Paul Garrigan's Blog, page 36

Beliefs are my Prison

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My beliefs act like filters on my world. They not only limit what I see, but they also distort all incoming data to fit in with my biases and prejudices. The scary thing is that I’ve no idea where some of my beliefs come from, and an uncomfortable number of them are just plain nasty. I don’t even realize that many of these beliefs exist until they are triggered by some external event – I can hear a news story and suddenly my thinking is filled with all these judgements and condemnations. These hidden beliefs (I call them stories) are all too often completely irrational, and they hide in the shadows of my mind because they could not survive out in the open. If I’m not careful, these stories can influence my thinking and behavior in very negative ways.

Living Inside My Head

People who know me will sometimes complain that I spend too much time ‘caught up inside my own head’. The reality is though, that this is true of all of us because our world can only ever exist inside of our head. Our senses picks up data from what we believe is an external reality, but the whole show takes place internally – it is our mind trying to make sense of something that is completely beyond our comprehension. If we are to believe the scientists, that thing that we call ‘out there’ is nothing like how we experience it. There is no solid stuff and everything is in a constant state of flux – the blue sky and green grass only ever exist inside of us.

Even if I assume that there is some type of objective external world, that influences the show going on in my head, I still can’t claim that my mind’s interpretation is an accurate representation of what exists. There is just too much information for me to be aware of everything in my environment, and so the data needs to be filtered. My beliefs can play a huge role in this filtering process, and it really can mean that ‘I see what I want to see’, and that other people see what they want to see too. This is a worry because my filters will always favor incoming information that confirms my prejudices and biases. The filters can also work to completely ignore information that is a threat to my beliefs. It is this process that means that my beliefs are my prison. This is not something that is happening consciously, and that is what makes it really frightening. I could start to believe any old shit and my mind would helpfully try to provide all the evidence I need to protect and nurture this new belief.

How are Things in Your Prison?

I can easily lose patience with people who believe in things that do not fit in with my worldview. I want them to wake up to reality. I want these silly people to feel remorse for believing in stupid things. I forget that these guys are just like me – their beliefs are also holding them prisoner too. It is unlikely that they will wake up to reality because their beliefs are their reality. They are just as convinced about the shit inside their head as I am by the shit inside my head. Even if the data becomes so overwhelming that we have to change our beliefs, we will still be able to justify it all so that we don’t feel remorse about our crazy ideas. This is why I can always feel bad about falling into heated debates with people online. I can act as if these guys are being willfully ignorant, but they are going to feel the exact same about me. It is a no win situation, and this is why these debates are usually pointless. We all believe that we are in the right, and we are all probably wrong.

Less of a Prisoner of Beliefs

I’m convinced that the key to mental well-being is to not allow my beliefs to dictate my life. I need to be a consumer of beliefs rather than a slave to them. It seems impossible to function in the world without beliefs, but I want to treat them more like tools than mental handcuffs. I need to keep on reminding myself that these beliefs are just stories – they are not truth and they are not me.

Write Your Way Out of Recovery – The Bruce Lee Method

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Last week I posted on here about how people can become sober by writing their own recovery book. I’m convinced that this approach will work in at least some cases, and I want to expand a bit more on how this might be possible. As I mentioned in the last post, I never intended for writing to become such an important part of my own recovery, and so I used it in a very haphazard way. It is my aim with these posts to describe what I’ve learned from this work, so that other people might be able to use this recovery tool in a more deliberate fashion. I’m still trying to get my thinking straight on how this path to sober living can be most effective, so I plan to add further posts on this topic in the future.

You Do Not Need to Love Writing to Write Yourself Sober

I know that there will be plenty of people who look upon writing tasks as a hassle and possibly even a complete waste of time. I can understand this sentiment. I’ve always loved writing, but it would piss me right off when addiction therapists would hand me a worksheet with instructions like ‘describe the last time you felt angry with someone and how you reacted to this emotion’. This always felt like busy-work to me, and I resented being asked to do it.

