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Withdrawal

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Hupomone10

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As I start this thread, today marks 2 yrs 9 months sobriety for me, which is the longest time since I was in my 30's (now 54).

As I read the most recent threads here, something occurred to me that might be worth sharing. I wish I had known a while back that withdrawal in some form is to be expected, and is the norm. If I had fully understood that, and prepared myself to respond in faith rather than react in feeling, I might have been spared many months or years of misery.

What follows is an excerpt from the book "Addiction and Grace", by the psychologist Gerald G. May. I'll put it into a separate post to let it stand alone.

In Christ,
H.
 

Hupomone10

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[FONT=&quot]"… At this point – the point of recovery after years of adapting to these attachments – freedom will not seem normal. Thus we respond to God’s call with a mixture of hope and fear. Something in us knows that this freedom is where we belong, but in many ways it also feels like alien territory. The journey involves withdrawal from behaviors that have become normal for us. There is a strange sadness in this growing freedom. Our souls may have been scarred by the chains with which our attachments have bound us, but at least they were familiar chains. We were used to them. And as they loosen, we are likely to feel a vague sense of loss. We are like caged animals beginning to experience freedom, and there is something we miss about the cage.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot] This journey of detachment can be easily misunderstood. To appreciate it with accuracy, we need to acknowledge both its beauty and its fierceness. It is beautiful because it is liberation from slavery. But it is fierce because it entails relinquishment, letting go, risking, and enduring losses that are very real and very painful. What we lose in freedom is not the objects of our attachment, or even our care for them… What we lose is the attachment itself… The object will still be around, and we will probably still care about it. What I want, and what I am losing, is the use of it. What I cling to most is my use, my idolization of that person or thing. God seldom works by taking away the object or the love for the object directly.
[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]
When we first reclaim this lost ground, we usually do not know that the journey will involve such relinquishment. One of the most powerful and potentially frightening realizations is that there is no new normality of freedom to replace the old ones of attachment… The loss of an attachment is the loss of something very real; it is physical. We will resist this loss as long as we possibly can. When withdrawal does happen, it will hurt… But then, when we have completed the withdrawal over our lost attachment, will we breathe the fresh air of freedom with appreciation and gratitude."
[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]- [FONT=&quot]Addiction and Grace[/FONT][/FONT], Gerald G. May, MD
 
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TheMainException

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Hey, thanks for sharing this, man. This is exactly how I felt about being freed from depression. I was good with it...I would rather fall into the same patterns than be free. Now the same applies again with substances. I've had practice in quitting depression habits...you'd think it would make it easier to apply that practice to this than never having had practice in the first place. Doesn't seem that way.
 
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Hupomone10

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I'm glad it helped. Try to identify the things that helped in battling the depression habits and use the same principles with substances.

They both involve living a life of feeling rather than a life of faith (in Christ). We soon learn to follow His inner leading and His Word rather than the feeling of any given moment.
 
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