Tag Archives: addiction

Stress, Addiction, Humility, and the “Stolen Identity Incident”

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Stress, Addiction, and the “Stolen Identity Incident”

Dateline: San Antonio River Walk International Branch Office. One block over, on March 6, 1836, all the well-armed and well-dressed Mexicans in the world, stormed the Alamo killing everyone inside.  Newspapers in the weeks following ran stories encouraging settlers to “Come on down!” As one of those news articles in the Texas State Library says, “Texas is still a great opportunity for you and your family. The report claiming that the men in the Alamo were killed is a false rumor, propaganda sent out by politicians.”  Sigh. Things haven’t changed much.

In thinking about stress management and addiction, I realized it was time for the periodic pledge, the pledge that can eliminate loads of stress right off the top.

The pledge: I can be as big an idiot as anyone else. Even as big an idiot as the people I’m calling idiots. Whew. What a relief not to have to go through the world upset when people don’t do things the way I do, or more honestly, the way I think they should do them.

My special person and I were married in Mexico City and before you pull up lofty visions of the “destination” weddings where the couple or parents rent a hotel for a weekend and fly in two hundred of their closest friends to Paris or Tahiti, the event included the Registro Civil, the two of us, and the taxi driver as a witness.  He was a graduate student and I was a college junior though not the typical age of that group due to several spectacular detours.

In other words. We had no money. Before our big adventure,we embraced our American citizenship and took out a Mastercard. The trip was great, Acapulco, villages, historicalcities. A good time was had by all. The trouble started when we received our Mastercard bill which was a huge amount way beyond our own frugal spending.Clearly, the credit card number had been stolen and whoever took it charged everythingin sight knowing once they were caught the party was over.

Incensed, we marched down to the bank issuing the card and met with the head of the fraud department who was very sympathetic and assured us the bank would help find the culprit. All we had to do was sit down at the computer screen and review the charges marking the ones we did not make. Much relieved we set to work. Thirty minutes later we waited until the fraud director was away from her desk, then we ducked our heads and sneaked quietly to the elevator and out of there.

Repeat after me: “I can be as big an idiot…”

For those who honestly believe they are not subject to all the craziness of being human, there’s always Dr.Laura who knows all.

For me, it’s a comfort to recognize we’re all nuts.

Addiction, It Takes Two…Stress and Addiction, Final Episode

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Dateline: San Antonio River Walk Patio Branch Office. Jennifer Lopez stood on the nearby bridge during the making of Selena.

If you are new the story of Mr. and Mrs. Travis, Catch up with Episode One, Episode Two, and Episode Three. When the next football season came around, Mrs. Travis was the one with symptoms. She’d gained thirty pounds in the past year, had trouble sleeping, and was short-tempered with the children. Mr. Travis didn’t know what was wrong with his wife.

The cell phone in the garage and weekend depressions returned. Five days before Mrs. Travis came into my office, she had discovered a second mortgage had been taken out on their house without her knowledge and a piece of lake property had been sold. The phone rang all day with people either hanging up when she answered or demanding to speak with Mr. Travis. The mailbox was stuffed with gambling tip sheets for sale.

At the time of her appointment, Mr. Travis had been in Los Angeles for a week for continuing education and was due back in three days.

Mrs. Travis asked what she should do. I looked up at the stars. We put a family diagram together including three generations. As it turned out Mrs. Travis, one of four children, had grown up next door to her maternal grandparents, an important detail. When Mrs. Travis was around ten, her father landed an incredible job opportunity tripling the family income. After several years with extra money, the family had a chance to move from the cramped and falling down house they’d bought from the wife’s parents. Everyone was excited and when an ideal house was found, the family bubbled with plans.  Then, Mrs. Travis’s mother told her parents about the plan.

Mrs. Travis, then a young teen, did not know what was said at her grandparents’ house, but heard the all night discussion of her parents. Mrs. Travis’s position was that she couldn’t move away from her parents, that her mother had been hysterical and crying with the “good” news. Her father was angry and said he felt trapped, that the little house was supposed to be temporary and, by the way, he wanted out from under the thumb of his mother-in-law. Mother countered with crying and desperation, admitting she also wanted to move. Her father pleaded with her to “for one time in her life” stand up to her mother and stick with the plan to move.  She didn’t and the family was never quite the same. Her father died of lung cancer several years later. While Mrs. Travis didn’t know if the stress of staying under her grandmother’s thumb contributed to the cancer, but she did know that his last months were unpleasant and sad with his mother-in-law constantly butting in to his treatment. Mrs. Travis remembered her father saying, “Your grandmother finally gets what she wants. She has her little girl back one hundred percent.”

