Please take a look at the following statistic provided by Google trends. It outlines search volumes for different keywords over the past 6 years.
I think this statistic speaks for itself, and little can be added.
Any comments?
Porn > Love + Life + Work + Money
Getting Sober is Like Learning How to Juggle
I have read somewhere that there was a brain study that looked at a group of people who where told to learn how to juggle. After a few months of practice all of the people showed increased amount of tissue that connected their left and right brain. After reading this I decided that juggling could be beneficial for my own health, and decided to learn how to juggle. There was also an emotional attachment to this goal, since juggling was yet another thing that my father was able to do, and I couldn’t seem to pick up as a child. I through I didn’t have the skills for it, but I now understand that I simple expecting to learn it after few days of practicing, and since that didn’t happen I simply gave up.
Since I never was able to juggle, I had a pretty open mind towards the whole experience. I decided to just juggle for a few minutes a day, and see what will happen. I did not see a fast improvement. Some days I would seem to have a break through, only to go back next day to find out that I was not nearly close to the level of performance that I had the day before. I knew that If I were to begin judging my success( or lack) of I would probably quickly learn to hate the activity, just like I did when I was a little kid. But I choose to keep an open mind towards it, and take it as it came. After all what did I have to lose? I already didn’t know how to juggle.
Another thing that I noticed myself doing is looking at my success as a momentary event, forgetting all the work that I had to do in order to get to that point. As a result of that, I have made expectations for the progress that I should have been making. Those were not realistic expectations, and I would soon find myself being disappointed with my progress, which also would lead me to not want to have anything to do with juggling. I would quickly switch from a feeling of experiencing progress, to a feeling that “I was just not meant to juggle”.
In any case, I was able to identify and replace those thought patterns. I would strive to not have any expectations towards juggling, and simply do it because it was fun. I still do it, and I enjoy it. Jugging provides me with a fun way to take a break from my school work.
This morning I have noticed a similarity between my journey towards sobriety and learning how to juggle. In my recovery I would quickly forget the amount of work it took me to get to the certain point. I would assume that just because I had a good week I was cured, forgetting all the work I had to do in order to have that good week. I noticed that it was harder to let go of my expectations for my recovery, because, unlike juggling that is relatively irrelevant towards my overall happiness, failure to achieve certain results in my sobriety could cost me everything that I care about in my life.
Just like with juggling, however, having those negative though patterns added an additional stress and decreased my overall performance. And it is OK. Everything is OK. I am a work in progress and always will be. My definition of sobriety keeps moving away from me, just like horizon. But this is good, because it forces me to keep walking in the right direction. As an old saying goes “If you find yourself walking through hell, keep walking”. I am walking, and even though I still stumble and fall sometimes, I get back up and keep walking. And I hope I will keep walking for the rest of my life, to get as far in the right direction as possible. Life is a journey, and I want my life to be the journey towards happiness, purity, and love.
Since I never was able to juggle, I had a pretty open mind towards the whole experience. I decided to just juggle for a few minutes a day, and see what will happen. I did not see a fast improvement. Some days I would seem to have a break through, only to go back next day to find out that I was not nearly close to the level of performance that I had the day before. I knew that If I were to begin judging my success( or lack) of I would probably quickly learn to hate the activity, just like I did when I was a little kid. But I choose to keep an open mind towards it, and take it as it came. After all what did I have to lose? I already didn’t know how to juggle.
Another thing that I noticed myself doing is looking at my success as a momentary event, forgetting all the work that I had to do in order to get to that point. As a result of that, I have made expectations for the progress that I should have been making. Those were not realistic expectations, and I would soon find myself being disappointed with my progress, which also would lead me to not want to have anything to do with juggling. I would quickly switch from a feeling of experiencing progress, to a feeling that “I was just not meant to juggle”.
In any case, I was able to identify and replace those thought patterns. I would strive to not have any expectations towards juggling, and simply do it because it was fun. I still do it, and I enjoy it. Jugging provides me with a fun way to take a break from my school work.
