    Buddha laid so much emphasis on developing insight into the nature of suffering because there is an alternative- there is a way out, it is actually possible to free oneself from it. This is why it is so crucial to realize the nature of suffering, because the stronger and deeper your insight into suffering is, the stronger your aspiration to gain your freedom from it is.¹⁵

    To re construct our reality, we have to be creative, reject the familiar, abandon the conventional, and cast aside old ideas in favor of new ones. This often proves to be an uphill task for the average alcoholic because the human brain was designed to do just the opposite. It was designed to maintain the status quo- at all costs. It struggles desperately to keep us chained to the bottle, regardless of how much suffering this causes us.

    As far as it is concerned, we must drink to become happy. Like the unconscious mind, it only has recorded memories of the pleasure we once derived from taking just a few drinks, because this was the first association it made with alcohol. Designed to reject new ideas, it fails to associate alcohol with our suffering when we become alcoholics.

    Instead, it compels us to continue drinking, by convincing us that alcohol brings pleasure and happiness. This has a lot to do with the fact that, once a message is recorded on the human brain, it can not be deleted or altered. Despite the consequences of our drinking therefore, we continue to see the world in ways we had in the past, when our drinking hadn’t yet caused us much trouble.

    Even after many years of sobriety, we may revert to drinking because of this. Inside our brain, old ideas are rarely cast aside in favor of new ones. Instead, old ideas that are well established, establish themselves even further, and new ideas, or alternative pathways, are naturally suppressed. Piers Dungeon, in his analysis of the works of Norwegian born American Nobel physicist, Ivan Giaever, explains:

    Threshold effects of familiarity, association, emotional bias and so on enable patterns to form, and succeeding states become inevitable. These patterns have large catchment areas that funnel incoming data so that we tend to see the world in ways we have in the past. This is useful, making for stability and continuity. Without it, life would indeed be impossible. It is how, unless otherwise provoked, the brain works…. The downside is that the brain tends to see only what it is prepared to see. This is the crucial, self-maximizing feature of the brain. It is an environment in which dominant paths or patterns form, where established ideas tend to establish themselves further, where alternative pathways are naturally suppressed. As a result the brain is fundamentally uncreative…²⁰

    Ivan Giaever argues that the brain is resistant to change because it is basically uncreative, The excellence of the human brain is that it is designed to form patterns from the world around us and then stick to these patterns. That is how perception works…. The purpose of the brain is not to be creative. When we are alcoholics, our brain’s natural resistance to change tends to blind us to the truth, because it rejects any alterations to our current misperception of reality.

    This way, it keeps us imprisoned in a permanent state of suffering. To begin with, by forming patterns from the world around us and sticking to them, it succeeds in creating a false perception of reality, to which it then sticks like a leech. Its architectural skills are heavily dependant on guess work. The brain captures a fraction of reality, and proceeds to fill in the gaps with its own preexisting prejudices! As a result, every human being, including the teetotaler in his Sunday best, is predisposed to a misperception of reality.

    This may explain why, since time immemorial, happiness has always been a much desired commodity that is in short supply. Shielded from genuine reality, the human race has always been in a perpetual state of suffering. Taking this into consideration, it is no surprise that the human race as a whole has an overwhelming need to flee from reality through fantasy (day dreaming, fiction, music, drugs, alcohol, and drama), mental illness, suicide, and self destruction. Dungeon uses his analysis of the findings of biologist Richard Dawkins, the first Charles Ismonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University, to provide a good illustration:

    Dawkins shows that our senses provide us with an incomplete view of external reality, and that the brain, being equipped with ‘a store cupboard of basic images’, literally constructs a kind of virtual reality, which is constantly updated. Whenever we see something, the brain is making use of a model of that thing which it carries. There is a constructed model already in the brain, a model ‘constrained by’ information fed in by the outside world…. Our senses give us a short hand picture of what they feel is going on out there, what’s ‘news’, and our brains construct a picture that keeps things on a perceptual even keel, what has satisfied us in the past.²⁰

    Dawkins himself observed that, We are used to living in our simulated world and it’s kept so beautifully in synchrony with the real that we do not realize it is a simulated world. Edward De bono argued that, by virtue of this, our simulated world becomes our reality, Perceptions are real, he said even when they do not reflect reality. The Greek Sophist Protagoras also made a similar observation when he stated that, What seems to me is to me, what seems to you is to you. Concurring with this observation, Dudgeon said, In the system Universe of perception we cannot afford to judge reality, truth, and so on, only how it is, or was, for you.

