March 29, 2004

• Isolating

  When I first started going to AA and NA meetings, one of the women I
  met there said, “You have a problem with isolating.”  Then she
  backpedaled and tapdanced and apologized for presuming to “take my
  inventory.”  I don’t know where she was coming from or where she
  wanted to go with that train of thought before she caught herself
  breaking one of the urwritten rules and backed off.

   The truth is that when I’ve been depressed (years ago) I did
  isolate.  Or maybe I got majorly depressed when I became
  isolated.  I was with a man then who wanted me all to himself and
  manipulated to get that.  I ended up miles from anywhere, here on
  the edge of the back of beyond.  I stayed that way until I got fed
  up with him and asked him to move out.  When he left he took the
  car and so if I wanted groceries or anything, I had to hitchhike to get
  it.  That brought me into contact with my neighbors and out of my
  isolation and I have not been depressed since then.

  The conventional “wisdom” (read facile bullshit) in 12-step groups is
  that addicts tend to isolate themselves and that grouping together can
  keep us clean and sober.  The same ones who say that are the ones
  who say just suit up and show up and you’ll be okay.  All a
  perceptive person needs to do is pay attention at meetings and it is
  easy to see that isn’t necessarily true for everyone.  At AA there
  are people zonked on Xanax and bubbly with Prozac, but considering
  themselves okay because they are not drinking today.  Both groups
  encourage and promote addictions to sugar and caffeine.

  Those facts don’t even begin to address the issues of the people who
  become addicted to the program and turn what was once a pretty good
  idea for self-help support groups into mind-numbing cults, or of the
  frequency of relapse among members, the old revolving door
  syndrome.  But I’m not here today to flame the programs.  I
  want to specifically address the issue of isolation as it pertains to
  addiction.  I’m working out some kinks in my text for Addicts
  Unlimited and this is my test kitchen, the sounding board if you will.

  Addiction doesn’t require isolation, nor does it always lead to
  isolation.  Many addicts get together with their drinking buddies
  to imbibe, for example.  I think that an addiction that starts out
  and stays in isolation is particularly dangerous, however.  On the
  one hand it indicates that the addict knows there is something wrong
  about the behavior and does it anyway.  On the other hand, it
  makes it more difficult for the addict to get social feedback or
  intervention.

  For me, isolation and addictive behaviors come together but I cannot
  see where one is causing the other.  Both seem to me to result
  from my desire to escape from something.  In the depths of a
  horrendous ME/CFIDS flareup/relapse this winter, while struggling to
  learn some complex new skills, a new language, I regressed into
  addictive behavior.  I all but stopped using Xanga, read only very
  few of your sites and put very little of my own inner self into my
  own.  I completely stopped working on the new skills, just gave it
  up with a promise to myself and Greyfox that I would get back to it
  when it didn’t hurt so much to sit at the computer.

  I had been resisting the temptations of starting up a new video game
  for a long time.  I knew, and told Doug when he suggested that I
  would like one or another of his new games, that I didn’t need another
  addiction.  But when I fled from the pain, fatigue and brain
  strain, I took refuge in a game.  Now I’m hooked, and the game is
  exerting a pull on me, impeding my progress in getting back to working
  on AuWay and back to really blogging.  I think I may, however, be
  making some progress.  I am at least coming out of
  isolation.  I’m out there reading and commenting again.  We
  shall see where it goes from here.

  
  Take the What’s Your Song? quiz and visit Castle Diqueria.

  

  • 7:58 pm
  • 9 Comments