Expert: Joseph Lee O. - 9/15/2006

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Hi Lee
At the moment i am at a pretty low point in life. My boyfriend just broke up with me because of the way i behave when we are in social situations. I drink too much and never want to go home when it is time. This is not the first relationship that has ended as a consequence to my drinking. I do not drink every day or even every weekend, but when i do drink i drink excessive amounts. I drink to get drunk. I think the underlying problem is my self esteem and i used to suffer from extreme anxiety attacks which i thought i had under control by prescription antidepressents. It has controlled my anxiety to a point but i still drink alcohol when i go out. I have alot of self doubt and bad self image, even tho i know that i am very pretty, if i cant look into a mirror to reashure myself then i forget and become unconfident. I have lost alot of friends, my family do not invite me out in social situations and this has ended many other relationships too. I am in the process of establishing a business but keep putting it off due to my lack of confidence even tho i know i will be very successful. Its like i have two thought waves at all times, there is the confident me that is ready to take on the world and then there is the part of me that gives me doubt and holds me back. I have alot of guilt and i dont like who i am at times. I really want help for my problem. Awaiting your reply. Natalie

Answer -
Greetings to you, Natalie, and I can definitely identify with you.

If you were to ever have a professional, mental-health assessment, you would likely be diagnosed “bi-polar”.  I say that because of this you have shared:

“Its like i have two thought waves at all times, there is the confident me that is ready to take on the world and then there is the part of me that gives me doubt and holds me back.”

Personally, I have the very same kind of life experience.  Years ago I was diagnosed as “manic-depressive”, an older term for “bi-polar”.  “Depressed maniac” later became a self-deprecating expression I would use for trying to get others (as well as myself) to laugh and forget when they were annoyed or even angry with me, and today, looking back, I do still sometimes refer to myself as an ego-maniac with an inferiority complex.  Like you, I sometimes believed I was able to take on the world, so to speak, but then there were also times when just getting out of bed could be an overwhelming challenge, let alone leaving the house.

I was in my early twenties when I took my first drink of alcohol, and the effect it gave me is something I will never forget.  Where alcohol gives some people an uneasy, out-of-control feeling, my very first glass of wine gave me exactly the opposite.  Over twenty years of an uneasiness I did not even know I had suddenly began to melt away, and I soon began to suspect I had just found an elixir that could transform me and keep me strong, confident and successful for the rest of my life.

The specifics of your own experience and your emotions or feelings at one time or another might not be precisely the same as mine, but like you, I eventually began to realize things were not really turning out as I had hoped or believed they would or should.  Sometimes alcohol could still pick me up and get me going again, but more and more I drank to escape my overall feelings of despair.

While all of that was going on, I was also slowly finding out that my drinking was going out of control.  Where I had used to be able to have just a few (as when around certainly family members and so on), now I was getting drunk even when I had consciously decided to not go so far.  Maybe you have already heard this, but that is one symptom that all real alcoholics eventually find they have in common: we cannot start drinking without losing control over how much we drink, and the reason for that has to do with a certain chemistry or “chemical reaction” that takes place in our brains during abnormally slow digestion.

You have shared quite a bit about being at a low point in life, with issues related to behaviour, broken relationships, self-esteem, anxiety, depression, self-doubt, self-image, lack of confidence, doubt, guilt and dislike of self, and I am actually quite impressed by your overall self-awareness and willing candor.  Here is something I first read several years ago that pretty much summed things up for me when I could finally take no more:

“We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy [and] we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people ...”

... and like you, I was not afraid to say I really wanted help for my problem.

My first problem at that time, however, was that I actually had no idea what my real problem actually was ... and if you are willing, that is something we might talk about.  In my own case, I had come to a point where I knew my drinking would eventually kill me, and I did not want my two young daughters that I had already abandoned to be further devastated by having to bury a drunken father.  However, I am sure those particular details of part of my own situation in my own time of desperation are quite different from your own.

Going back to this thought:

“We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy [and] we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people ...”

... here is an overview of how I finally got out of my own mess:

“If a mere code of morals or a better philosophy of life [as offered by so-called ‘professional help’] were sufficient ... many of us would have recovered long ago.  But we found that such codes and philosophies did not save us, no matter how much we tried.  We could wish to be moral, we could wish to be philosophically comforted, in fact, we could will these things with all our might, but the needed power wasn't there.  Our human resources, as marshalled by the will, were not sufficient; they failed utterly.
Lack of power, that was our dilemma.  We had to find a power by which we could live ...”