    The extent to which we are alienated from reality was well illustrated by Werner Heisenberg:

    The existing scientific concepts cover always only a very limited part of reality, and the other part that has not yet been understood is infinite. Whenever we proceed from the known into the unknown we may hope to understand, but we may have to learn at the same time a new meaning of the word `understanding’.²¹

    Ronald C. Pine, in his book Science and the Human Prospect, revealed the extent to which the human race is enslaved to its misperception reality: What is real does seem to depend on us, and our method of questioning nature. Because of this, our methods of questioning nature have blinded us as to what reality really is.²² Jesus Christ, in sharing a similar view, often provided thought provoking, poetic illustrations.

    He repeatedly emphasized the fact that, we listen and listen again, but do not understand; we see and see again, but do not perceive. Our ears are dull of hearing, and we have shut our eyes, for fear that we should see with our eyes, hear with our ears, and understand with our heart, and be healed (Matthew 21:14).

    In sharing a similar view, Alan Watts said, Normally, we do not so much look at things as overlook them. Christian teachings explain that freedom from slavery of any kind-including alcoholism-can only be attained when we transcend our misperception of reality, and embrace the truth by becoming dedicated to reality as it truly is. When this happens, our fetters fall and our desire to drink becomes extinct (John 129:32).

    Physicists have for long observed that much of the human race lacks a clear/ accurate perception of reality. According to Physicist E. P. Wigner, consciousness is not a secondary reality, and it has a much greater significance in quantum theory. We confront the world with the selective filters of our thoughts about the world, and nature then conforms to these thoughts to some extent. Quantum physicists argue that, in the quantum realm, we cannot pin down a consistent reality, and nature teaches us in the process not to take our thoughts about reality too seriously on the one hand, and to take them very seriously on the other hand.

    Influenced by such arguments, the famous American physicist John Wheeniler once recommended that we must abandon the basic tenet of traditional realism. Many adherents of this view actually go further to claim that all vestiges of traditional realism must be abandoned. According to them, there is no such thing as a clocklike world sitting out there in space for our observational benefit alone. We do not observe the ‘real world’, but instead, we participate with reality by creating a reality for ourselves.

    More importantly, they say, we do not create reality, what we actually do is that we select a concrete reality from out of an intermingled dance of intangible possibilities- in the many world’s interpretations, all the possibilities are concrete. Quantum physicists believe that epistemologically, what we consider as our knowledge of the world is actually only a projection or creation of thoughts. Because reality is ambiguous, it requires thoughts for distinctions to become manifest. Our filters produce the manifestations we see, and this produces something so inadequate/ incomplete to point to another kind of reality, an ambiguous reality. This was well phrased by Abraham Maslow when he said, To the man who only has a hammer, everything he encounters begins to look like a nail.

    These arguments give credence to our earlier observation that the alcoholic is in perpetual flight from a reality of his own creation! In looking at the works of Edward De Bono, Piers revealed that Edward discovered that an individual’s set of perceptual biases, trigger dominant patterns in the brain and determine action. This is what Edward referred to as an individual’s logic bubble. Our logic bubbles embody the perceptual biases which impel us to action, he writes within them we act completely logically, though we may fail to act advisedly. This tendency to act in a particular direction is what Edward referred to as a logic bubble’s polarity of action. It is what Karen Giordino was referring to when he said, I am ill because my mind is in a rut and refuses to leave.

