Self flagellation serves it's purpose

Do cutters suffer from more guilt over little things? I wonder if they could test that theory. What they did test was does pain relieve guilty feelings. And apparently the answer is yes.


"According to the scientists, although we think of pain as purely physical in nature, in fact we imbue the unpleasant sensation with meaning. Humans have been socialized over ages to think of pain in terms of justice. We equate it with punishment, and as the experimental results suggest, the experience has the psychological effect of rebalancing the scales of justice -- and therefore resolving guilt."

Kind of like self-flagellation that was so popular in the middle ages and beyond, where people whipped themselves or things like that to atone for their sins. Perhaps we cutters are just trying to deal with guilty feelings? I wonder if there are more cutters in Judeo-Christian religions? I mean, hell, they're based on a strong sense of guilt. It would be interesting to know.

What is love?

Paulo Coelho is my favorite author. He writes a lot about love; self-love and love of others. He defines it in many ways, and has written numerous novels about it. He says, “Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worse kind of suffering.”

Ahh, waiting. We've all agreed that I have no patience. Waiting for love is an incredibly hard thing to do, but waiting for unrequited love is worse. It's something you know isn't coming, but you wait anyway. But yet, forgetting is painful, too. Forgetting means letting go; stop obsessing, stop thinking about it, stop making plans. What I need to do is make a decision. Do I forget, or do I wait some more?

I always have reasons to wait a little longer. I always see some sort of potential out there, some sort of something to hold on to. Well, perhaps it's time to let go. Perhaps that's my new year's resolution. Perhaps that's what I'll do: forget.

Stuffing down the pain

"Our fear of pain is what leads us to addiction. We can't bear the pain of our current situation or the memories of a painful past, so we numb ourselves in an effort not to feel it.

The irony here is that our efforts to avoid pain just cause us more pain--and make true happiness impossible. We don't take the risk, so we never get what we want. We don't face the difficult past, so we are never free of that pain. We don't sort out the painful present, so we never make things right. And the pain just goes on and on. We can't be numb 100 percent of the time. And in sobriety, we can't be numb at all. So we need to learn how to experience our pain--truly feel it--and just sit with it."

Ah, numbing the pain. I know how to do that so well. I use drugs, alcohol, sex, food, tattoos... anything I can get my hand on to make that pain go away. All that stuff I've been stuffing down for decades now. But in sobriety, it's got to come out.

I'm working on my fourth step again; looking at all the resentments I have against other people. The list just keeps growing, as I'm sure it will continue to do over the course of my life. I suppose even people with serenity get mad every now and again. Hopefully I can figure out what that means about me, and how to let God lift some of those things away from me.

Oh the fruit flies

Ok, this has nothing to do with anything this blog is about, but neither do half the posts I write.

"Across a number of different kinds of pain, genes seem to be at least half the driver of how much pain you experience," they say. You know how they developed this idea that pain is genetic? Fruit flies. What did they do, pull their wings off? Sometimes researchers disgust me. It has to be a hard job, too. I can't imagine testing pain on animals to see if they feel it.

I have a really high pain tolerance. My tattooist says that your pain tolerance goes down as you get older, according to his experience being tattooed. I hope that's not the case.

Tattoos and pain

I just realized something - I get tattoos instead of cut.

I've been really yearning for a tattoo lately. I was supposed to get one last month, but my dog got sick and I had to spend the money at the vet. My next one is scheduled for August 22, and I was thinking today that I can't wait that long. There's a tattoo parlor next door to my work, and I was thinking of just getting something small - something to tide me over until I get the next installment in my back piece.

I have 6 tattoos, and I've been tattooed more 10 times (some of them took a couple sessions). I'm working on a full back piece that will take up one whole side of my back. I love tattoos. I think they're beautiful and sexy. But I use them, too. I use them to get over my urge for pain and blood. I satisfy that deep urge by getting art put on my body. I love the pain that comes with it. I once sat for a tattoo for four hours. I could have gone longer, but my butt hurt just sitting there, and he was tired.

So I suppose I have been "cutting" all along. I've just been having someone else do it!

Misery is optional

Kevin was brilliant today. I've heard him speak before, but never his story. Besides being a great drunk, he's a genius. He said some things that I'm going to save for later posts, but the best part was:

"Pain is part of the recovery process. Misery is optional."

That's just what I needed today. Here I am, making myself miserable thinking about my life, and he tells me I really don't have to be that way. And then I was talking with a friend who said, you don't really have control, just influence. You can influence your life by taking your meds, and staying sober, and dealing with your issues. Influence.

So many smart people around me today. So, as I look back on my life and try to find where I've wronged or "been wronged" and write out my resentments, I can realize that I can influence the outcome of this process and not be miserable doing it. Sure, it may hurt like hell, but I don't have to hate myself. I can be objective. It's not an exercise in self-torture, it's an exercise in self-knowledge.

Should be an S word

All my posts seem to start with S today, so I thought I'd give this an S title, too.

I need a meeting. I need more meetings than there are today. I had to work this morning, and so missed my sponsor's 8am meeting. There's one in half an hour, but it's step study. I was hoping for another speaker meeting. I like those. I'm so interested in other people's stories. It's interesting how addiction took us all down the same roads, and eventually led us to the realization that this wasn't working anymore.

We admitted we were powerless over alcohol, that our lives had become unmanageable.

Powerless is such a strong word. I do believe that I'm powerless over the next drink. I want it, but I don't seek it. I think it just calls to me and tells me it will help me solve all this pain. And that's what it's all about for addicts, I think, covering up the pain we all feel inside, real or imagined. And to be powerless over something, to be completely out of control? That's something I know from mental illness. I am not in control of my brain, all I can control are my reactions to the crazy things my brain tells me.

Unmanageable. Mental illness isn't manageable without medication (most of the time) and addiction isn't manageable without something like AA or a higher power. My life wasn't completely a mess this time - I still have my job, my car, my apartment - but my behavior had become unmanageable. I never knew when I was going to black out or when I was just going to get drunk enough to sit in the shower and cry under the hot water pouring down.

So I'm going to a meeting. And I hope I can find fellowship there. I hope we're on step one.