If you never explore your addiction then it's like having a room in your house that remains locked and forbidden. It grows haunted after a while. The best way to battle your addiction is in the light where everyone else can see it too. At least, I think I can manage the slippery slopes of addiction now that I'm older. I don't get too excited about much these days.
“It's OK to drink beer,” my beer buddies say. But everything is a joke to them.
Beer is amiable, agreeable, and accepting of even the darkest aspects of ourselves. It makes others look too. We become less judgmental and more humorous while under its influence. Beer is especially good at lightening up the mood so that we can see things more optimistically as it brings us courage and laughter in the face of adversity.
In the morning it beats us up with reality. Alcohol is a depressant after all. I appreciate the downhill crash sometimes because it realigns me to set up a new path, to make changes, and to get better. It tells me about my faults like only a true friend would do.
Beer is like an easygoing buddy who is always there for me no matter what. I gave up alcohol many times before but it's always beer who keeps bringing me back. It's insidious how fun it is.
It is time to quit again. It's just not a sustainable way to keep going. Having a vacation in a bottle or going away on vacation gives the same results after a while. Too much wasted time. It weakens the body and mind although at first it renews the spirit. There are benefits to taking a vacation so long as you can afford it. I'm pretty much taxed out and need to get back to my center homebase.
Everything in Moderation. -Pythagoras
I have what Dobrowski called, “Overexcitabilities”. I find moderation through extremes. It's a better way of describing ADHD. According to Dowbrowski theory of Overexcitabilities OE:
There are five forms of overexcitability. These five forms are psychomotor, sensual, emotional, imaginational and intellectual.
Psychomotor: OE is a heightened excitability of the neuromuscular system. This manifests itself in a capacity for being active and energetic, a love of movement, a surplus of energy and an actual need for physical action.
Sensual: OE is an intensified experience of any type of sensual pleasure or displeasure emanating from one of the five senses, i.e. sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. It manifests as an increased appreciation of aesthetic pleasure such as music, language, and art, and delight from tastes, smells, textures, sounds, and sights. Conversely, extreme pain and disgust are experienced upon exposure to sensations perceived as unpleasant.
Intellectual: OE manifests itself as an extreme desire to seek understanding and truth, to gain knowledge, and to analyse and categorise information. Those high in Intellectual OE are commonly seen as intellectually gifted and have incredibly active minds. They are intensely curious, avid readers and keen observers. They frequently love thinking purely for the sake of thinking.
Imaginational: OE manifests as an intensified play of the imagination, causing a rich association of images, invention, fantasy, use of imagery and metaphor and elaborate dreams and visions. Often children high in Imaginational OE do not differentiate between truth and fiction, or are absorbed in their own private world with imaginary companions and dramatizations.
Emotional: OE is characterised by heightened, intense feelings, extreme experience of complex emotions, identification with others' feelings to the point of actual experience and strong sentimental expression. Other indications include physical response to emotional stimuli such as stomachaches when nervous and obsessive concern with death and depression. Emotionally overexcitable people have a strong capacity for deep relationships; they show strong emotional attachments to people, places, and things. They are empathetic, compassionate and extremely sensitive.
According to Dąbrowski, a person who manifests any given form of overexcitability and especially one who manifests several forms of overexcitability sees reality in a different, stronger and more multisided manner.
I have a theory that ADHD or OE brains are more prone to addiction disorders. Because we feel so much more intensity in everything we tend to overindulge, shifting gears is harder to do because you're having so much fun. So you overdo it and they call that “abusive”.
When the risks outweigh the benefits, that's when we need to stop. The question is, where do we draw the line? I read about the benefits of beer in this podcast: “Fermenting Revolution”, by Christopher Mark O'Brien. He says that beer can save the world. I agree. Beer can potentially save the world or it might just make us crazy enough to think we can.
Brainbow Podcast:
I think that if we can figure out how to self-regulate and monitor our own thoughts, emotions, and behaviors then we can figure out how to heal or overcome whatever drives us toward addiction disorders. Healing is evolution!
Thank you for reading Brainbow! 💜🧡💛❤💚💙