When asked what might have turned out differently if her mother had been able to tell her mother “no,” Mrs. Travis let out a long sigh. “I’ve got some things to do,” she said, and left.

Having a Self and Stress

Here’s what she did, all her own plan. The next day she halved all assets and debts the family had in all accounts, including retirement funds. She called the mortgage company and arranged a re-finance for the next week. She applied for and landed a job as a manager of a pizza franchise blocks from the house.

She met Mr. Travis at the airport and suggested a drink in the airport bar to hear about his trip. She wasn’t angry at all. She was calm and greatly empowered by letting go of her crusade to get her husband to change. In fact, as she told Mr. Travis, from here on out she wasn’t going to interfere with his freedom at all. He could gamble or not, not her business anymore. She wasn’t anxious because she’d taken care of herself. She told him what she’d done with their accounts and that she would be paying the mortgage, leaving him responsible for the mortgage. She told him she had a full time job, but knowing she needed some money to start, she had accepted the penalties and withdrawn several thousand dollars from her IRA.

Mr. Travis spoke up angrily with the IRA news. He said, “That was a horrible financial decision. Paying early withdrawal fees is throwing money away!”

Mrs. Travis simply stared quietly until he picked up on the irony. She explained she still loved him and hoped they would be back together some day, but, for now, he was not welcome in the house. Mrs. Travis said, it was not personal, but she did not want to live with someone who did not tell the truth.

Maybe he would one day be a man true to his word, maybe not. Up to him.

She closed saying Mr. Travis would have to make do with what was in his luggage for tonight. He could collect whatever else he needed tomorrow. Mr. Travis said, “Hey! How am I supposed to get home?” She told him again how much she loved him and that she was sure he could figure out a way.

Mrs. Travis kissed her husband, smiled, and was gone. She wasn’t alone though. She had her “self” back.

Stress, Love, and Las Vegas, Episode Three

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Dateline: Palacio Del Rio International Branch Headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. I once had breakfast here with Jerry Seinfeld. Okay, he was in this restaurant at the same time I was.

In order to understand the plight of Mr.and Mrs.Travis, it is necessary to read Episode One and Episode Two.

As we return to the couple, life has been good through the spring and summer. There were times when Mr. Travis seemed a bit distracted, but not often. Starting at the beginning of the summer, Mr. Travis changed a few of his habits. He stayed up until after Mrs. Travis was in bed. His interest in family activities dropped off and he now often talked on his cell phone in the garage.

Mid-October Mr. Travis mentioned that he’d gone over his company expense account daily allowances and he needed $300.00 by tomorrow. Mrs. Travis felt a flutter, but having no proof that he was betting again, she decided a good wife would trust her husband and said nothing.

When he came up with a second reason for taking out a cash advance on the credit card, Mrs. Travis asked him if he was back with the bookie. He answered with a question,”What kind of a person are you?” And Mrs. Travis went blind and crossed her fingers.

Apparently crossing your fingers isn’t the same as having the courage to talk about reality, as being a “self”. By November Mr. Travis was openly hostile most of the time. His weekends were spent watching the scores ticker on ESPN.

Sometimes though he was happy and making plans for family vacations in the summer. Disneyworld and Yellowstone he promised the kids.

By December, Mr. Travis had decided that his wife was a controlling nag. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed how she tried to run his life. The women at his office treated him nicely. His evening drinking picked up and he started early on weekends.

When Mrs. Travis tried to use her credit card on Christmas presents she learned that both cards were consideralby over the limit.

The fight that night ended with Mr. Travis saying he wanted a separation, and leaving the house. This terrified Mrs. Travis. Her brother-in-law and sister had a “separation” and were now in an ugly divorce.

The next morning, Mrs. Travis apologized and asked what she could do to make things better. Mr. Travis admitted how much he enjoyed betting on sports, that, if fact, that was the only time he felt “alive.” He assured her that he’d come out a winner by the end of the season.

Mr. Travis suggested that Mrs. Travis, instead of acting like his mother, join him in the fun. This would improve their distant marriage. When she refused Mr. Travis yelled, “Okay, then. The bankrupcy in this family will be your fault! I have some sure winners this weekend that will make me more than even.

That weekend, Mrs. Travis called the bookie for Mr. Travis who didn’t want to speak to him because he was so far in debt to him.

When recalling that weekend she said, “I was standing in a phone booth because my husband said because if certain people recognized the home number bad things would happen. I stared out at the street thinking, ‘How did this happen? When did I quit being a person? Quit being myself?’ ”

Next: Episode Three, Stress. What’s Love Got to Do With It?  Don’t despair. There is a happy ending.