“... we saw that it really worked in others, and we had come to believe in the hopelessness and futility of life as we had been living it.  When, therefore, we were approached by those in whom the problem had been solved, there was nothing left for us but to pick up the simple kit of spiritual tools laid at our feet ...”

What we are talking about here, Natalie, is a spiritual manner of living that truly resolves our dilemmas and solves our problems.  While going through the overall learning process myself, I came to understand what makes us tick, so to speak, and other people too, why we have difficulties with other people and what to do about that, and how to find true satisfaction of our natural instincts.  Along the way, I was shown how to deal with disappointment, frustration, anger, fear and so on, and I learned about being “right-sized”, so to speak, in my own mind as well as in and among this world and the people all around us.

Would learning to live by spiritual principles interest you, or do you believe there might be some other way to get whatever help you might believe you need?

Hoping to hear from you again ...

Joe

Hi Joe,
Thank you for your prompt reply. I had sent the same original message to a few different 'experts' on this web site. They all had good advise like attending AA etc, but no one else suggested a bi-polar disorder and living by spiritual principals. I am extremely interested in to learn more about this. I am not sure whether you are refering to religious spiritual principals but i certainly am open to any suggestions. I am very sceptical, although I do not want to be, but usually with me if i cant see it i dont believe it. Once again i know what i believe even though it is not what i want to believe, if that makes any sence. For example; I believe in the evolution of man, rather than a God that created man. I wish i believed in God and have something to look forward to after death, but i know i wont ever believe, i like the bible, i think that it has good morals for life but thats all i think it is, just a rule book to keep the world sane. another example: i sometimes think how big the universe is... I know this sounds crazy... but i question alot of things, even though I know that i will never see or know how big the universe is, i still try to comprehend it. So if the universe in incomprehensive then maybe there are other things that are incomprehensive like God and spiritual things, i want to believe that seeing is not always believing. Thats what i want but i just cant comprehend that either! Wow I really do sound crazy... I hope you can make some sence of this.
Anyway to sum it all up I would be very willing and greatful to hear all you have to say.
Waiting your reply
Natalie


Answer -
Greetings again, Natalie, and please know your candor and your willing open-mindedness are refreshing!

Many thoughts roll through my mind as I sit here and ponder our correspondence so far, and yes, I can definitely “make sense of” – understand – the things you are saying ... kind of like “it takes one to know one” or “one knows another” or something along that kind of “birds of a feather” line, I believe.

Your sending the same inquiry to several people is certainly consistent with the so-called “bi-polar” deal – “my pain (or at least my curiosity or need to know) is sufficient to cause me to unashamedly cry out before the world”, so to speak – and your being “extremely interested” in a single response standing somewhat apart from the others is an indication of your adventurous spirit.  Somewhere along with all of that, however, is a certain vulnerability that must be both embraced (by yourself) and covered (as through protection offered for you), and that protection or “safety” for you (or for anyone, actually) can ultimately be found in only believing and/or trusting anyone or anything actually proved good and right through your own personal experience.

Preferring conversation over monologue, please allow me to respond to your letter in this way:

You have written ...

>> ... no one else suggested a bi-polar disorder and living by spiritual principals.

Asked with a wink: Where did you get the idea “bi-polar” is a disorder, eh?!  “Bi-polar”, in and of itself, is no more of a disorder than is stereo, and it can even be just as impressive as stereo when the two sides are congruous and synchronized, or at least not in conflict (as when different things are being played simultaneously).  But if the processor is poorly programmed, confused or outright defective, only a cacophony can be heard anywhere and all around.  And as you might have already guessed, or course, or even if not, it is my report (from personal experience) that learning to live by spiritual principles can drive dissonance away and bring melodious harmony from virtually any size or configuration of system!

>> I am extremely interested in to learn more about this.  I am not sure whether you are referring to religious spiritual principals ...

The two primary realms – spiritual and physical – include their respective sets of principles – spiritual and physical – but the existences of those principles is dependent upon neither religion nor science.  In other words, we are talking about spiritual principles in their purity found outside of traditional (handed down) religion.