This morning I have noticed a similarity between my journey towards sobriety and learning how to juggle. In my recovery I would quickly forget the amount of work it took me to get to the certain point. I would assume that just because I had a good week I was cured, forgetting all the work I had to do in order to have that good week. I noticed that it was harder to let go of my expectations for my recovery, because, unlike juggling that is relatively irrelevant towards my overall happiness, failure to achieve certain results in my sobriety could cost me everything that I care about in my life.
Just like with juggling, however, having those negative though patterns added an additional stress and decreased my overall performance. And it is OK. Everything is OK. I am a work in progress and always will be. My definition of sobriety keeps moving away from me, just like horizon. But this is good, because it forces me to keep walking in the right direction. As an old saying goes “If you find yourself walking through hell, keep walking”. I am walking, and even though I still stumble and fall sometimes, I get back up and keep walking. And I hope I will keep walking for the rest of my life, to get as far in the right direction as possible. Life is a journey, and I want my life to be the journey towards happiness, purity, and love.
I am a Pornography Addict, Do I have ADD?
Like many addicts, who were able to break out of their addictive cycle I’ve experienced a tremendous improvement in my life. My personal relationships, my daily commitments, and my self respect all have improved.
Stopping my addiction, however, was only the first of many steps. Shortly after I’ve stopper relying on my addiction to deal with everything that went wrong in my life, I began to notice all kinds of issues rising up to the surface. I now had a lot of free time, so there should have been nothing getting in a way of my success in school, and yet I found myself being unable to concentrate. I tried connecting to others, but found myself feeling shy, and embraced, not knowing what to say. And I began to notice a whole list of discomforts taking place in my life. I began to think that there were some other undealt problems that I was now being aware of. Perhaps all of this was just a consequences of my addiction, but I’ve couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the symptoms that I was experiencing were very similar to the description of ADD. Therefore I approached this issue in my traditional manner - I found one of the best book available on the subject and read it.
The book that I decided to go with this time was Healing ADD (Sponsored Link) by Daniel Amen, partially because the book had great reviews, and partially because I’ve seen some other Dr. Amen works before, and was in favor of his approach and presentation methods. He started out the book explaining that, in his practice he found there were not one but five different types of ADD, based on the different areas of the brain being affected. Than he provided a self guided test that would helped identify if you had ADD, and if yes what kind. Here are some of the items that I’ve scored the highest on:
Dr. Amen goes on to explain various types of ADD in depth by providing brain scans of actual patients, as well as sharing their stories. He also recommends professional diagnosis and medical treatment in combination with other tools used to minimize the impact of ADD on person's life. He makes an argument that any form of self medication, even by the use of legal stimulants like coffee and tobacco, is much more damaging to the brain than the prescribed medication. Yet, like many people, I am not exactly ready to start popping pills even if I were to get officially diagnosed with ADD.
This thought brought me to a new conclusion, I don’t really need to get diagnosed with ADD to get the help that I need. Since the only difference that psychiatrist can provide is medication, and I am not interested in medication, there is no need in the official diagnoses. But since I do have many of the described symptoms, it is logical to assume that trying all the other, “non-intrusive” approaches that are used by ADD patients could also improve my life. Therefore I decided to concentrate only on the “organic” solution to my “ADDish” problems.
Dr.Amen identifies 3 areas of support that need to be worked on to improve lives of ADD patients: Biological, Psychological, and Social.
Biological:
Stopping my addiction, however, was only the first of many steps. Shortly after I’ve stopper relying on my addiction to deal with everything that went wrong in my life, I began to notice all kinds of issues rising up to the surface. I now had a lot of free time, so there should have been nothing getting in a way of my success in school, and yet I found myself being unable to concentrate. I tried connecting to others, but found myself feeling shy, and embraced, not knowing what to say. And I began to notice a whole list of discomforts taking place in my life. I began to think that there were some other undealt problems that I was now being aware of. Perhaps all of this was just a consequences of my addiction, but I’ve couldn’t help but notice that a lot of the symptoms that I was experiencing were very similar to the description of ADD. Therefore I approached this issue in my traditional manner - I found one of the best book available on the subject and read it.