 

 

 

 

On a High, Part Two of Love, Money, and Stress

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Dateline: Main Location, Austin, Texas. Suzi and Sammie Davis, Jr. at the ready.
To accurately keep up with these wild hearts in Vegas, read Episode One first.

Set-up. Fusion…When one person is so merged with another person that he or she cannot make decisions or moves if these moves or decisions might their partner anxious. Usually, along with experiencing great anxiety when the other is displeased, we are afraid that if we continue in our path the relationship will change, or fall apart completely.

Remember, no judgment as we return to Mr. and Mrs.Travis in Las Vegas. When we slip into being judgmental, we see the other’s anxious behavior as unusual and foreign. This keeps us from exploring our own inability to tolerate anxiety or our inability to approach an anxious other person without sliding into a one-up or over-helping stance. Which accelerates anxiety in the other which boost anxiety in you and here we go.

…Mr. Travis, while at a convention in Las Vegas made and won two sports bets. He felt, alive and vibrant, the way he had felt when he first fell in love. Wow. Who wouldn’t like that?

Mr. Travis talked a lot about Vegas and complained less and worried less about his children and his wife. He wanted to return to Las Vegas desperately as the feeling began to fade. A trip not paid for on an expense account was out of the question. Then, in the last month of the football season, a friend turned him on to a bookie.

The first several weeks were fun for the whole family. Mr. Travis was betting five dollars a game and rarely lost much, twenty-five dollars on a bad day. As the game ended on Superbowl Sunday, Mr. Travis asked to speak with Mrs. Travis alone. They went for a drive. Mr. Travis confessed he’d been betting twenty-five and fifty dollars a game and he was down $1700.00. which he had two days to get together. Instant cash was pretty tough for the teacher’s salary, five person family. By taking the maximun cash from both of their low limit credit cards the bookie was paid.

Mrs. Travis was angry and hurt but kept her emotions to herself because if she expressed displeasure or pointed out lies, Mr. Travis shouted and asked what kind of a person was she? If she loved him, she should realize that he was already hurting and what he needed was comfort, not criticism.

Besides, Mr. Travis said losing the money was actually a good thing because he’d learned his lesson and was through gambling gambling forever. Mrs. Travis was relieved hear the news.

When statements came in for December on both credit cards, Mrs. Travis noticed several cash payouts during the last month. The couple, as far as she knew, had never taken a cash payout with a credit card since the interest rate is enormous. Hurt and angry again, Mrs. Travis decided to pretend she hadn’t noticed the cash withdrawals. After all, Mr. Travis’s gambling was in the past and he was making an effort in the family.

Keep the peace. That’s a wife and mother’s job. No matter what. And, afterall, things were going so well. It takes two…

Next: Episode Three, Swan Dive Off the Ledge.

 

Love and Stress in Las Vegas, A Soap Opera in Four Parts

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Dateline:  Las Vegas Hilton Branch Office and Showgirl Headquarters, no one under six foot need apply. Which is the only thing holding me back from making money on my looks and high kick skills and why I am sequestered in the furthest booth in the Grand Buffet Hall. Yep, that’s me. The be-speckled blond chick in the over-stuffed cargo shorts behind the computer and the foot-high pile of shrimp shells.

Have you ever gotten high? …because someone gave you a compliment?

Have you ever given up a dream? … because someone else thought it was a dumb idea?

Have you ever said you enjoyed an activity? …to keep someone interested?

Have you ever been unable to stop a self-destructive habit? …and paid a terrible price?

Have you ever been unable to stand up to a person you cared about caught in an addiction? …and ended up in trouble yourself?

The following story is true and related with permission of the patient, Mrs. Travis. Names and details have been changed to protect her identity.

Fusion vs. Self: When decisions are made, not out of one’s best thinking, but to save a relationship or to keep a partner happy. Fusion is natural and is part of all close relationships. The problem comes in when a person with a shaky SELF matches up with a person and goes along out of fear to stand alone. The problem comes in when a person with an equally shaky SELF uses fear and threatening behavior to convince the other not to disagree with decisions when the decisions would be obviously absurd to someone outside the relationship.

Mrs. Travis called for an appointment in January with some questions regarding dealing with her three young children when she packed them up and left their father.She explained that she still loved her husband. Their marriage had been great until two years ago when it fell apart in a hurry.

