Russian blog

This blog is over a year out-of-date, but Russian readers (and those with fancy browsers that machine translate) might be interested in seeing this:

http://drinkornot.ru/

I have not been through much of it, so I'm not sure of all that's there.  So, I can't say if it's good or bad.  But, there are a few interesting articles to peruse.

Self-Esteem versus Self-Respect

I thought I had written something on this a while back, but since I can't find it, I'm going to post this.

After having several head-butting sessions with a couple of people who were, let's just say, 'acting inappropriately,' I began to wonder how these folks could be so self-confident as to abandon their rather high social status and behave in utterly shameful ways.  Then it occurred to me...

These days, people have far more self-esteem than self-respect.

There is a difference, though modern culture has abandoned teaching self-respect and so people now confuse it with self-esteem.  There is a difference.

Self-esteem:

• "I love me no matter what I do."
• "My thoughts and opinions are equal to anyone else's."
• "I can do whatever I decide to because I am equal to all other people."
• "No one else can judge me because no one else's opinions have more value than anyone else."
• "I don't have to be weighed down by accountability to others when accountability interferes with my intentions."
• "I am not bad, nor am I doing anything bad, unless I intend to."

Self-respect:

• "I love me in proportion to the level I have risen, because I have proved myself in adversity."
• "My thoughts and opinions are of value to the extent that they well-informed, and others may have thoughts and opinions that are better than mine."
• "I cannot do things which are not in keeping with either the goodness I have attained to or even the goodness that I seek to rise to."
• "I am proud to be accountable to others, because this accountability keeps me safe and helps others."
• "When I act in a manner beneath me, then I fall from where I was and will now have to rebuild what my lack of self-restraint destroyed."

If I have self-respect, then I will always remember who I am to others and myself, whereas self-esteem is all about the 'freedom' from guilt and shame that often safe-guard us from harming ourselves and others.  It is not like 'pride' since this is a false narrative of the self, whereas true self-respect must be grounded in reality.

These days, people who are often well-respected will act in horrendously embarrassing ways... all because they have plenty of self-esteem.  They esteem themselves to the point where they act in silly and childish ways, yet want to turn around and be treated as adults... or even higher than that.  The problem is that the self-esteem robs them of their dignity and respect.

Part of the problem with American culture is that, in losing the understanding of the difference between these two concepts, we now place the greatest value on people with the highest self-esteem.  Actors and 'Celebutards' have lots of self-esteem... enough to get in front of a camera and not be worried about looking bad.  We reward that, and many young people even try to emulate this abandonment of dignity.

The problem with self-esteem is that it is built upon so many lies.  Not all my opinions are of equal value: no one should come to me asking for advice on cancer treatment.  I can't jettison my responsibilities and not expect others, and even myself, to be hurt in the process.

Self-esteem focuses on the self, but self-respect focuses on the respect.

The addict is often characterized as an 'egomaniac with an inferiority complex.'  This means that he operates in self-esteem and pride, but then realizes his shame and is depressed by it.  He does not have self-respect, otherwise he would not indulge in the behaviors that he does in his disease.

By not teaching people how to have self-respect, we are laying the foundations for addiction.  Self-esteem suppresses the impulse control mechanisms that we need to have to be part of a functioning society.  As we lose our impulse control, we increase our chances of engaging in behavior that will lead to addiction.

A big part of recovery is learning about what it is to have self-respect.  By serving others, we feel better about our own real value.  True self-respect cuts off self-doubt and other destabilizing worries.  That is because self-respect is grounded in our own proven merits rather than a false feeling of infinite equality or superiority.

'Tis the Season

Holidays are often horrid for alcoholics.  While the routine of life, with it regular, predictable rhythms brings the comfort of the knowable, the holidays are full of wildly aprosodical opportunities for misunderstanding and temptation.

If you are new to recovery and are finding this time really challenging, then I urge you to find other alcoholics in the same boat and hang on tight to each other.  You need the help, but so do they... so, you can all help each other.  Through your camaraderie, you will find some peace and hope during this deluge that normal people engage in... trying to make themselves happy by indulging in celebrations that exclude the original cause.