>> I am very skeptical, although I do not want to be ...

Someone first shared this with me many years ago:

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is [seeming] proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man [or woman] in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." - Herbert Spencer

There is nothing wrong with being skeptical even while investigating, and a mere willingness to ultimately embrace truth revealed can keep prior contempt away.

>> but usually with me if i cant see it i dont believe it.

My suggestion about “only believing and/or trusting anyone or anything actually proved good and right through your own personal experience” also relates there.  Truth reveals itself both beyond and even in spite of mere belief.  Yet at the same time, you already have a certain capacity or ability for “faith”, as such – you are at least willing to believe without having yet actually seen – or we would not be having this conversation about an otherwise ambiguous solution.

>> I wish i believed in God and have something to look forward to after death, but i know i wont ever believe ...

Are you truly quite sure you already know for certain you would never believe that even after actually “waking up over there”, wherever?!  Ponder a child in the womb for a moment ...

What do you suppose an unborn child might say upon hearing your report of “life after the womb”?  My point here is not to insist there truly is something good beyond death, but to wonder why we might still believe such a thing impossible even after learning of our (imagined) ignorance while we were yet in the womb.

>> i like the bible, i think that it has good morals for life but thats all i think it is, just a rule book to keep the world sane.

Sanity is certainly an issue here, and the principles behind those “rules” are what we are talking about.

>> i sometimes think how big the universe is... I know this sounds crazy... but i question alot of things, even though I know that i will never see or know how big the universe is, i still try to comprehend it. So if the universe in incomprehensive then maybe there are other things that are incomprehensive like God and spiritual things, i want to believe that seeing is not always believing.

Today I can believe things I cannot see without first having to comprehend them, and actually, comprehending that we cannot always comprehend things is at times quite reassuring when incomprehensible things seem nevertheless believable when the preponderance of evidence seems to clearly point in a given direction ... or something like that.

>> Anyway to sum it all up I would be very willing and greatful to hear all you have to say.

What would you say is your single biggest or most troubling struggle, problem, dilemma or difficulty in life?

Peace to you ...

Joe

Hi Joe,

Ill give you some background information about myself that you dont yet know.
I am 24, I have a 2 1/2 year old son, I am married but seperated for the last 2 years, I completed year 12 in 2000, I joined the Royal Aust Navy in 2002 and discharged in 2005. I have completed dozens of TAFE courses and I have a registered business that I am working on before I plan to launch it in Feb 07. Any way thats abit about me. Oh yeah, im a virgo, so that explains it all...hehe...

By the way as mentioned in my first email that my boyfriend broke up with me, I explained that the person i am when i drink is not me and not who i want to be and that i want to change for myself and not to change just for him (which is the truth) and he understood and wants to be with me to help me on this journey of self discovery.

I do not really understand what you are saying specifically about spiritual principals or what it is, but im sure im coming closer to an answer. My mum suggested you might be from a religious group like jahova witness or something.

Anyway to answer your question

"What would you say is your single biggest or most troubling struggle, problem, dilemma or difficulty in life?"

This is difficult to pin down to one. So ill brainstorm and try to narrow it down.

Lack of confidence in my relationships resulting in failed relationships

Occasional uncontrollable binge drinking

Lack of confidence in myself and appearance

The want to have such strong values that i can just follow instinctively

The need to proove myself to others

To be better than I am

The need to have material things

Guilt of not being a better mother than i am

The need to be right.

Ok There are more but i guess this is what sticks out. So to narrow it down i guess i would say that;

I struggle with keeping up with the expectations i expect from myself and the need to prove myself to others.

I think thats my biggest life issue.

Natalie

Answer -
Hello again, Natalie.

I had suspected you are about half my age, but you are not yet actually quite there ... and the reason I sometimes wonder about that kind of thing has to do with trying to share in ways they can actually be heard.  Without presuming to replace anyone in anyone's life, I sometimes do nevertheless try to imagine how a sibling (possibly older) or some other family member or friend might respond ... and in this setting, I kind of see myself as that old guy across the pond!

If you do not mind my asking, what are "TAFE courses"?

...