It wasn’t so much that I thought the questions on these rehab worksheets were irrelevant – it was more because it felt like we were just going through the motions because this is the type of stuff you do in rehab. Sometimes there would be a bit of discussion about what we had written, but most of the time these pieces of paper would disappear never to be seen again. On those days when I felt particularly cynical, I’d just write down any old rubbish that came into my head just to get the busy-work out of the way. It never seemed to make much difference what I’d write down. This is not the type of writing that I’m suggesting people bother themselves with, in order to write their way out of addiction.

The writing that people need to do in order to break away from addiction does not involve any busy-work – no writing for the sake of writing. We only write down those things that are going to help us because we are writing to save our life. The aim is to create our own program for recovery from the ground up, and there will be no room for any words that are not going to benefit our life in recovery.

Writing and Owning Recovery

I’m not suggesting here that you follow my method of addiction recovery – there is no ‘my method’. By creating your own recovery book, you will be creating your own unique path. There really is no need to fit into another person’s program unless that is what you want. This idea of having to fit in with other people’s recovery program is something that I’ve really struggled with in the past – it got in the way. I’d find an approach that seemed to offer some of the things I needed, but I’d then feel obligated to swallow the whole program – hook, line, and sinker.

I always felt a bit uncomfortable about following the ideas of other people too closely because it required putting too much faith in them. It meant that when I came upon some of their ideas that were less helpful for me, I would lose faith and use this as an excuse to abandon their program. This does not need to happen when we write our own recovery book because it belongs to us, and we only need to include those things that we know work for us. We also don’t have to worry about upsetting other people when we decide that some aspects of our program are not working and we need to remove the deadwood.

Getting Started on Your Own Recovery Book

Getting going with a project like this one can seem a bit overwhelming in the beginning. There are no rules, but I’d suggest that you start with this question – how am I going to become sober? This can form the basis of everything that is going to come later. You write down your best ideas for how to do this in the clearest possible way, and you then begin using this information to end your addiction. You eliminate anything from you book that is not working, and you use your success to tell you what stays in the book. I’d also suggest that you clearly state your reasons for wanting to become sober (not the reasons for why you should become sober).

The Bruce Lee Method of Recovery

As far as I know, Bruce Lee never became addicted to alcohol or drugs, but he does provide a perfect example for people who are trying to break away from this type of life. Bruce is remembered as a Kung Fu expert, but he’d more or less abandoned that traditional martial art before becoming famous. He wanted to be the most skilled martial artist possible, but he felt unable to do this so long as he remained limited to just one fighting style. He felt driven to create his own fighting art, Jeet Kwon Do, and he did this by taking the best bits from lots of different approaches to combat. Bruce Lee created a style that worked for him, and this is an example that people can follow in order to break free of addiction.

Please Help Me with Comments and Questions

I’m sure that this approach to recovery can work for people, but I worry that I’m not yet explaining things here clearly enough. My thinking benefits immensely from the comments and questions you guys leave on here, so please feel free to add these below.

Should Society Give a Damn about Addicts?

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This video is a follow up on the post I made yesterday discussing the comments made by James Randi where he suggests that addicts should be just allowed to die. I discuss some of the reasons for why I believe that society should give a damn about addicts. You will find the podcast edition of this episode just below the video.

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James Randi Says Addicts Should Be Just Allowed to Die

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James Randi was once a famous magician, but these days he is better known as a defender of science. He is a hero of the skeptical community, and his James Randi Educational Foundations (JREF) is a popular movement that seeks to eradicate unscientific thinking. James Randi is also a believer in social Darwinism, and he claims that addicts should be just allowed to die:

I believe that if the sale and use of drugs were to be suddenly legalized, first, the entire criminal community would be almost instantly crippled due to lack of income, on an international scale. Second, those individuals who were stupid enough to rush into the arms of the mythical houris and/or Adonis’s they would expect to greet them, would simply do so and die – by whatever chemical or biological fate would overcome them. Third, the principle of Survival of the Fittest would draconically prove itself for a couple of years, after which Natural Selection would weed out those for whom there is no hope except through our forbearance, and I’m very, very, weary of supporting these losers with my tax dollars. As reader Wellcome points out, our species – the American sector – made the very expensive and very failed Prohibition experiment, yet we have survived cancelling that error, rather well.