The Christmas holidays are miserable because they they are all about trying to be happy by doing more.  This is an immature mindset, but we must remember the rule of the 'lowest common denominator.'

Therefore, when we think of 'Peace on Earth' it really means 'Appeasement on Earth.'  We must appease the expectations and demands of those who will even purposefully misunderstand our attempts at love and kindness.  We offer gifts with the hope the receiver will be pleased... so as not to complicate things even more.

Now, maybe some of you don't have these problems.  Congratulations.  Keep it that way.

However, I'm willing to be that many more people have big plate of expected duties and obligations, bathed in a sauce of shame and guilt, roasted on the fiery coals of memories past.  Yummy!

I have lots of church services to conduct, which will largely go partly-attended because people are too busy 'celebrating' or 'preparing to celebrate'... so as to appease those around them rather than thank God for what the holiday represents.

As I got older, it all became more odd that we celebrated a feast for a God we did not believe in, just because of these expectations.  But, now that I do believe, it seems stranger still that buying gifts and hassling over parties has anything to do with the Birth of the Christ.  He was born poor, and we celebrate with displays of decadence.  Just weird.

My advice: laugh at it, don't play into it.  You don't have to mock the people to see the humor in their delusion.  You can be a good Christian without having to fall for all the panic.  In fact, you can be better for it.

If possible, resolve to be the source of peace for others.  You will likely encounter those fretting over their duties... bring them the message of faith and serenity.  It may not work for them, but I guarantee you will feel better.

Whatever you do, don't drink or use.  Don't let this petty stuff get between you and your true happiness.

The 'Peace on Earth' is found in our relationship with God.  that's all that really matters.

The Visual Library

I'm building a 'Visual Library' (see the sidebar to the right under 'Pages' or http://orthodoxyandrecovery.blogspot.com/p/blog-page.html) of anti-alcoholism and addictions graphics.  Most of this type of material has no effect on the addict, but is does tell an interesting narrative of how non-addicts see the disease and what they think ought to be done.

I lot of it is shame-based, which we all know does not work.  Alcoholics are full of shame that they try to escape, but you can't add more shame to someone who is already full... and still can't quit.

If you have some material you would like to share, please email it to me (see the right sidebar under 'Kontakt') and I will post it.

Genes and Addiction

Is addiction hereditary?  There is some evidence for it.  There is also evidence that lots of mental disorders, from hoarding to schizophrenia, can be passed down through genes.  Here we see evidence of a gene that appears with folks having internet and nicotine addictions: 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9511611/Addicted-to-the-internet-It-could-be-all-in-your-genes.html

There is a ways to go before we understand much of anything about genes, but there is one thing we do know about addiction: it is treatable.  Therefore, genes may give one a predisposition to addiction, but they do not make us addicts.

There are plenty of people who have given up smoking and the internet.  What it requires is a treatment.  We must not become fatalistic about such studies and abandon ourselves to 'fate.'

We are more than our genes...

The 'New Brain'

You may have noticed that I've lately been posting a lot of articles about the brain.  That's because the most cutting-edge scientific work is being done in this area.  Psychology has hit a wall, partly of its own construction.  I'll get into that in a post tomorrow/

This article about brain theories caught my attention:

http://www.lagazzettadelmezzogiorno.it/notizia.php?IDNotizia=577295&IDCategoria=2694

This loss of perception that the article mentions is important for our purposes.  Loss of attention is, in essence, a loss of our ability to participate in the world as it is.  If we 'tune out' our world, we begin to become prisoners of fantasy.

What technology can do is create 'alternate realities.'  What we have done, through our basic knowledge of human perception, is created 'convincing' alternate realities.  We can play video games that create worlds that seem just as real (in many respects) as the 'real thing.'  We have become masters at tricking ourselves.

