Kindle Notes & Highlights
The Addictive System is highly dependent upon what we now call left-brain functions. It is founded on the worship of linear, rational, logical thinking. This kind of thinking supports the illusion of control by simplifying the world to such an extent that it seems possible to have control over
The newest research suggests that the most functional thinking occurs during the synergistic action of both hemispheres and the brain stem. This union produces especially clear and powerful thinking that is far superior to linear, rational thinking.
Confusion is not just a characteristic of the Addictive System; it also plays a vital role within that system. First, it keeps us powerless and controllable. No one is more controllable than a confused person; no society is more controllable than a confused society. Politicians know this better than anyone, and that is why they use innuendos, veiled references, and out-and-out lies instead of speaking clearly and truthfully.
Second, it keeps us ignorant. Professionals give their clients confusing information cloaked in intimidating language that lay-people cannot understand.
Third, it keeps us from taking responsibility for our own lives.
Fourth, it keeps us busy.
These have the combined effect of keeping us stuck within the system. And this, I believe, is the primary purpose of confusion.
One of the best ways to break the pattern of confused thinking is to stop and wait. I often tell my clients that important decisions are discovered, not made.
When we refuse to see what we see and know what we know, we participate in a dishonest system and help to perpetuate it.
The Original Sin of Being Born Female is compounded by the belief in plain old original sin. According to some theologies, this is one of our birthrights. It implies that to be born human is itself a sin. Now imagine what it is like to be a woman within this system. Having been born both female and human, neither of which she can do anything about, a woman is a double wrong from the moment she is born.
Since we are human, however, it is not possible for us to be God, no matter how we define God. We keep trying, and we keep failing, without ever realizing our full human potential.
In a system that demands perfection, mistakes are unacceptable. We cannot learn from our mistakes, because we must pretend that we never make any. We must hide them or cover them up.
People can still function during blackouts; they simply cannot recall anything that happened during them. Blacking out is not the same as passing out.
The Addictive System does not place much of a premium on remembering the past.
Dependency is a state in which you assume that someone or something outside you will take care of you because you cannot take care of yourself. Dependent persons rely on others to meet their emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual needs.
Counterdependency has been described in psychological circles as a reaction against extreme dependency. Counterdependent people feel so dependent on others that they must convince them (and the self) that they do not need anyone at all and, hence, act so as to say, “I don’t need anybody.”
What I have observed, however, is that dependency destroys intimacy. The person being depended upon feels sucked dry, and the person doing the depending comes to resent the other. The relationship that once made both of them feel important and needed and secure eventually leaves them drained and exhausted.
Then again, that may be precisely what the Addictive System unconsciously values. I have come to believe that the Addictive System cannot tolerate intimacy. True intimacy requires us to be fully alive and whole in and of ourselves, and this kind of intimacy poses a direct threat to this system.
The Addictive System operates out of a scarcity model, a model based on the assumption that there is not enough of anything to go around, and that we had better get as much as we can while we can.
The scarcity model permeates almost every aspect of our lives. We learn to hoard money, material goods, love, and prestige. Because we fear that there is not enough to go around, we accumulate much more than we need or will ever be able to use. (More is better!)
What happens to our relationships when we are driven by these models? We begin to focus on quantity. Sibling rivalry stems directly from the belief that our parents don’t have enough time or love to go around.
Negativism is directly related to the scarcity model. If you believe that there is not enough of anything, that the world cannot provide for you and you cannot provide for yourself, then it is hard to see your life in a positive way. It is also related to perfectionism. If you are always striving to be perfect, and if you are always (inevitably) falling short of your own expectations, then you cannot feel good about yourself.
When one cannot respond to feedback or criticism and instead must prove that one is right, no real learning or change can occur.
It is important now to recognize that the Addictive System does not see it as such. Instead, it views denial as a normal way of being in the world.
What happens when we live defensively—the way the Addictive System wants us to live? We rob ourselves of the potential to learn. We close ourselves off to information that could move us to new levels of awareness and a new understanding of ourselves. We stop growing.
As a nation, we are obsessed with proving we are right. That in turn results in our being unwilling to negotiate and unable to grow. We are so busy trying to know and understand everything that we must hide any uncertainty and cover up the fact that we do not have all the answers.
Taking responsibility for one’s life means owning it, not controlling it. It is only when we own our lives, our feelings, and our experiences that we are able to learn from them and embark on the healing process.