The first thing I am saying about spiritual principles is that they exist both apart from and even in spite of what most people think of as "religion".  And as learned through my own experience, religions often (or at least occasionally) misrepresent or even misuse those otherwise pure and immutable truths, laws, and absolutes or "principles" by which we might actually and fulfillingly experience life as originally intended.

Your mother's thought about my possibly being connected to a religious group of some sort is certainly understandable, and there are varieties of labels people use that might actually come close either at or on one point or another.  I was raised "in the country" (outside of town) in a conservative Christian home, and I have since learned many things even from people of far-different persuasions.  However, and usually only when specifically asked, I now only mean to practice this:

"Clean and undefiled religion before the Elohim and Father is this: to visit (help) orphans and widows in their (times of (even spiritual)) affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." (James 1:27)

"Let us hear the conclusion of the entire matter: Fear Elohim (who created us) and guard (keep) his commands (obey Him in worship), for this [is] the whole [duty] of man." (Ecclesiastes 12:13)

In response to my question about things that trouble you, you included mention of this:

>> Occasional uncontrollable binge drinking

At any point you might want to know exactly what I am doing here and/or why, just ask and I will tell you ...

Question: What, if anything, might you like to do (or to have done) either about or in relation to your occasional uncontrollable binge drinking?

In my own case, this following summary of certain facts about myself and others like myself eventually became inescapable:

"... the action of alcohol on [certain people] is a manifestation of an allergy ... [a] phenomenon of craving [that] is limited to this class and never occurs in the average temperate drinker."

"... drinking to overcome a craving beyond their mental control."

"... they cannot start drinking without developing the phenomenon of craving.  This phenomenon ... may be the manifestation of an allergy which differentiates these people, and sets them apart as a distinct entity.  It has never been, by any treatment with which [anyone is] familiar, permanently eradicated.  The only relief [for that phenomenon] ... is entire abstinence."

"[When sober, certain people are] restless, irritable and discontented, unless they can again experience the sense of ease and comfort which comes at once by taking a few drinks - drinks which they see others taking with impunity.  After they have succumbed to the desire again, as so many do, and the phenomenon of craving develops, they pass through the well-known stages of a spree, emerging remorseful, with a firm resolution not to drink again.  This is repeated over and over, and unless this person can experience an entire psychic change there is very little hope of his [or her] recovery."

Peace to you ...

Joe


Hi Joe,

TAFE courses are tertiary courses, additional courses after secondary school. TAFE award 'diplomas' instead of university 'degrees'. I guess it is not as advanced as attending university but it has Australia wide studied acceptance. I think that is the best way to describe it.

Are you from Australia?

>>>In response to my question about things that trouble you, you included mention of this:

Occasional uncontrollable binge drinking

At any point you might want to know exactly what I am doing here and/or why, just ask and I will tell you ...

Ok please tell me :)

>>>Question: What, if anything, might you like to do (or to have done) either about or in relation to your occasional uncontrollable binge drinking?

Well ideally i would like to be able to control myself and the amount i drink. But i do not trust that i can do this. So i guess i just have to stop

Thanks

Natalie

Answer
Hello again, Natalie.

No, I am not from Australia, but I did once at least think about moving there.  When the trouble in my first marriage many years ago became overwhelming and I was facing a consequence for a retaliatory action I had taken, someone suggested what could be called “a geographical cure” for (or escape from) my woes and even offered to provide a one-way plane ticket.  I once heard a song along that line: “I thought about running, but where could I go?  Wherever I went, I’d take me!”  The idea of moving to Australia was appealing, but I knew a troubled me could not escape myself and that someone would soon again suggest I move elsewhere!

As to “exactly what I am doing here and/or why” ...

These thoughts are presently laying in the back of my mind:

“When you discover a prospect for [spiritual recovery], find out all you can about him [or her].  If [s/he] does not want to stop drinking, don't waste time trying to persuade ...  You may spoil a later opportunity.”

In other words, I am trying to discover as much as I can about you as a young woman who might at least be a potential alcoholic.  Along the way, I am also trying to suggest that the help you will need if you do prove to be a real alcoholic is spiritual and not religious.  Then, I am also looking to uncover your “desire” for one thing or another of your own choosing and to see about the possibility of your eventual “willingness” to do whatever might be required.  Simply put: I am trying to be a kind of helpful friend few of us ever find.