The book that I decided to go with this time was Healing ADD (Sponsored Link) by Daniel Amen, partially because the book had great reviews, and partially because I’ve seen some other Dr. Amen works before, and was in favor of his approach and presentation methods. He started out the book explaining that, in his practice he found there were not one but five different types of ADD, based on the different areas of the brain being affected. Than he provided a self guided test that would helped identify if you had ADD, and if yes what kind. Here are some of the items that I’ve scored the highest on:
- Easily distracted
- Difficulty sustaining attention span
- Trouble listening to others
- Procrastination
- Trouble with time (always late, underestimates time required to complete a task)
- Tired, sluggish, and slow moving
- Talks excessively
- Implosive in words and actions (doesn’t think it through)
- Interrupts others
- Worries excessively
- Strong tendency to get locked into negative thoughts
- Tendency towards compulsive behaviour
- Needs to things be done in a certain way, or gets really upset
- Misinterprets comments as negative when they are not
- Has a history of head injury
- Has low energy
- Socially Isolated
- Frequent feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, or excessive guilt
- Chronic low self esteem
- Has periods of increased talkativeness
- Periods of increased impulsivity
Dr. Amen goes on to explain various types of ADD in depth by providing brain scans of actual patients, as well as sharing their stories. He also recommends professional diagnosis and medical treatment in combination with other tools used to minimize the impact of ADD on person's life. He makes an argument that any form of self medication, even by the use of legal stimulants like coffee and tobacco, is much more damaging to the brain than the prescribed medication. Yet, like many people, I am not exactly ready to start popping pills even if I were to get officially diagnosed with ADD.
This thought brought me to a new conclusion, I don’t really need to get diagnosed with ADD to get the help that I need. Since the only difference that psychiatrist can provide is medication, and I am not interested in medication, there is no need in the official diagnoses. But since I do have many of the described symptoms, it is logical to assume that trying all the other, “non-intrusive” approaches that are used by ADD patients could also improve my life. Therefore I decided to concentrate only on the “organic” solution to my “ADDish” problems.
Dr.Amen identifies 3 areas of support that need to be worked on to improve lives of ADD patients: Biological, Psychological, and Social.
Biological:
- Eliminate Anything Toxic – i.e. drugs, caffeine, nicotine
- Protect your head from injuries ( makes ADD worse)
- Dietary Intervention - Reduce simple carbs, high protein high vegetable diet (Note: There are different dietary recommendations for each time of ADD provided in the book.)
- Intense Aerobic Exercise
- Reduce exposure to any form of Video and Computer Games
- Multivitamins (Note: Once again author only suggest it in combination with medication prescribed by professional)
- Sleep Strategies
- Correcting Automatic Negative Thoughts (ANT’s)
- Breaking up Negative Believe Patterns
- Focused Breathing – the only subconscious bodily function that we can control consciously
- Self Hypnosis
- Dr. Amen provide numerous resources for people with ADD in his book, I believe that I am able to receive similar support from my 12 steps group.
- “All or nothing” thinking -. If I get C on this test I am the worst student ever
- “Always” thinking – She is always yelling at me
- Focusing on the negative – Your thoughts only see bad and ignore any good
- Fortune-telling – Other people WILL laugh at me or think I am stupid
- Mind reading – Those people are mad at me. They don’t like me.
- Thinking with your feelings – I feel that I am stupid, therefore I am stupid
- Guilt Beating – I have to do homework, I must never lie. Whenever we hear must or have to we automatically don’t want to do it
- Labelling – Jerk, nerd, spoiled brat
- Blame others – It wasn’t my fault, how was I supposed to know
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)