Source

This view expressed by Randi is also known as eugenics – the belief that the human race will benefit by cleaning up the gene pool. In a new book called,The Heretics by Will Storr, James Randi told the author:

I’m a believer in Social Darwinism. Not in every case. I would do anything to stop a twelve-year-old kid from doing it. Sincerely. But in general, I think that Darwinism, survival of the fittest, should be allowed to act itself out. As long as it doesn’t interfere with me and other sensible, rational people who could be affected by it. Innocent people, in other words.

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Should Addicts be Allowed to Die?

If James Randi was just some other guy, I would just find his comments to be sad and forget about them. The fact is though, that he is not just some other guy. Randi is an important figure in the skeptical and new atheist movement – a community that is growing all the time. There has been no real outcry from other skeptics over Randi’s claims, and this is not something new that he is saying here – he has made similar statements in the past. It worries me that his promotion of social Darwinism is going to influence many of his supporters to adopt the same views. The fact that there is so little fuss about his comments makes me think that many of his followers must already feel the same way.

Before the twentieth century, the general consensus was that drunks were just bad people who got what they deserved. Over the last hundred years, there has been a growing understanding that addiction has many causes, and it is not simply that people are being willfully stupid or evil. The focus has gone from condemning people who fall into addiction to helping them. As a result of this, there have probably been millions of people who have been helped to give up alcohol or drugs so that they could go on and live productive lives. If James Randi has his way there will be no more “supporting these losers with my tax dollars”.

James Randi Would Have Me Dead

I struggled with alcohol addiction for twenty years. I lost so much and endured a great deal of suffering. The worst thing for me was that, for a long time, it felt like I was getting what I deserved. It took other people to convince me that I didn’t deserve any of it, and that there could be a better way for me to live. There was help there when I needed it, and this allowed me to break free. I’ve enjoyed such a wonderful life since becoming sober, and I want other people to get the same chance. This will not happen if folks like James Randi get their way. He is part of a community that prides itself on being ‘critical thinkers’, so hopefully there will be some of his flock that will call him out for this unscientific bullshit.

Chasing Spiritual Experiences Can Be a Waste of Time

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I no longer believe that chasing after spiritual experiences is a good use of my time. I’ve come to this conclusion because many of my encounters with this kind of event occurred when I wasn’t doing anything in particular to bring them on. In fact, the most profound event of all occurred at a time in my life when I would have considered myself to be an atheist; a time when I’d lost interest in things like meditation. It seems that chasing after spiritual experiences might be like running around on a nice day in the hope of being hit by lightning.

I do feel confident that practices like meditation have real benefits, but I’m no longer sure that chasing after mind altering experiences is a good reason to meditate. There are also plenty of examples of people who meditate regularly but claim never to have any type of mystical experience. There are other examples of people who are apparently doing all the wrong things, yet they somehow fall into a life changing encounter with the universe. A good example of this would be an addict who experiences a sudden and intense shift in their consciousness that allows them to see the world in a completely different way – this experience is so intense that they are able to break free of addiction.

What I Mean By Spiritual Experience

Here I am banging on about spiritual experience, yet I haven’t even bothered to explain what I mean by this term. I would define a spiritual experience as an altered state of consciousness that often turns out to be life changing. It is common for people who have this experience to feel a sense of complete oneness with the universe, or to be convinced that they have been contacted by God or some other supernatural entity.