You have shared (in part): “ideally i would like to be able to control myself ... But i do not trust that i can do this.”  And yes, I do realize it might not have been your conscious intent to say precisely or only that.  Nevertheless ...

To avoid pressing you for anything here, I would simply report to you that my own spiritual recovery was first dependent upon an admission of my inability to do (or to bring about) the object of my desire.  In my own time, and as you have mentioned, I wanted to be able to “control myself”.  I wanted to be able to be energetic and enthusiastic without going “manic”, and I wanted to be able to be somber and serious whenever necessary without ending up “depressed”.  There was nothing I could do about being bi-polar, but something surely needed to be done about the unpredictability of my “mood swings” from one “pole” to the other and the extremes to which they could easily go.  In my worst of times I could either not go out of the house or else not stand even the thought of going home.

There is just soooo much we can talk about here, but the bottom line is that people like us – talking about “bi-polar” at the moment – need something outside of ourselves to at times keep us “in check”, “balanced”, “properly tensioned”, “rightly tuned” or however that might best be said.  Diesel engines always have external throttles to control their speeds, but they also have external starters to get them going (out of “depression”) in the first place along with any of a variety of external dampers or stops for when their internal dynamics might go “manic” and cause them to rev beyond their safe limits and into scattered-and-splattered oblivion.

Point: With “humility” being the first principle involved – admitting our need for something external – people like us can ultimately be just fine.

Even if you and I never spent another moment discussing anything about drinking, the above could still be summarized in this:

“We admitted we were powerless – that we could not manage our own lives.”

To wit:

“We were having trouble with personal relationships, we couldn't control our emotional natures, we were a prey to misery and depression, we couldn't make a living, we had a feeling of uselessness, we were full of fear, we were unhappy, we couldn't seem to be of real help to other people ...”

And of course, those were often some of my biggest reasons for drinking!

You have also shared (in part): “ideally i would like to be able to control ... the amount i drink. But i do not trust that i can do this.”

Later on we might discuss why I would never recommend your getting involved in today’s AA.  For now, however, I would share this with you from the original:

“Most of us have been unwilling to admit we were real alcoholics.  No person likes to think he is bodily and mentally different from his fellows.  Therefore, it is not surprising that our drinking careers have been characterized by countless vain attempts to prove we could drink like other people.  The idea that somehow, someday [s/he] will [again] control and enjoy his [or her] drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker.  The persistence of this illusion is astonishing.  Many pursue it into the gates of insanity or death.”

Just as ducks waddle and quack regardless of how badly they might desire to do otherwise, alcoholics drink and then drink out of control.  Penguins do waddle and they occasionally fall down, but they do not quack and they are therefore not ducks ... and there must be a point in there somewhere, eh?!

Again: The idea that somehow, someday [s/he] will [again] control and enjoy his [or her] drinking is the great obsession of every abnormal drinker ... [even] into the gates of insanity (organic brain syndrome (‘wet brain’)) or death.”

It is not my intent to label you “alcoholic”, but to simply point out that our kind of drinking in not the experience of those silly penguins, or non-abnormal drinkers that occasionally waddle all around us.  In the early days of my own drinking – I had my first drink at your present age – I only ever drank just as little or as much as desired or offered or available or whatever, and I was able to do that for at least the first year or two.  At some point along the way to my alcoholic grave, however, first other people and then eventually I began to see there was something different about my drinking: once I got started, I could not stop.  Near the end of my particular drinking career, I often just stared at the bottle while trying to “look inside” either it or myself, wondering just what in the world was going on.

Again from the original A.A.:

“We do not like to pronounce any individual as alcoholic, but you can quickly diagnose yourself.  Step over to the nearest barroom and try some controlled drinking.  Try to drink and stop abruptly.  Try it more than once.  It will not take long for you to decide, if you are honest with yourself about it.  It may be worth a bad case of jitters if you get a full knowledge of your condition.”

You have shared (in part): “But i do not trust that i can do this.”

Only you can prove that to yourself one way or the other, and I would not argue with either conclusion you might draw.  But if/when you do recognize the above as a truth about yourself, the rest of the story here is that neither can any real alcoholic do this:

>> “So i guess i just have to stop”

However, and again: Spiritual recovery can begin upon an admission of inability to do what one might desire.

Leaving those thoughts to ponder until next time ...

Joe