We have distorted the concept of joint responsibility. We say that it means a sharing, fifty-fifty, but that is seldom the case. When one person keeps taking 50 percent of what’s there and the other does not do any personal work, the percentage increases in a geometric progression. It is easy to see why the balance shifts. When we equate responsibility with blame, we naturally do not want any part of
The Addictive System assumes that you will cheat on your income taxes. If you do not, you are seen as naive. It assumes that you will be dishonest in your business dealings. If you are not, you are seen as unsophisticated. It assumes that you will try to hoard more than you need. If you do not, you are seen as someone who is not functioning properly within the system.
I have come to believe that the loss of spirituality makes us dangerous to ourselves and others. I have also come to believe that spirituality cannot be approached only through the left brain. Left-brain theologies teach us to rationalize, objectify, and be logical about our spiritual selves. The trouble is that spirituality has nothing to do with rational, objective, logical thinking. It has to do with the experience of the spiritual self, which tends to be irrational, nonobjective, and illogical.
It is becoming progressively more difficult to deny that we live in a system in which lying, cheating, and stealing are the norm and in which these behaviors are justifiable simply because they support the system. Even mass murder is justifiable if it supports the system. We see all around us—and feel inside us—the price we are paying.
To be spiritual means to embrace being fully alive, and to be alive means to be spiritual.
The Addictive System is based on fear. We fear for our very survival, and our children grow up fearing for theirs. In a system that fosters violence and uncertainty, where confusion and self-centeredness are rampant, where the scarcity model dictates that there is often not enough food, money, time, or energy (because of actual hoarding), healthy survival is a very real concern.
The Addictive System is based upon the illusion of control, the illusion of perfectionism, thinking processes that twist reality into left-brain constructs, dishonesty, and denial.
Because the Addictive System is oriented toward control, it focuses mainly on contents and roles. The assumption is that if we change the contents, everything else will fall into place. Behavior modification and other similar types of therapy are based on this assumption.
The Addictive System is built on the process of the promise.
There is no group in our society more adept at this process than the church, for which one of the major premises is that of eternal life. That promise keeps us actively involved in pleasing the church and doing what it tells us to do. We ignore the present because we are assured salvation and a brighter future. We can look to a time when our worries and cares will fall away and be replaced by bliss—so why change today?
Another process the Addictive System uses to perpetuate itself is that of absorption. The pseudopodic ego of the system reaches out and totally absorbs another system until it becomes indistinguishable from the Addictive System. It is similar to colonization, a favorite practice of the Addictive System down through history.
We are told that the illusion—the ability to be God, to know and understand everything, to be always logical and rational, and to be superior and in control—is real.
We live in a system founded on the belief that it is possible to control ourselves, other people, other systems, other countries, even the universe. We spend much of our time, energy, and money pursuing this illusion. We then spend equal amounts cleaning up the resulting mess.
In fact, neither can or should be ignored. There are times when we must use external referents. It is only when these become the primary or exclusive means of referencing ourselves that we get into trouble. For example, it is important that I take in information from those around me, yet I cannot let this information completely determine what I do. We need both, not either/or. Unfortunately, we have been so thoroughly trained in the process of the external referent that we are not even aware that an internal referent exists.
Since the White Male System/Addictive System defines itself as reality, everything else is unreal by definition. Since its referent is the external referent, the internal referent is unreal and nonexistent by definition. The process of invalidating that which the system does not know, understand, cannot measure, and thereby cannot control is so extreme that large areas of perception and knowledge are lost. We give the system the power to make the known unknown.
It is very important to understand the process that makes someone or some idea or perception nonexistent, because this is one of the most powerful processes at work within the Addictive System.
The process of trashing was ably discussed in Ms. magazine in the 1970s.3 Basically, trashing is a process that is used against individuals to call their credibility into question. When it is successful, it renders people powerless and totally destroys their influence within a group. During the 1970s it was used quite effectively by women against other women.
The main purpose of trashing and fabricating personality conflicts is to dismiss or invalidate the input from a particular individual.
The final process I shall discuss here is the process of dualism. If there is any process that is basic to all characteristics and processes of the Addictive System, I suspect this may be it.
Most of us are trained in dualistic thinking. Our education prepares us to think dualistically—either this or that, either right or wrong, either in or out, either off or on, either black or white, either good or evil, and so on ad infinitum. I believe that this kind of thinking serves many functions in this system. The first is to oversimplify a very complex world, thereby giving us the illusion of control over what is in fact a universe in process. When we think we can break something that has many complex facets into two clear dimensions, it feeds our illusion of control.
In dualistic thinking, if we state that something is right, then the assumption is that the opposite must be wrong. The world is perceived as pairs of opposites.
