…..The whispers always came on strong during this time. They told me there was more. They told me I was missing out on life…. Did I need to hear this? No. So I drank and drugged…. Did I want to hear it? Yes! I wanted to walk in the land of the free.
…..Fear was familiar. This place I allowed fear to create. This was my excuse in life. If I was scared I did not have to move. I did not have to risk failure. So I kept it close, the fear.
…..But the whispers. They reminded me of the feelings I once had. They reminded me of the freedom I could choose if I recaptured what was once true. Those feelings I once had…. Still do. But I allowed fear to block my access. Yes, fear took the feelings away and gave me its own familiarity. Did I like fear? No! But I could control it, I thought. The alcohol and drugs did this for me. I could risk nothing, but I gained nothing….. Nothing? …….. I gained my cell I live in that protected me from facing life. That kept me from hearing the whispers…….
…..I started to listen more closely to what the whispers spoke. I started to remember my true friend… In this land that I once walked free I started to see………
………….. Hope
Familiarity
We are all creatures of habit. We try a few things and once we find something that meets our needs we tend to settle in. Even if we only perceive this “something” to satisfy one of our needs, we remember it, it brings us some temporary comfort and we will tend to return to it when the need arises again.
Satisfying one’s needs is individual. This is why one person may turn to alcohol to get some comfort from their fear and others will sit down with a good book or go running. Satisfying our needs also coincides with where we place our values. How we value something will determine how we incorporate it or use it in our lives. In some cultures and ethnicities it is a taboo to publicly display drunken behavior. They do not value this behavior and therefore do not incorporate it into satisfying needs. Others view the use of alcohol as a way to relax and let off steam. For them, drunkeness is acceptable and perceived as something that can satisfy a need (it doesn’t matter if it is right or wrong, just what it is perceived to do – it’s purpose).
Ok, what is all this babble about? At one point in your life, to satisfy a need, you tried alcohol or drugs. You discovered something about this experience that you decided to make familiar. You discovered it changed the way you felt. Things seemed better (at least for a short time). You felt bigger, faster, smarter, more alive. You liked this short and temporary escape and started to use it more often. It became comfortable and familiar.
Some would say that drinking and drugging is like a habit. They don’t even think about it but when needed just go right to it. This is not true. What drinking and drugging does is give the person something familiar. Something they remember gave them a desirable feeling at one time. So they try to achieve this feeling through what is familiar. However, they can never fully achieve that original feeling or purpose they thought it served.
So you know the rest of the story. They start on a quest, the search for the ultimate buzz. So what is the point to all this? What we seek to make familiar is not a shift in feelings, but a desire to be connected with a time in our life that we associate with being happier. What? …… Hear me out now.
Anyone who is struggling with alcohol or drugs can tell you (if they are honest) that they do not enjoy the way they feel any longer. The drinking and drugging has become no fun. So why continue doing it? Because they still associate the time it felt good with their actions now (even though they do not get the same results). If we did not associate the “good times” with our present behavior we would not do it any longer. We block out the bad times and hurt we have caused and replace it with the original association of “feeling good”. Maybe you were at a party and were able to talk with all the cute girls. Maybe you were able to open up and be the center of attention. Whatever it may be, you perceived some sort of gain.
So here we are. Doing something familiar to ourselves because we are trying to “relive” a time in our life that was good or better than what we have now. But it does not work anymore. We don’t get the same results. We end up feeling miserable and wanting to change but unable to.