Staying Clean and Sober in The Everyday World

We talked about denial yesterday.  Today we will discuss isolation and an addict uses it to his/her advantage.  Isolation occurs when an addict cuts off ties with their family and friends who do not use.  We do that for a very good reason.  sometimes we have more than one reason.  For me I cut off ties with my mother and my daughter while I was using.  As a matter of fact if a person was not an addict I usually did not have much to say to them in any way unless I was trying to get money or something from them.

I stopped calling my mom right away when I started using.  My mom always had an uncanny way of knowing when something was wrong with me and she was quick to tell me so.  I did not want to hear that I was in the wrong.  Very simply, if I do not call her she can not tell me how disappointed she is in me or how I need to come home or how I need to get help.  Consequently I only called her when I was straight which was when I was in jail or had just gotten out.  she came to love jail for me because she knew I was safe in there.

When I got clean I started calling her regularly and reconnecting with her.  We isolate to protect ourselves and our loved ones.  We are trying to protect them by not letting them see just how far down we have gone.  We do not want to hurt or disappoint them.  I avoided my daughter because I knew she was ashamed of me and embarrassed by me.  It took a long time to repair that relationship.

This post is making me cry because we really do not realize just how much we hurt our families until we have some clean and sober time.   Being able to see that now hurts.  We addicts are very selfish while we are using.  Isolation keeps us from having to face reality.  We use to escape reality in the beginning and we continue to use because it is our new reality.  Seeing our friends and family reminds us of another reality that we are not ready or willing to face during our time of using.

I want to mention that defense mechanisms are used by everyone everyday.  Just as with every thing else, we addicts tend to take it to the extreme.  If you think about it you have used some kind of defense mechanism today.  I will be posting several more of these over the next few days.  Learning how to use these in a constructive and appropriate way is one of the most difficult things we do.  Most addicts suffer from obsession tendencies.  Which just means that we prefer things in excess.  Moderate is not in our vocabulary.

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