“Stinking Thinking” – One Recipe for an Addictive Mind-set
Whatever you think and hold in your consciousness will out-manifest itself.
– Neville Goddard
I had lost everything in my life. My husband, my almost husband and the hope of ever having children. Gone was my youth, health, money and supposed friends. My father, who was never there for me, was still absent. I wallowed in abandonment and betrayal. I was filled with self-pity, deep depression and resentment at all I’d been through and lost. Maybe I was lucky in that I had so much to lose. But I sure didn’t feel that way at the time. Here’s the kicker. I’d always been a winner at life. My status as “loser” soon became my new identity. I developed obsessive fear-based thinking.
My anger and resentment toward God and life coupled with self-pity, primed me perfectly to turn to drugs and alcohol for relief.
I couldn’t stop the stinking thinking. I couldn’t stop comparing every detail of my new unwanted life to how it was before. My idea of fixing this mess of a life was to find the “right” husband. But how could it ever be right with my new boyfriend since I attracted him from such a desperate place of neediness? Most all my decisions were driven by hidden fears.
Deep down I knew he wasn’t a good catch for me but I was so empty and lonely inside. We did move in together, which of course added to my insecurities. But I simply didn’t know how to cope better with all of these painful emotions.
I can actually look back on this with compassion for myself and a little bit of humor, too. I was so unwilling and unable to let go of the drama of being a victim. I refused to accept that a life this imperfect was okay. It’s very human to have painful feelings given what I went through, but the secret is to not let yourself stay stuck there
At some point you’ve got to let it go if you’re ever going to heal.
It was quite by accident when the alchemy of pain pills mixed with alcohol changed my life forever. I had plenty of Percocets due to my back surgery. I was careful to take less than prescribed. I always managed to keep it under control. One night I treated myself to my favorite comfort food: roasted artichokes along with a bottle of special select cabernet. Five minutes later I discovered heaven on earth. Thanks to the earlier Percocet, I felt an instant relief. This was the magic moment that neither wine nor Percocets alone could offer.
The release I felt inside my mind and body was pure ecstasy. I felt as if I were a blown up balloon ready to burst – and something just let out the air. Never had I known such inner peace. How could I ever not want more of this? This was the beginning of the rapid death-spiral. I simply could not go back to life as usual.
The transition to the life of an addict was really quite easy.
My response to life became firmly established in a continuous state of resistance. Of course I didn’t want to accept my present circumstances. I was engulfed in anger, fear and victimhood. I felt utterly worthless. All I could see and think of was what I no longer had.
It is this resistance and non-acceptance that kept me hooked to my stinking thinking.
Eventually, when I got sober, I learned that to change my life I had to change my thinking. But I had a long way to go before I was ready for that. After all, I had just found the magic brew of pain pills with alcohol – my bullet-proof recipe for relief.
Thinking is compulsive. You can’t stop, or so it seems. It is also addictive. You don’t even want to stop – At least not until the suffering generated by the continuous mental noise becomes unbearable.
– Eckhart Tolle