As a follow up to the early elk visit, I must tell you about the most successful hunting season ever. To be honest, we have had several years, most recently two years ago, when the harvest included up to seven animals…not the case this year, but what does success mean, anyhow? On one occasion the northwest Colorado deer population was so big that the DOW issued permission to shoot two deer for each license. That year Continue reading
In part one of this three part series, Control Freak, the Family, we discussed parents attempting to overly control children. Part Two of Control Freak deals with how we may inflict our old issues on other adults, specifically on our spouses. We are all products of everything that has happened to us, how we were treated by parents and others when we were children, and how we have been helped (or not) to grow through both the minor and major traumas of life.
If we were made to feel bad about ourselves as children, often by a critical or overly controlling parent, we may grow up to try to handle the fear of not being good enough, that self-doubt, even self-hatred, by attempts to make our spouses and children, be a certain way. Controlling behavior is an endeavor to quiet some fear and gain a sense of well being, (happiness?) by putting ourselves… well… in control! Continue reading
None of my friends, Christian or not, are offended by this greeting, hopefully neither or you. I address my Jewish friends, some of whom are in recovery, (yes, there are Jewish addicts), with celebration-appropriate greetings, too. Continue reading
Author’s Note: I use the words alcoholic and addict almost interchangeably. An alcoholic is an alcohol addict and most likely capable of abusing more than just alcohol. The Narcotics Anonymous first Step tells us we are “Powerless over our addiction…”, which applies to every alcoholic and addict I know. I have not met any alcoholics who are powerless only over alcohol. I pray you will not take offense at the language I use in this column. If you do, please let me know your concerns… after you write a fourth Step and do a fifth Step with your sponsor on whatever is bothering you. Smile! The Steps work on everything!
Small wonder many alcoholics and addicts mark their recovery date on or around January first. Many of us finally have had enough after going through yet another holiday season drunk, loaded, puking and/or passed out. Bad enough to not remember the parties and family time, but often we do huge damage. For compulsive overeaters, this is an especially difficult time and enormous weight gain is common. Continue reading
Old painful memories seem to come up at the most inopportune times. Emphasis on joy and peace around the holidays is, for many of us, the opposite of how we feel. Triggers come in the form of songs, parties, decorations and everything else this time of year. For those of us from dysfunctional families, Christmas and New Year’s celebrations, along with Hanukkah or anything else we observe (my birthday is in here, 2 weeks before Christmas) were a time of pain, fear and disappointment. We may come from a family where our parents were heavy drinkers, if not alcoholic, and the holiday season provided excuses to indulge more, as well as more often. Maybe our parents were divorced and argued over where and with which parent we were to spend time; maybe they were not divorced and argued, over us and everything else. Or maybe we are from a single parent family and always felt “different’. As we got older, the holidays became a time we found relief in our drug and stayed loaded as much as possible. We temporarily escaped the chaos and dysfunction at home and began creating our own traditions: get as blitzed as possible, obliterate our pain and fill our emptiness. Alcoholics do this with alcohol, druggies pick their drug of choice or whatever they can find, compulsive overeaters use food, anorectics use the control over food, sex addicts use relationships, intrigue, sex and so on. Continue reading