Oooh... this was a good chapter! So, we all have habits, good and bad, right? Things that we end up doing almost automatically. But we know that we have a choice, right? We know that we can choose to brush our teeth after meals and floss regularly... but sometiems we choose to do it... and sometimes we choose not to...
Anneli (the author) suggests the radical notion that addictions are not diseases... they are the result of poor choices... ongoing poor choices... When people say things like "I was drunk, I'm an alcoholic, I have a disease, I couldn't control myself"... they are basically abdicating all responsibility for their actions. They are saying that they are weak, powerless in the face of this habit. Anneli would say that's all it is... a habit... and a poor choice... The last in a long line of poor choices... Same with over-eating. Same with gambling. Same with video game playing. Same with overspending. Somewhere along the line, through repetivie behaviour, we've created a habit through choice and ended up calling it a disease...She says that these bad habits fill holes in our lives... in our souls... in our days...
What about admitting that we are spoiled, selfish, weak, lazy... Nah, that's too hard!! That makes us take too much of a look at ourselves! Better to foist it off of us onto something else... Yeah, let's call ourselves "sick"... we have a "disease"... so it's not our fault! Someone says they're a pedophile because they were abused and so it's not their fault. They have a sickness... Uh-huh... right...
They talk about Alcohol-Induced Anxiety Disorder... like it's a legitimate disease... Why not have the Caffeine-Induced Anxiety Disorder?? How about the Twinkie Defense when Dan White killed San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and city supervisor Harvey Milk? "I ate too much sugar and couldn't premeditate the crime." Uh-huh...Guess who profits from our habits turned addictions turned disease?? Drug companies... that's who...And all those advertisers who convince us that we need this or that... or this and that... in order to be happy...
Who has the power to transform our lives? We do... But we can give up the power... each and every moment... I know people who quite drinking from one day to the next... No AA, no therapy... just the choice... Maybe some of us have stronger will-power than others? Or maybe some of us just make poor choice ongoingly, never having been taught that we DO have a choice... all the time!!
Anneli makes a distinction between "I can't" and "I won't".... As in "I can't give up drinking"... Let's put you on a desert island and see whether it's "I can't"... She doesn't pull her punches this author... Maybe it's too much for some people... Makes sense to me though...
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