I’ve had a number of spiritual experiences over the years, but the one that was most intense occurred when I was in my mid-twenties. I was sitting on top of a double-decker bus in London, minding my own business, when everything around me suddenly developed this yellow tint. I then felt my consciousness expand as if were a balloon that was being rapidly pumped with air. I immediately felt at one with everything in the universe, and I knew that everything was perfect – it was like every cell in my body was vibrating with joy. I’m not sure exactly how long this event lasted, no more than a few minutes, but I experienced a sense of bliss for days afterwards, and it still impacts my life today.

I spent years trying to recapture that wonderful experience of pure oneness with the universe, but I’ve never managed to recreate it fully. It felt like I came close to it a few times during intense meditation practice, but these altered states of consciousness just weren’t the same – although they were extremely blissful. I also had an intense spiritual experience at Thamkrabok temple that allowed me to break away from my alcohol addiction, but the change in consciousness then was less dramatic than the time on the London bus.

Chasing after Spiritual Experiences can be Life Denying

These spiritual experiences have been a wonderful gift, but there is danger if I become obsessed with them like I have done in the past. It is a trap to believe that there is something out there that is better than what I have now – it leaves me feeling dissatisfied when there is absolutely no reason to feel this way. It was the seeking of pleasant states of consciousness that led me into the life of a drunk, and this urge to experience states of bliss can be another form of escapism.

Normal everyday life is more than enough. It sort of feels ungrateful to have this wonderful experience of being alive, yet go looking for something better. For all I know, this is the best that I’m ever going to have, but I’ll miss out on what I have by chasing after something different. It is so obvious to me that it is appreciation of the mundane where the real joy of life is to be found. It is just so unnecessary to seek something better because life is already wonderful the way it is. If the universe decides to send another extraordinary experience my way that’s great, but I really don’t need it. I’ve got everything I want in everyday life, and I want to enjoy what is here right now.

Moving from Minburi to Rayong

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In just over two weeks time I will be moving with my family to Rayong. I’m so looking forward to living beside the beach, but it will be sad to leave our home here in Minburi. This move to the coast was all my idea, and my wife initially felt reluctant – although she feels far more positive about our relocation now that we have found what appears to be a reasonable school for my son. I do have selfish motives for wanting to move to Rayong, but the reality is that there is no reason for us to remain in Minburi, and Timmy was going to be changing school anyway.

After 10 Years My Wife Has Finally Agreed to Live Beside the Sea

I grew up beside the sea (hard not to when you live in Ireland), so I sort of feel that this is my natural habitat. Thailand has some of the finest beaches in the world, but I’ve always resided well away from the sea since moving here in 2001. I did suggest to my wife years ago that we move to the coast, but she wasn’t the least bit interested in this idea. We ended up living in her village for five years, and the nearest beach from there was 560km (350 miles) away. Since my son was born five years ago though, we have moved two times, and each move has brought us closer to the coast.

When Oa is in a cynical mood (which thankfully isn’t too often), she does suspect that I’ve been deliberately orchestrating this move to the beach for years. This is not true, but I have to admit that it does kind of look that way. It as if I’ve been using our changes in location in the same way as Everest climbers use base camps. Our first base camp was Lopburi which cut our distance from the coast in half to 251km. The next base camp was here in Minburi which is just 89km from the coast. It is like I’ve been waiting for Oa to acclimatise to each new move before making the next push towards the beach. Now after three years living in Minburi, we are finally ready to move to the summit. The truth is that I’ve not been intentionally planning this move to the beach at all – I’m not that clever – it just worked out that way.

Moving to Rayong

I’ve been to Rayong many times, and there is nowhere else in Thailand that I’d rather set up home. We are going to be living in the Ban Phe area which is a nice location because there are so many superb beaches nearby. We will also be half an hour by boat away from my favorite Thai island – Koh Samet. It will be so nice to be able to walk along the beach in the evening, and I think that it will be a great place for Timmy to grow up.