    It is only when we understand this, that the alcoholic’s baffling malady can begin to makes sense to us, primarily because he is a victim of his own logic bubble’s polarity of action, which makes his insane actions appear sane to him. This way, he continues to justify his drinking, even when he is chained to a hard bed in a psychiatric ward. Even at his worst, convulsing like a thousand leaves in a whirl wind, and foaming profusely at the mouth, the alcoholic skid row bum will desperately defend his sanity, and demand for a drink, because his logic bubble embodies the perceptual biases which impel him into such action. Within them he acts completely logically, though he fails to act sanely. In fact, even on his death bed, he is often convinced, by his logic bubble’s polarity of action, that he is a social drinker persecuted by the people in his life.

    This is what makes recovery from alcoholism extremely difficult, because the alcoholic is required to step outside the confines of his logic bubble, and into the realms of an unfamiliar world which represents the truth. How would you feel today if you were told that everything you once believed in doesn’t exist? Wouldn’t the frames of your mental structure collapse? Wouldn’t you feel as if the sky had fallen on your head if you suddenly discovered that everything you think exists, actually doesn’t exist- that there is no God, that the people in your life are mere hallucinations, that the living are dead and the dead are living?

    If you have spent the whole of your life building a world view, value system, and belief system, only to be told that the whole thing is wrong, how are you supposed to even think at all? How could you even have anything to think about when all your thoughts are considered to be misguided, irrational, and incoherent? And yet this is pretty much what the alcoholic in treatment experiences. If he is to permanently sever his relationship with the bottle, his whole world view, value and belief systems, have to under go a major overhaul.

    Such a complete turn around is what some people refer to as a conversion, a moral psychic transformation, or a revolutionary outlook upon life. These describe the state of mind which the recovered alcoholic must have, if he is to stay sober up permanently. This experience may come suddenly to some alcoholics (as it is in the case of a sudden spiritual awakening), but for the majority, it comes gradually (change is effected by acquiring one new idea at a time, flashing out one old idea at a time, tackling tasks one day at a time or one thing at a time, until there is a complete transformation).

    As you would expect, it is extremely painful to have to surrender your whole world view, in exchange for an unfamiliar one. The majority of alcoholics do not have the courage to endure this pain, and they opt to drink themselves to death. This situation is further aggravated by the fact that our brains are designed to resist behavioral change. Because our brain make up can never be changed, we are always faced with an over powering drive to remain the same, or to revert to our previous state of self destruction after we have attained some period of sobriety.

    When we make commitments to stay dry, these are made at the conscious level of our minds, but they do not alter the manner in which the brain operates, leaving it firm and unwavering in its desperate attempt to keep us drinking. This battle between the brain, the conscious and unconscious mind, often lasts a lifetime, and can only be overcome through thought discipline.

    An alcoholic requires a lot of self discipline in order to train his conscious mind to resist the inner urges of the brain and a self destructive unconscious mind, which strive endlessly to keep him drinking. This means that his recovery is a never ending process which requires the constant exertion of effort towards thought discipline. The Dalai Lama observes that, Our negative emotions are so powerful that constant effort is needed in order to counteract them. If we practice constantly, then we can definitely change.

    Most alcoholics do not respond to treatment, not because they do not want to change, but because they lack sufficient discipline to effect the necessary changes in their life. Due to this deficiency, many of them tend to rely on their feelings, rather than intellect, when making important decisions. But because their feelings are greatly influenced by the unconscious mind and the brain, their emotion based decisions drive them closer to the bottle, instead of further away from it. In order to attain long term sobriety, the alcoholic’s logical thinking has to take priority over his feelings.

    If this does not happen, he will be compelled to take a drink whenever he feels like taking a drink, which might be most of the time. If he relies on logic to make his decisions on the other hand, he will be compelled to think deeply about the consequences of his actions before taking a drink, and in this case, he will most likely choose to remain sober.

    No alcoholic can stay sober for long without consequential thinking. The alcoholic has to learn to question all his feelings before he acts on them, if he is to live a sane and sober life. If he feels like quitting a job, picking up a drink, getting a divorce, buying a new house, going back to school, engaging in a fist fight, running for the presidency, committing a crime, or doing anything that is likely to have a significant impact on his life, he has to pocket his feelings first, long enough to reflect upon them rationally and logically, before he acts on them. ‘Think before you act’ or ‘think before you drink’, is the modus operendi

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