Illusion, however, is always incomplete.  Yet, if we repeatedly 'tune out' the discrepancies between our illusions and reality, it makes sense that our brains/minds may very well 're-program' and simply drop any effort to perceive in those areas.

What is important to keep in mind (pardon the pun) is that all of this is 'soft change.'  Nothing significant about the human person has changed since the 'Stone Age.'  All of humanity's technological advances have done nothing, except perhaps slow down the 'weeding out' process of natural selection.  Yes, we have found ways to keep people alive who would not have lived in times past:

http://cardiobrief.org/2009/05/27/explosive-increase-in-type-1-diabetes-predicted/

Even something as simple as expecting to survive Type 1 diabetes has an effect on our attitudes about life and fear of death.  This impacts our ability to deal with the realities of life's delicacy and impermanence.

In my opinion, one of the tragedies that technology has brought is difficulty in appreciating a non-manufactured moment.  Our brains obsess about the 'flaws' of real life and become addicted to the perfection of the manufactured.  This dissatisfaction dispels gratitude and sets the stage for many, many emotional disorders and addiction. 

Medicating Children, Controlling Behavior, & Social Codependency

This is a dire warning, and some would call it alarmist, but our recent obsession with medicating all our problems away makes this seem quite plausible:

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2012/12/12/medicating-millions-kids-for-being-moody/

With the recent shooting in Connecticut, there will be lots of talk about mental illness, moody people, and what we are going to 'do' for (read 'to') them.  As I mentioned before this tragedy, mental illness does not make one immoral.

http://orthodoxyandrecovery.blogspot.com/2012/11/doing-insane-things-for-sake-of-doing.html

The problem with medicating problems is that the medications themselves don't always work.  In fact, many anti-depressants have been linked to violence and suicide.  The truth is that medications have a 'chance' to work, so we must embrace the idea that we cannot control everything.

This is what we are struggling with as a society: we always need to be in control.  Not only that, but we expect to be in control to the point that nothing bad ever happens.

When I was a substitute teacher, I never expected the kids to sit perfectly still or do their work in a perfect way.  I still don't when it comes to home-schooling... children are by their developmental state 'uncooperative' and will act up.  Eventually, they will be trained, but training is hard.  It requires patience.

In this era of instant everything, we are losing patience for everything... including each other.  Within hours of the Connecticut shooting, people were making grand declarations about the shooting and what 'must' be done.  They could not even wait for the funeral... or all of the facts.

What I am saying is that the children are not the ones with all the problems... we are.  We are impatient, arrogant, and intolerant.  If you disagree with people these days, you are more likely to get insulted than an intelligent conversation.  Of course, the other person feels free to insult you because he thinks himself the 'reasonable' one and you are... well, stupid.  Now we can freely insult the horse because the horse does not understand the insult.

To this mindset, both children and those adults they disagree with have just become another problem to manage.  And, that really is at the core, isn't it?  Society is no longer about people deciding to get along, but persons in need of management.  Obedience and compliance trumps liberty and real diversity.  Liberty does mean the freedom to make bad decisions.

It is natural, as in the case of raising children, that we want to control their behavior because adults are responsible for guiding the outcomes and caring for the welfare of those who, by nature, cannot care for themselves.  The difficulty comes when adults expand this definition into an enormous 'societal codependency' where we are busy trying to control and manage all kinds of adult dysfunction.

As painful as it is, we have to let people fail.  That's how they learn.  It requires patience, because we must control our rescuing instincts and wait for the right opportunity... the point where someone sincerely asks for help with a desire to change.  We should be looking for repentance instead of regret.  Many people regret their problems in terms of outcomes rather than process.  When 'healed' they will return to doing what hurt them to begin with, sometimes trying even harder.

We must be patient with children, and we must be tolerant of one another.  Controlling people, either with drugs or restrictive laws, is not going to work because errors and mistakes are part of the struggle of the free will.  If we take free will away from people, we rob them of their humanity.

This is my greatest concern: in seeking a humane world, we are become inhuman.