You Don't Know Your Mind

Busting Addiction and Its Myths

In this podcast, we dive into the unconscious mind, into that dark place that drives how we think and how we react to addiction.

We learn that:

1. We have little understanding of the role of our unconscious instincts in determining how we respond to addiction in the family.
2. Addiction has essentially hijacked our rational responses. In the addict, the disease operates below the conscious level to fuel an insatiable demand for the substance; meanwhile, it has the family acting in a fight or flight manner.
3. We cannot buy into the trope that an addict/alcoholic must hit bottom before he or she will accept help. This myth kills, for what if the bottom means death? The answer here is to educate ourselves on addiction, find out what is possible and marshal the family.
4. Detachment does not mean throwing up our hands and saying: "I cannot do anything, so I might as well just take care of myself". That allows the unconscious to rule our world. Detachment means having a clear-eyed view of what we can turn over and what we can do now.
5. Healthy detachment requires that we make that leap of faith that enables us to gain compassionate insight and understanding of suffering. Detachment in its purest sense is the willingness to take action while knowing you cannot guarantee results, because the results are in the hands of a power greater than yourself.