We plan to stay in Rayong for at least the next sixteen years – Oa would only agree to the move if we could make that type of commitment, and I know she is right. It is not fair to keep moving Timmy around, and I do want him to grow up feeling settled with strong friendships. My parents were always moving house when I was young, and I changed school 8 times – I don’t want that for my son. Moving Timmy now is unlikely to be too much of a big deal because he is only at the beginning of his education, but it will be much tougher on him if we have to move again later. So as well as feeling excited about this move I also feel a bit of trepidation. The longest I’ve lived in the one place in adulthood is five years, and I usually get itchy feet after about two years. Committing to Rayong for sixteen years is a big deal for me, but that is what we need to try to do for the sake of my son.

Give up Alcohol and Feel Deprived?

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In this video I discuss the feelings of unfairness can come up when we give up alcohol or drugs. I’d only been drinking for a couple of years before I began getting into trouble, and it did annoy me that other drunks were able to get away with this behavior for decades. It was only when I realized that this life had nothing to offer me that I no longer felt any sense of being deprived.

The podcast edition of this episode is just below the video.

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Become Sober by Writing Your Own Recovery Book

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There are plenty of fine recovery books written by people after they have been sober for a few years. These texts can be full of useful advice that will benefit those who are struggling with addiction, but I doubt that many people have become sober just by reading a book (this is not something that worked for me anyway). I’ve come to the realization that a more effective path out of addiction may be for the person to write their own recovery book. This will be ideally suited for their needs, and they will be able to use it to help them build the type of life where they will no longer feel any need to use alcohol or drugs.

How I Wrote My Way Out of Addiction

I never intentionally used writing to help me overcome my alcohol addiction. Writing is just something that has always been a part of my life, and I got into the habit of putting my thoughts down on paper from a young age. When drunk, I’d write these long rambling letters to myself where I’d list my disappointments and mistakes – thankfully I didn’t have a blog in those days, so my words of woe were only ever read by me. I’d also write down goals and thoughts about how I’d achieve these goals, and this became an important part of my recovery. This writing was just something that I did, and I never paid it much attention. When I eventually became sober, I created a blog and this allowed me to write about my past and create a path for my future. There was never any structure to this writing, and it is only now that I can appreciate how much it helped me.

Over the last few months I’ve been putting together my guidebook for living. This is a personal project where I am writing down my core beliefs as well as my approach to the challenges in life. This book will be constantly updated, and it contains all my best ideas. I intend for it to be a resource that I’ll keep near me at all times. I’ve noticed that my best thinking occurs when things are going well, but once the shit hits the fan my ability to think straight will usually desert me. By creating this guidebook for living I am able to approach life with a new clarity and purpose. It has turned out to be one of my most (possibly the most) productive projects I’ve ever taken on, and this got me thinking about how beneficial it would have been if I’d done this work while trying to stop drinking. It then dawned on me that I had been doing this type of writing, but it had just been haphazard and inconsistent.

Gain Clarity and Purpose in the Midst of Addiction

For many years I was a member of Alcoholics Anonymous and during that time I must have read the Big Book hundreds of times. I would also hear passages of this text read at almost every meeting. I still can recite portions of that text by heart. I no longer subscribe to the 12 Step approach or go to these meetings, but the repetitive reading of that text did manage to hammer some good ideas into my brain. I’ve found that this is something that can be done with any text. My guidebook for living will allow me to “brainwash myself”, so that my best thinking becomes my automatic response to life; for example, I’ve always been a bit of a worrier, but my work with this guidebook has allowed me to develop a new relationship with this emotion.

The reason I struggled with ending my addiction for so many years was that my own thinking would betray me. As soon as the withdrawals began my mind would become all fuzzy, and this meant that I was easy prey for the cravings. One thing that helped me deal with this was to write down the reasons for why I wanted to quit before I entered withdrawals. I would then keep reading this letter to help me make it through this period. The only real mistake that I made with this approach is that I’d usually write down the reasons for why I “should” quit – this is far less effective than writing down the reasons for why I “want to” quit. This letter gave me clarity at a time when I really needed it, and it would have made the perfect introductory chapter to my personal recovery book.

