{"id":36954,"date":"2024-03-21T15:41:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-21T22:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36954"},"modified":"2024-03-22T05:24:08","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:24:08","slug":"staying-positive-through-the-muck","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/staying-positive-through-the-muck\/","title":{"rendered":"Staying Positive through the Muck"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This text message was from two weeks ago. Doug was my old cellmate (hence his calling me \u201cbunk,\u201d (short for \u201cbunkie\u201d). He just entered rehab (an expensive one at that – $1000.00 a day!!) for the fourth or fifth time. Doug and I shared life together for about two years as bunkmates, or \u201ccellies,\u201d which is what most of us called each other.<\/p>\n

Doug has a terrible meth problem. When he is sober, he is the greatest guy in the world. He is a phenomenal salesman, and everyone who meets him loves him. But he cant shake the meth, He does great for a year or two, makes a ton of money, then disappears into his meth nightmare. When he is at rock bottom, he appears again and wants to be sober. (I actually was wondering if he was still alive after this last runner, as he wouldn\u2019t return any calls or texts).<\/p>\n

As much as I want him to succeed and be healthy again, I don\u2019t think he will be successful. Why? Because he doesn\u2019t believe in God. He is trying to do this without any spiritual awakening or transformation, which is what my NPO is all about. He relies on earthly things to stay sober (like sound baths!). But he is also well aware of the failure rate that is widely talked about and desperately wants accountability and to be sober for good.<\/p>\n

In his book, \u201cWhy Were Wrong About Nearly Everything\u201d, Duffy writes: \u201cOur brains handle negative information differently and store it more readily and accessibly.\u201d[1] He explains that negativity has a greater emotional impact on us than something positive. For Doug not to go back to his drug of choice means that he will have to battle mentally and emotionally all of the negativity that he is exposed to. It is a daunting task. Even though he has a history of successes and has done exceedingly well, he beats himself up for all of his failures and can\u2019t remember the good. There is a huge culture of shame in recovery.<\/p>\n

How does one find comfort and strength when people’s perceptions are against him or her? In the book \u201cBreathing Underwater\u201d, Richard Rohr writes: \u201cTwelve Steppers\u201d sometimes thought they had left the church for the Wednesday night meetings in the basement, and many upstairs in the sanctuary presumed that their \u201chigher\u201d concerns were something different from \u201cthose people with problems\u201d down below.\u201d[2] Sadly, even though every one of us has an addiction of some sort, people tend to look down on people in recovery, and the ones that should (key word) have the right answers – Christians – just don\u2019t know what to do with the people \u201cdown in the basement.\u201d<\/p>\n

A newcomer walks through the door feeling pretty broken. There is safety in those rooms. There are no preconceived thoughts, no biases, no expectations. There is only love and acceptance in the halls of AA and all the other \u201cA\u201d\u2019s. In those rooms, there is hope, and that all changes once they walk out the door.<\/p>\n

Hope is all people in recovery have. Hope to never drink or use again. Hope they will be able to change their lives for the better. Hope for better relationships. Hope is not easy when there are such biases against them. Duffy writes of the \u201cnew optimism\u201d movement that balances out the negative biases – \u201cto encourage more action, by countering an overblown sense that all is already lost.\u201d[3] It is hard to stay positive when the life that you left behind you is in shatters and ruins. How do we journey with people struggling to break free from addictions? Treat them like the normal people that they are and just be there for them.<\/p>\n

I know this post does not cover all the main points of Duffy\u2019s book. I do understand what he wrote about – cognitive biases, misunderstandings, statistical influences, and algorithms that keep the reader in a bubble, but TBH, it goes into areas that I struggle with personally in politics, so I chose to take it in a different direction.\u00a0But I also see the injustices that people in recovery go through because of the same misconceptions and biases that the world has perceived against them. I felt it was a good book to convey what I have witnessed.<\/p>\n

BTW – Doug leaves the rehab center next week. Please keep him in your prayers. Thank you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

1 Bobby Duffy. Why We\u2019re Wrong about Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/i>. (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 111<\/p>\n

2 Richard Rohr. Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps<\/i>. (St. Anthony Messenger Press. Kindle Edition. 2011), Loc 5<\/p>\n

3 Bobby Duffy. Why We\u2019re Wrong about Nearly Everything: A Theory of Human Misunderstanding<\/i>. (New York: Basic Books, 2019), 205<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This text message was from two weeks ago. Doug was my old cellmate (hence his calling me \u201cbunk,\u201d (short for \u201cbunkie\u201d). He just entered rehab (an expensive one at that – $1000.00 a day!!) for the fourth or fifth time. Doug and I shared life together for about two years as bunkmates, or \u201ccellies,\u201d which […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36954","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","cohort-dlgp03"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/201"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36954"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36996,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36954\/revisions\/36996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}