The Inciting (exciting) Incident. All Self Doubts and Anxieties Are Gone

Stress Management Goes Wrong

Two years ago, the couple had gone to a conference in Las Vegas. Mr. Travis, whose only experience with gambling had been years ago when he was stationed in Malasia with the Navy. When he thought about those free and easy days being young and single and successful in dice games, he had a rush of good feelings.

An avid fan of professional football, Mr. Travis was pleased that he could bet on teams combining his remembered good times with sports. As he was knew alot about the National Football League, he thought he knew more than your average bettors.

He made two bets and won them both. He felt the problems of parenthood, marriage and career slip away. Mr. Travis felt better than he had in a very long time.

Episode Two: All I Want Is To Feel the Way I Felt When I Was First in Love

Losing It… Losing One’s Self

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 The woman who lost 100 pounds on burgers is an example of someone who could listen to her THINKING self amidst the crowds telling her what she should do. 

Well, doc, you say, when do we get to HOW to engage the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM?

Now.  A start.  Your THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM is in gear when YOUR BEST THINKING is your point of reference for decisions.  Remember, only your TGS considers options in a thoughtful way, your EMOTIONAL GUIDANCE SYSTEM , has only one goal (no matter what rubberly rationalization you’re using) and that one thing is —-

    do whatever you have to do to rid yourself of anxiety.   

An easy place to start the task of recognizing when we are slipping from our thinking point of reference to an emotionally driven position, is to talk about FUSION.  FUSION …is when your actions and “feelings” are determined, not by your own thinking point of reference, but determined by “catching” the anxiety of another. 

Examples:

A woman on a plane is reading a novel.  The man next to her asks what she’s reading. She shows him the title and says she really likes the author.  The man sneers and replies staring out the window, “Yeah, I guess if you can’t read more complex works-you have to stay with books like that.”  (Do you feel it?)

 While in graduate school I went on a cruise with a friend who was doing a seminar for “Adult Children of Alcoholics” (a fad diagnosis that has, gladly, passed). I was able to pay minimal cost as an additional person in the seminar leader’s cabin. The first day I attended an introductory group session in which emotional overdrive and ”group-think” were in high gear.   Group-think happens in low functioning gatherings in which each participant is encouraged to become “one” with the group by confessing similar experiences. Refusal to become “one” with the group is labelled as insanity or denial. When it was my time to “join” I thought back really hard to uncover how my life had been affected by addiction.  Then I had it.   I actually said that I was affected by addiction when my mother was ill and taking cortisone to stay alive. (Which didn’t work all that long. She died at barely 42.) 

The point?  Before I felt the suck of the group anxiety, I’d NEVER thought of my mother’s desperate efforts to deal with her fatal illness as CAUSING ME to GO THROUGH the wretched helplessness and personal trauma–of an adult survivor from a drug-distorted home.  Never.  But for those shining few minutes… I’d given up mom… and REALITY… to be part of the group.

The really scary part was that I didn’t realize until after the meeting what had transpired.  How I’d lost (given up) my point of reference.  What if I hadn’t realized what happened?  What if the warm affirmation of the group had propelled me into a life living out a new label?

Just saying.  Later.  More fusion.

LIFE: 10 Minutes at a Time

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  Those of us following Nancy Grace and the Tot Mom who probably (used loosely) murdered her then two-year-old daughter have heard the jailhouse tapes and endless interviews with anyone who happens through the Tot Mom’s Florida neighborhood.  Most remarkable has been the absolute ease with which Tot Mom tells one lie after another trying to explain herself.  Lies that are easily proved wrong. 

The following is paraphrased.  I’ve admitted I watch the show.  But I deny memorizing it.

One of the interviewers asked an interviewee, “Why does she keep right on with the same self-destructive  behavior after she can see that it isn’t working?”

The interviewee responded, “Because Casey Anthony only thinks ten minutes at a time.  Just let me get myself out of this mess  and I’ll worry about the rest later.” 

I’ve been thinking about a simple way to introduce the THINKING GUIDANCE SYSTEM.  The quickest description is that the TGS is that part of our brain able to consider WHAT HAPPENS AFTER 10 MINUTES after we choose an action.  I know, I don’t like it either, but just doing whatever we have to do to get rid of immediate anxiety, doesn’t work out so well. 

10 Minute Fixes:  TOO MUCH of something that’s okay in moderation–shopping, saving money, alcohol, internet surfing,  food, dog scratching, sex, computer games [Solitaire should come with a warning: Kiss your life good-bye, this game is familystyle crack.], studying, partying, gardening, journaling, talking to strangers, talking, isolation, etc.

No guilt remember.  Guilt is one of those 10 minute fixes.