Write Your Own Path Out of Addiction

Just writing this recovery book is unlikely to be enough to end addiction – you need to write it and use it like your bible. It is vital that anything that you put into your book is clear and precise – any vagueness will just confuse things and get in the way. Spelling and grammar is not going to be important. All that really matters is that you can understand what is written and that you are able to put it to use. It might be easier to use a computer for this manuscript because you are going to be constantly updating it. I would also suggest that you write things down in a small notebook as well, so that you can have your guidebook with you at all times.

You want your recovery book to contain your personal path out of addiction. You only include those things that will benefit this journey, and you need to be constantly eliminating the deadwood. It is like going on a long hiking trek and you want to keep your backpack light – the more stuff you bring with you, the more you will need to carry. You must avoid putting anything to this book that is unnecessary because it will just get in the way– you need to be ruthless and remove every single word that is not required.

It can be helpful to read other recovery books for advice and tips but only add those things to your book that will work for you – if they turn out not to work you remove them immediately. You also need to avoid adding something to your book just because it sounds like a good idea. I also suggest that you completely avoid using the word “should” anywhere in this text – you only want things in there that you are going to do.

This recovery book is just the start of your journey. Once you have settled into a life free of alcohol and drugs, you can then begin your guidebook for living the rest of your life. This will contain most of the valuable knowledge you picked up while putting together your recovery book.

Addiction Recovery Without Beliefs

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In this video I discuss how we can escape addiction without buying into any particular recovery belief system. You will find the podcast edition of this episode just below the video.

Here is the podcast for this episode

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Beliefs are a Type of Story

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Beliefs are just a type of story. They are an attempt by me to assert some control over something that is beyond my comprehension. Without these beliefs I would struggle to negotiate life, but this does not mean that all beliefs are good or useful. I’ve come to realize that most of the bad things that have happened to me are due to believing the wrong type of stories. I once felt sure that alcohol could allow me to pass through life in a pleasant fog of numbness, but it actually turned my existence into a living hell. I then developed new stories to justify remaining in that hell. Luckily I was later able to find new ways of thinking that allowed me to break free of this mess.

Beliefs seem to provide a number of functions:

• Life can be confusing but beliefs can act like filters so that things are less of a jumble. If I have too many filters, or my filters are the wrong type, I can completely lose touch with reality – and that is bad for me.

• Beliefs act as tools. They allow me to negotiate life, and it is hard to imagine how I would cope without them.

• Beliefs can give me a sense of security in an otherwise uncertain world.

Beliefs can be terribly tricky, but I’ve found that the key to gaining mastery over them is to realize that they are just stories. It may sound arrogant, or even disrespectful, for me to be so dismissive of beliefs, but this is a key premise in my worldview. It could be that there are people out there that do have access to truth with a capital ‘T’, but even if they do how could I tell? I believe the Buddha (the awakened one) was a great teacher, and his ideas have certainly influenced my own thinking, but I don’t know if he actually saw the ultimate truth of life. I have not had his experience of being awakened, and I don’t want to build my worldview solely based on faith in what some historical figure had to say. The Buddha once described his teachings as a finger pointing at the moon, and he asked people not to mistake his finger for the moon – superb advice.

I will sometimes make the claim that nobody knows what is going on in life. I say this because it is my best guess about our situation – I’ve no evidence to convince me otherwise. I could be wrong, and maybe there are enlightened beings out there that have it all worked out. The problem is that, just like the claims for the Buddha, I have no way to tell for sure if these people are correct or not. It is safer for me to work on the assumption that nobody really knows the ultimate truth. I’d rather risk insulting these enlightened beings than putting my faith in them only to be harmed because they were deluded. This does not mean that I’m going to dismiss what the wise teachers have to say – it just means that I’m going to treat what they provide as useful stories, and if their stories can improve my life I’ll make use of them.